SNN (ScrollingNetworkNews) ✿ ✿ Our Mel and Sydney returned to their nesting box with plenty of bonding occurring..but after 2.5 months of Sydney in the box from Dec 2013 to mid Feb 2014, the lack of prey gifts from Mel ( perhaps due to the severe and historic drought underway in California)and they have forgone the nesting process this year as many other raptors ✿ Compared to other owls of similar size, the Barn Owl has a much higher metabolic rate, requiring relatively more food. Pound for pound, Barn Owls consume more rodents – often regarded as pests by humans – than possibly any other creature. ✿ We remind viewers that sometimes owlets may not survive - the parents will dispose of things in "The Owl Way" -viewer discretion is advised, this is nature and the "Owl way". ✿ ~ ✿ “Animals, like us, are living souls. They are not things. They are not objects. Neither are they human. Yet they mourn. They love. They dance. They suffer. They know the peaks and chasms of being.” ― Gary Kowalski, The Souls of Animals ✿ Each species is a masterpiece, a creation assembled with extreme care and genius." ~ E.O. Wilson

Thursday, August 4, 2011

South Africa Tyto alba (affinis)

Gambia


South Africa

Tyto alba (affinis) from Africa, from S edge of Sahara, including Zanzibar and Pemba, Madagascar and Comoro Islands. But the nominate race overlaps with “affinis” from S Egypt to N Sudan.
This race is greyer above than “alba”, with more and coarser spotting below.
UPDATE: Military Helicopter Exercises at the Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton were in full force tonight and quite loud, that may have kept our Mel & Sydney in hiding for the night. 
Trivia Q: The North America barn owl is known by what Tyto “race”or subspecies name?