High speed footage of an owl on short final

[crustychief]

It looks like it deploys slats even! My kids loved this.
Amazing nature - The Eagle Owl

[Hard-Deck]

Very cool...I love owls

[redstrosekNic]

That is awesome. I think there is something cool about animals that can function so well in the night.

[Dottore]

Thanks for posting.

[peppy]

We have them around the house and they can scare the crap out of you.

I was on the deck one night partaking in an adult beverage and one came across the side yard. I never heard a sound just saw an image of the bird and I swear it had a 5 foot wingspan. After swooping down to the ground the owl ascended into the fairly dense woods behind the house.

I am amazed at how those birds can fly through dense woods without making a sound.

[techweenie]

Fantastic stuff.

Here's an interesting owl video. You might want to turn down the sound, tho.

Cat and owl playing - Fum & Gebra - Perfect friendship! - YouTube

[Seahawk]

Birds of prey are the most effective fliers on earth.

I have had the pleasure of watching Bald Eagles and Ospreys go at it...we have nests all around the farm.

Their aerial jousts combine every aerodynamic profile I know.

I envy them.

Thanks for posting.

[mattdavis11]

They are amazing. A group of us were enjoying a few adult beverages one evening in the neighbor's drive, an owl whizzed by and snatched a squirrel out of the street. Just guessing, the wing span was about 5 feet.

It was a thing of beauty. Thanks for sharing.

[9dreizig]

Love the way the talons open and close, they can do some damage

[304065]

They have microfeathers to cut the noise. No kidding.

[RWebb]

Anderson, G. W. 1973. An Experimental Investigation of a High Lift Device on the Owl Wing. Air Force Institute of Technology Air University.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by 304065

They have microfeathers to cut the noise. No kidding.

You're not

My wife and I often walk at night in the summer, staying on the gravel road or walking the lines.

Once in a while, not often, we'll get an owl fly-by...without the moon, they are invisible, silent.

Birds of prey are wondrous.

[motion]

Incredible and so complex.... no wonder humans can never hope to duplicate this.

[RWebb]

actually humans are trying - for owls in particular, they are pretty stealthy, so once you get radar signatures down, you want to go after IR (engine exhaust); next up is the wings and anything that rotates

same type of work has happened with other aircraft and submarines - not to mention trying to hide in the noise from say shrimp etc., etc.

[pwd72s]

Skill a "top gun" pilot can never attain!

[HardDrive]

Cool post!

[DARISC]

Originally Posted by 304065

They have microfeathers to cut the noise. No kidding.

That is beautiful.

At the open air bird show at the Wild Animal Park in San Diego, the trainer talks about the owl's silent flight, then releases one from where she stands. The owl flies to a perch at the very top of the grandstand, passing just a few feet above the heads of the audience. I didn't hear even a whisper.

Truly awesome birds of prey. In the clip, the fiercely intense focus of those incredible eyes as the owl approaches is fearsome. Imagine being the prey and looking into them.

[RWebb]

Owls also have asymmetrically placed ears - one is higher than the other. This increases the pahse differences for sounds, and the brain can use the phase difference to better locate the source of the sound (angular direction shows higher resolution).

- that's a simplified version

[jyl]

Yeah, birds of prey are incredible fliers, make any airplane and human pilot look like a clumsy newbie. But do owls have missiles? Well, do they? Show me the clip of an owl taking out six squirrels simultaneously at long range, and I'll say . . . Tomcat.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

You're not

My wife and I often walk at night in the summer, staying on the gravel road or walking the lines.

Once in a while, not often, we'll get an owl fly-by...without the moon, they are invisible, silent.

Birds of prey are wondrous.

Not to the prey!