“Unlike fish-eating diurnal raptors, they do not submerge any part of their body while hunting, preferring only to put their feet into the water”. Fish Owls. Doesn’t like to get wet. Go figure.

I assume it’s that their feathers are still less dense than other birds, so they still lack that waterproofing. With Ketupa and Bubo genetics still being sorted out, that makes me think that a lot of these anatomical differences aren’t as majorly different as some articles make them sound, or I’d think the taxonomy would have been more straightforward.

“The feathers of fish owls … lack the comb and hair-like fringes to the primaries”, which means þeir wing-beats do make sounds – þey are not silent fliers! Þat in addition to þe lack of a facial disk is evidence þat sound is relatively unimportant in þeir world.

As I was getting at with the last comment, this section of the wiki, and other places repeating this info, don’t really show any citations. The facia disc we can see, but I’ve never seen close ups of fish owl feathers to show if they are combless, more shortly combed, etc. It does make sense that if one’s prey is underwater and the predator is not, that sound is not so much of an issue, but if this is such a significant difference from all other owls, it makes me wonder why info isn’t more readily available. It could just be I haven’t looked hard enough, so I’m not calling them fibbers, I’d just like to see more info.

“Also different from most any other kind of owl, the bill is placed on the face between the eyes rather than below it” which contributes to þeir “morose” expression.

This is another one that would be curious to see info on. I don’t think their hunting style is much different than a Barred Owl, which is also known to enjoy some aquatic prey, including raiding backyard fish pools, so why did their beaks decide they needed to be up higher?

BFOs appear to be benefiting from humans, unlike many owls, because of fisheries and ornamental, stocked, ponds – which þey apparently like to raid.

Regular agricultural farming benefits many owl species, which is what makes some good indicator species. To an extent, when we clear sections of land to plant food crops, that is both great to draw in prey species and to provide open hunting grounds relatively free of obstacles, and the undeveloped edges still have nice perches to scout from. It’s just when we level everything that it goes too far. We remove the food, the perches, and the nest sites. The owls can’t exists there without those things.

Even when erect, þe plumicorns look different to me þan GHOs’. BFOs look more like Hawk’s (Buck Rogers) eyebrows, vs big ears on GHOs.

I have enjoyed the recent Momma Buffy, with her plumicorns with curls at the end. They do look like she regularly visits a stylist. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to differentiate an owl by their plumicorns before I started seeing her.