From Calvin Schnure
Compare the photo on the left vs right.
The two photos are of the same bird, a Northern hawk-owl, taken within an hour of each other. What’s going on? The hawk-owl owl normally looks a bit plump, with an oval-shaped body. But if a predator is nearby (I saw a Rough-winged hawk soaring earlier in the afternoon) they sit up straight and tall and try to look thin.
Presumably this makes them less obvious (does it think it looks like a stick?) or less appetizing to the predator.
Northern hawk-owl
Sax-Zim Bog
March 3, 2025
When a cute owl flies by.
Presumably this makes them less obvious (does it think it looks like a stick?) or less appetizing to the predator.
I would think this makes them look fitter, like also a predator ( and not a lazy fat slob just waiting to get eaten )
This would only make sense, if there’s a kind of fellow predator codex. Do predators usually attack each other?
They tend to do the cat poof thing to swell up if they want to look scarier.
But they really seem apprehensive to fight due to risk of injury. Predators get driven off by small birds all the time because even though they would win in a fight, they don’t want to risk anything when they could just move along. When moving is the dangerous choice though, trying to become invisible is the better choice.
Here’s a video of a Screech going into a concealing posture. You can see it adjust to the width of its perch and turning to hide its lighter patches and squinting to hide the eyes. If you let it play for a bit, the next scene goes into that swelled up, aggro posture.
We also had this post recently showing the biggest owl, the Great Grey go into a similar pose and doing a decent job blending in, and it also has some potoo doing the same. Ideally they get into this position before they’re seen, so while we see them due to being the focal point of the camera, if this was in an area with many trees, they’d be tough to spot.
I can’t find them now, but Bald Eagles and GHO go at each other constantly. So do Harriers and Short Eared Owls. They share the same hunting areas and same food sources, so they are direct competition. The GHO even will take the Eagles nest sites. The Harriers and Shorties go at each other pretty openly, but the GHO and Eagles are exciting to watch as they will ambush each other since they’re active at opposite times of day.
The whole video was nice. I like when they squint their eyes, they almost look like snoop dogg making a pose.
the GHO and Eagles are exciting to watch as they will ambush each other since they’re active at opposite times of day.
You made me remember a documentary i saw a long long time ago. It was mainly about birds sharing hunting areas and how they take on each other, also ambushing.
they almost look like snoop dogg making a pose.
Owls…the true OGs… 😆
Here’s a nice video of some ariel battle going on with a Shorty and a Harrier.
It has epic style background music, so instant volume alert. 😳
Cool - the Shorty had the upper hand, or? At least in the last frame it looks like the Harrier is a little more distressed than Shorty.
From doing some more reading, the harriers are a little larger, but the shorty is more maneuverable. I didn’t come across anything where they actually try to hurt each other, it’s mainly to drive the other off or for the harrier to take the owl’s dinner. The shorties seem to have more success hunting, and the harriers take advantage of that.
Otherwise, they just have too much in common with each other and it makes them fight for resources. At least the shorties are migratory and can leave.
I can’t see if the outcome of this video was provided in the original video post. It’s on Instagram and someone asked who won, and it shows 2 replies, but I cant see them without an account. The link I gave you was my Vimeo I made to share videos here from sites that require a login, so I just rehosted it.
I also don’t have an Instagram account, I guess we’ll never know.
Good to know that they don’t actually go for kill.
