2/25 Quechee Owl Festival
A few Saturdays ago I attended the Vermont Institute of Natural Science's Owl festival. I arrived around 10:30am, and the weather stayed pretty consistently cool and cloudy all day. The bird enclosures were placed back in a wooded area, away from the road, near a clearing. All of the birds I observed were captive, however they were housed outside and thus still needed to utilize their adaptations to stay warm in the winter. This event gave me a great opportunity for some up-close viewing of temperature regulating behavior as well as physiology of owls specifically.
The Great Grey Owl was one of the species I spent some time watching. The individual appeared "puffed up" for a majority of the time I was observing it. This likely is creating a pocket of trapped, warm air under the fluffed up feathers that acts as an insulating layer from the outside cold. The individual did not spend very much time actually moving around the enclosure, as this is energy intensive, and the bird no longer has a need to hunt for its dinner.
The Snowy Owl was another species I decided to focus on. Being at a center for education, I had access to taxidermied owl parts, and was able to feel the soft feathers on their feet, as well as feel and observe under a microscope the difference between the down feathers of their wings compared to other feather types. The loose structure of these feathers traps air and insulates the bird from heat loss in the colder months. While observing the live Snowy Owl, I recorded that it spent a lot of time near or behind structures in its enclosure, seemingly blocking the wind from hitting it.
Given that these birds are captive and are provided with food, their behavior is not indicative of wild birds, who would need to budget their energy between hunting for prey and keeping warm. These birds have the luxury of not worrying about where their food is coming from, and thus can devote most of their time to homeostatic behaviors to regulate body temperature.
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