SNN (ScrollingNetworkNews)✿ ✿ 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

Sibling Cooperation, Not Rivalry, in the Nest

We thought they cared about each other and it turns out, they actually do! 

A barn owlet squawks less when it knows its sibling is hungrier. Once the hungry sibling has been fed, an owlet will increase its own squawking. How sweet is that? (Okay, we know it is part of a survival strategy, but still, much more sibling bonding and cooperation than we ever would have thought to see in raptors.)

Click on the picture to enlarge print