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

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Syd's daytime Adventures ..

You may have been a witness to Sydney up and off her eggs a lot yesterday, well it was a warm day in Oceanside Ca and  she would get up to air out a bit but at no time did I see her gular fluttering. Standing and opening up her wings a bit is a normal way for her to cool herself.

Gular fluttering:
"A cooling behavior in which birds rapidly flap membranes in the throat to increase evaporation.

Owls are able to reduce their body temperature in hot weather by "panting" through partially opened bills. This is called "gular fluttering" - gular having to do with the throat area.

Warm air is exchanged ambient air which is drawn into the highly vascular throat where the blood vessels are constricted, thus enabling heat dispersion 

Also at high temps, owls may stand erect, droop wings & use gular flutter to self-cool



She is also getting antsy with the upcoming hatch day and may be feeling the movement from inside her egg that is about to hatch