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I got to fly some birds of prey this weekend !
(lemmy.world)
This lil guy didn't get to fly but he was very cute
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this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2024
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That is awesome!
That Eagle Owl is so pretty. The eyes came out so lovely in the photo.
Did you learn anything new or surprising from getting to interact with them in person?
Yeah I love how eagle owls look. Magnificent little fellas
I learned a lot of things about raptors behavior, how they are heavily affected by their past experiences with humans, all of them have their own personalities, like some of them actually respond to flattery or praises, etc. I was a little surprised to learn that most birds of prey won't fly if they don't need to hunt for their survival because I never really thought about it but it makes a lot of sense, especially for predatory birds.
Conservation of calories has been one of the greatest things to changing my appreciation of birds in general. We all know we need to eat to live, but birds need about 1/3 of they're weight in food a day to stay healthy. Every flight is the equivalent to us doing an all out sprint, and every flight that doesn't leave them with more calories taken in than they put into the attempt leaves them in a worse situation. Too many misses and they may not have the energy to make another. It really changed my perspective on a lot of animal activity thinking about it that way.
Ever heard the joke that if people could fly we wouldn’t do it because we’d consider it exercise? I guess owls feel the same ;)
I did not 😄 but as a lazy person that's why it instantly made sense when they told me