Owls and owls have inhabited the imagination of men since the dawn of time. They are at the origin of all kinds of myths and superstitions and have greatly inspired poets. But they also make excellent pets.
owls and owls are not particularly intelligent: it is a myth. And myths about these nocturnal raptors are legion. In ancient Greece, the owl owl was the sacred animal of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, inventor of weaving and spinning. Among the Romans, it was also the fetish bird of Minerva, Athena's counterpart. Perhaps that is why it is considered a creature of great wisdom.
There are many other legends surrounding these nocturnal raptors: in ancient Rome and the Middle East, they announce death; in Peru, they are reputed to have medicinal properties when made into a decoction; in Malawi, they are messengers of witches; in Scotland, they bring bad luck when seen by day; in Siberia, they are protective spirits. I have also read that in Transylvania farmers used to scare away these raptors by walking naked in their fields. In what way is a Transylvanian peasant more frightening naked than clothed? And, by the way, why do they want to scare away these birds? Why were they undesirable? And why was a naked peasant naked for the owl?
Superstitions of this kind abound, and they often contradict each other, but they do not give us an idea of what it is like to live in the company of an owl in the flesh - to smell its smell, to bury its fingers in the thick plumage of its breast to caress its sternum, to look into the black wells of its pupils, to feel the warmth of its beak.
Passengers, sparrows, blackbirds, finches, eagles, ducks, swans, terns, jackdaws... None of these birds has inspired mythology and literature as much as owls and owls. We must believe that the reputation of these birds of prey and the fears, fascination and superstitions they arouse in us are due to a series of singular features: their asymmetrical ears, which allow them to locate the origin of a sound with great precision, their numerous cervical vertebrae (they have fourteen when we only have seven), thanks to which they can rotate their head at 270°, their immense and motionless eyes, which give them extraordinary visual acuity and night vision, their zygodactyl legs (two fingers pointing forward and two backward, as in parrots), which give them great dexterity.
A few years ago, a falconer gave me a female Great Horned Owl that was no longer of breeding age. One day, she grabbed my fingers so tightly, even though they were protected by a falconry glove, that I had tears in my eyes. I had to wait long and painful minutes before she let go of her grip on her own. If I tried to dislodge her, she would panic and squeeze even harder; her fear equaled my pain. When I finally managed to pull my hand out of the glove - which the bird was still clinging to - my fingers were exsanguinated and the first bruises began to appear.
one of the male Grand Dukes of Europe living next to me has one finger missing, and I wonder if someone hasn't cut it off rather than waiting for the bird to let go. Yet with me he is gentle and fearful.
Poetry makes the reality of owls and owls better than myths and superstitions, even if my first experience was not very conclusive. As a child, I had the opportunity to read the poem The Owl and the Minouchette, by Edward Lear (1812-1888): "The Minouchette and the Owl took to the sea/ on a pretty green boat/ they carried honey with a lot of money wrapped in a thousand franc bill" 1. I was disappointed that the poem spoke so little about the owl. No one could tell me much about this bird, except that it regurgitated pellets to purge its digestive system of the bones, fur and feathers of its prey, whereas cats were commonplace and did nothing so fascinating.
"What the owl sees", a poem by Elizabeth Sears Bates Gerberding apparently published in 1889 in the Californian literary magazine Overland Monthly, marks a certain progress in the knowledge of this nocturnal raptor and its characteristics. Here are the first verses: "Its velvet wings spread out in the night; / By the magic of its prodigious sight / It embraces its vast domain".
Even if I find this description very insufficient, owls and owls do indeed possess extraordinary distance vision. Their near vision, on the other hand, leaves much to be desired. For example, when I present a day-old chick out of the freezer to one of my Grand Dukes of Europe - with its 55 to 76 centimetres in length - I can't help but notice that the chick is a little too big for me.