Bogart is at Raptor Rehab.
Born blind, he was booted from the nest, but his vision eventually developed, but not before imprinting with people. He is now a very talkative ambassador for the rehab’s education program.
Bogart is at Raptor Rehab.
Born blind, he was booted from the nest, but his vision eventually developed, but not before imprinting with people. He is now a very talkative ambassador for the rehab’s education program.
That did sound unusual so I looked it up.
Altricial vs Precocial
Owls are altricial, so they are blind at birth and vision develops around a week. So this guy was probably lagging behind his nest mates and got shoved out by the others or the parents for being the runt.
Cool, I guess it saves time on egg development because they won’t need vision much in the nest stage.
The linked page is pretty short but didn’t allow me to copy/paste. There is some neat info on there. Owls are an oddball in they are some of the few birds that are born altricial, but have feathers.
I always wonder what they look like without all the feathers, if their body shape is lean like a hawk.
Oh, do I have a treat for you then!
Heaven’s Design Team - Owl
Also, if you go back a bit on my posts here, I have one of bare owl legs and an owl skeleton with some fun facts.