The Rural Life There’s much to hoot about when it comes to owls

Have you ever wondered where the common expression “wise old owl” comes from?

Certainly not from the character Owl in A.A. Milne’s 1926 classic, “Winnie-the-Pooh.”

That owl is a fusty know-it-all who uses big words (usually incorrectly) to show o . A terrible speller, he writes his own name “Wol” and thinks “HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH” is “Happy Birthday.”

Perhaps because of this very cluelessness, Owl has delighted me since childhood. To this day I’ve been known to wish someone a “HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH.”

But Milne’s owl seems to be the exception, as the notion of owls as wise creatures prevails in literature and mythology. Ancient Greeks thought owls’ ability to see well at night came from mystical insight, so they linked the bird with their goddess of wisdom, Athena.

In Native American culture, owls symbolize wisdom and foresight. Brainy owls appear in American pop culture, too, not the least of which is Harry Potter’s astute snowy owl, Hedwig.

As impressive as they are in myth and culture, however, owls are even more amazing in real life. Noel Stack, the managing editor of your Mountain Democrat, is a self-described owl fan.

“The one spectacular display I saw,” she recently told me, “was an owl swooping down and nabbing a bat right out of the air while I was walking my dog one night.”

Owls manage a feat like this — snatching a nimble, erratically flying creature in dim light — using superb senses. One of them involves extralarge, super-specialized eyes. (How large, exactly? Up to 5% of the owl’s total body weight. For comparison, according to the American Bird Conservancy, “your eyeballs are about 0.0003% of your total weight.”)

And there’s more. Everyone knows owls can swivel their heads spookily far in either direction — 135 degrees each way, to be exact. But did you know why? It’s to compensate for the fact that they can’t move their eyes the way most creatures can.

Owls’ eyes are tube-shaped instead of eyeball-shaped. They extend far back into the owls’ heads to accommodate an extra-large retina with many rods for night vision.

As if all this weren’t enough to make owls super predators, they are near-silent flyers as well. Their prey never hear them coming.

These fixed-in-place and forwardlooking eyes give owls almost supernatural binocular vision. This includes focus and depth perception keen enough to detect movement at great distances, even in near-dark conditions.

Indeed, according to Audubon.org, “The northern hawk owl can detect — primarily by sight — a vole up to half a mile away.”

Impressed? Well, owls’ hearing is equally gob-smacking. It can detect potential prey that’s hidden far below under ground cover, dirt or snow. Many owls’ ears are set at di erent heights on the head; this helps them tell, based on tiny di erences in sound waves, exactly where a sound is coming from. (Note that you can’t actually see owls’ ears; what look like ears or horns are actually tufts of feathers whose exact purpose still stumps biologists.)

Also contributing to owls’ superhearing is a ring of sti , dense feathers that form a curved wall around the face to catch and reflect sound toward the ears. Think of cupping your hand behind an ear to improve your own hearing.

As if all this weren’t enough to make owls super predators, they are near-silent flyers as well. Their prey never hear them coming.

“The quiet flight of owls is an act of biomechanical stealth that still challenges science,” writes Jennifer Ackerman, author of “What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds.” She notes, “Only recently have biologists and engineers begun to sort out the details and to use what they’ve learned to design quieter things, among them wind turbines, fans, trains and airplanes.”

Seeing is believing, I promise you. View a dramatic, four-minute video of a BBC Earth experiment comparing the flight noise of a pigeon, a peregrine falcon and a barn owl by searching at YouTube with the phrase “how does an owl fly so silently?”

Spotting an owl in real life is challenging, as most species are active mostly at night and well camouflaged in the day. (How well camouflaged? Search Google Images for “owls in

■ See FORSBERG MEYER page A5

Mollette Continued from A4

7. France (1,316,000 acres)

8. Denmark (856,000 acres)

9. Luxembourg (802,000 acres)

10.Ireland (760,000 acres)

Source: Forbes.com

China ranks No. 18 and owns roughly 384,000 acres of U.S. agricultural land, according to a 2021 report from the USDA. Of that, 195,000 acres, worth almost $2 billion when purchased, are owned by 85 Chinese investors, which could be individuals, companies or the government. The other 189,000 acres were worth $235 million when purchased and are owned by 62 U.S. corporations with Chinese shareholders. Chinese agricultural land ownership only increased about 550 acres from 2015 to 2019. Their ownership jumped 30% from 2019 (Forges.com)

Chinese food manufacturer Fufeng Group bought 300 acres of land near Grand Forks, N.D., to set up a milling plant. The project is located about 20 minutes from the Grand Forks Air Force Base, raising national security concerns. (CNBC.COM)

Then known as Shuanghui Group, WH Group purchased Smithfield Foods in 2013 for $4.72 billion. It was the largest Chinese acquisition of an American company at that time.

Bourbon lovers might be surprised to learn that a large number of Kentucky favorites are owned by Japanese companies. Way back in 2014 Japan-based Suntory bought Jim Beam at a 25% premium over market value for $16 billion. That means the world’s best-selling bourbon, Jim Beam, is actually owned by a Japanese company. Suntory also owns Maker’s

Mark, Knob Creek and Basil Hayden. (NBCnews.com)

If you have American land or business to sell, no worries, someone from China or another foreign country just might be interested.

Dr. Glenn Mollette is a national columnist and the author of 13 books.

Letters Continued from A4 of God within themselves. The speaker asserted that too many Christians loved shallowly because they had not concluded that God loved them completely. We cannot give away something we do not have.

If we doubt God’s love for us, the love we share with others is shallow and incomplete.

The students at Asbury accepted the challenge to pursue the fullness of God’s love. They did not leave the meeting hall that night, but remained there in worship and prayer, earnestly seeking God’s love so that they could love others as He loved them.

Scripture says we shall seek Him and find Him when we seek Him with all of our hearts. The Asbury students displayed purity of intention by remaining in the meeting auditorium until they received God’s answer. His answer was the beginning of a spiritual revival that continues today.

Do you choose to seek God’s love so that you can live a joyful life overflowing with love for others? Just askin’.

CECIL RINGGENBERG Placerville

tree hollows” and prepare to be floored.)

According to iNaturalist.org, El Dorado County boasts at least 11 species of owls. Probably the most common is the great horned owl (and remember, those are ear tufts, not horns). Its “hoot-hoo...hooo, hooo,” sounding like a muffled foghorn from a distance, is the call we most associate with owls.

Barn owls are another common species in our county. Their name indicates one of their most popular hang-outs. These owls are probably the easiest species to identify because of their large, white, heart-shaped face. Their hearing is the best of any animal tested — approximately 10 times as sensitive as our own. And, according to a 2017 study, that hearing isn’t subject to age-related deterioration. (Lucky bird.)

Burrowing owls are also relatively common in our area. These small, long-legged birds have fierce expressions and, unlike other owls, are photographed most often standing on the ground. That’s hardly surprising, as they use abandoned rodent burrows for roosting and nesting cover.

I could go on but I’m already past my word limit. Learn more about these fascinating birds online, including how to spot them in the wild. Better still, find like-minded enthusiasts at sierrafoothillsaudubon.org.

It would be a wise move.

Jennifer Forsberg Meyer is a columnist with the Mountain Democrat and the author of “Friends With Four Legs.” Leave a comment for her online, or for a reply, reach her at jfmfeedback@gmail. com.

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