VIDEO: Owl Swimming for Its Life in Lake Powell

They say circumstances are our best teachers.

That seems to be true for the animals world, as well.

One must do whatever it takes to survive!

This footage captured an owl swimming for its life, headed for safety through Lake Powell.

According to Wikipedia, owls possess large, forward-facing eyes and ear-holes, a hawk-like beak, a flat face, and usually a conspicuous circle of feathers, a facial disc, around each eye. The feathers making up this disc can be adjusted to sharply focus sounds from varying distances onto the owls’ asymmetrically placed ear cavities.

Most birds of prey have eyes on the sides of their heads, but the stereoscopic nature of the owl’s forward-facing eyes permits the greater sense of depth perception necessary for low-light hunting. Although owls have binocular vision, their large eyes are fixed in their socket, so they must turn their entire heads to change views.

As owls are farsighted, they are unable to clearly see anything within a few centimeters of their eyes. Caught prey can be felt by owls with the use of filoplumes—hairlike feathers on the beak and feet that act as “feelers”. Their far vision, particularly in low light, is exceptionally good.

Owls can rotate their heads and necks as much as 270°. Owls have 14 neck vertebrae compared to seven in humans, which makes their necks more flexible.

They also have adaptations to their circulatory systems, permitting rotation without cutting off blood to the brain: the foramina in their vertebrae through which the vertebral arteries pass are about 10 times the diameter of the artery, instead of about the same size as the artery as in humans.

The vertebral arteries enter the cervical vertebrae higher than in other birds, giving the vessels some slack, and the carotid arteries unite in a very large anastomosis or junction, the largest of any bird’s, preventing blood supply from being cut off while they rotate their necks.

Most owls are nocturnal, actively hunting their prey in darkness. Several types of owls, however, are crepuscular—active during the twilight hours of dawn and dusk; one example is the pygmy owl. A few owls are active during the day, also; examples are the burrowing owl and the short-eared owl.

Much of the owls’ hunting strategy depends on stealth and surprise. Owls have at least two adaptations that aid them in achieving stealth. First, the dull coloration of their feathers can render them almost invisible under certain conditions.

Secondly, serrated edges on the leading edge of owls’ remiges muffle an owl’s wing beats, allowing an owl’s flight to be practically silent. Some fish-eating owls, for which silence has no evolutionary advantage, lack this adaptation.

An owl’s sharp beak and powerful talons allow it to kill its prey before swallowing it whole (if it is not too big). Scientists studying the diets of owls are helped by their habit of regurgitating the indigestible parts of their prey (such as bones, scales, and fur) in the form of pellets.

These “owl pellets” are plentiful and easy to interpret, and are often sold by companies to schools for dissection by students as a lesson in biology and ecology.