Posted by North Texas Wildlife Center

Barn Owls in a clock tower near ~~Paris, TX.~~ somewhere. (Tried to find where the tower was, and saw this thing has been reposted so many times I can't tell you where it's actually from.)

Some notable facts from All About Birds

• Up to 46 different races of the Barn Owl have been described worldwide. The North American form is the largest, weighing more than twice as much as the smallest race from the Galapagos Islands.

• Barn Owl females are somewhat showier than males. She has a more reddish and more heavily spotted chest. The spots may indicate the quality of the female. Heavily spotted females get fewer parasitic flies and may be more resistant to parasites and diseases. The spots may also stimulate the male to help more at the nest. In an experiment where some females’ spots were removed, their mates fed their nestlings less often than for females whose spots were left alone.