All of the birds are molting right now.
They molt once a year and they get itchy and crabby.
Well, Beak usually looks a little crabby being a Great Horned Owl and all.
Beak’s eyelids have tiny new feathers coming in as you can see here.
You can also see his nictitating membranes very well in this photo.
“Nature’s windshield wipers”, they keep his eyes free of debris and moist.
We have the vestigial remains of nictitating membranes!
In the corner of your eye is the plica semilunaris.
Oh, cool, had no idea that was a vestigial!
Makes me wonder if a nictitating membranes feels different than a regular eyelid. Like would we notice which we were blinking? 🤔