1.png)
Due to today's date, February 14 ~, we present a different, nature look at Valentine's Day.
A quote taken from "Opowieści" by Simona Kossak, which were published in 2017 by the publishing house Neighbors Foundation.
Photo courtesy of Krystian Matysek.
"In February, you can hear owls in love here and there. This most characteristic and pleasant voice is the love call. The second voice of owls is a delicate, pretty hoot (which is very difficult to imitate), which people like to listen to. There is also a loud scream of an owl, which this bird owes its infamous ~ it is said to herald death. It is a loud, piercing sound. For someone unfamiliar with the forest, it can indeed make your hair stand on end. mid-January, until the eggs are laid. Tawny owls fly together. They form pairs, hoot and talk. Then comes an amazing moment. One of those that amaze me in nature.
Every day, every tawny owl (even when it has a partner) hunts for its own clawed paw. He flies around the forest and looks for mice with his excellent eyesight. He also listens for rustling, because he has a special scar: feathers around the ear openings that he can pick up and pick up sounds. Therefore, in deep darkness, the tawny owl can locate the mouse, land precisely and eat it. A fed bird spends the night in a hollow. In winter, one of these hollows becomes a nest. On her unlined bottom, the female lays round, snow-white eggs, which do not need to have protective colors, because they will not be seen by any enemy. At this time ~ as always ~ the male flies out to hunt and lures the female. Nothing here. The female does not fly out of the hollow, because she has laid the first egg. Usually on those days when the eggs of the tawny owl appear, there is a huge frost in the forest. Thus, left alone ~ would freeze. Therefore, the female from the moment of laying the first egg does not leave the hollow. Every two ~ every three days, another egg appears. After all, without the hunt at that time, she would starve to death. What happens in this situation? The male still lures his wife, urges her to hunt. She doesn't show up so he goes hunting alone because he's hungry. Of course, he manages to catch a mouse. He grabs her in his claws and flies into a branch. The sight of a tawny owl eating is very attractive. First, the bird touches with its beak, examines, checks whether it is food, and not, for example, a piece of bark. He grabs the mouse by the head with his beak, tosses and chaps ~ the mouse is in the stomach. Wait a minute... On that first night when the female doesn't fly out of the nest, things are a little different. The male sits on a branch, transfers the mouse from its claws to its beak, and then freezes. You can see deep thought and internal struggle in his eyes ~ to swallow or not to swallow, to swallow or not to swallow? Literally after a few seconds, maybe a minute of thinking, the tawny owl with a mouse in its beak silently breaks off the branch and disappears into the hole of the hollow. He releases the mouse and flies away. The mouse falls to the bottom of the nest and the female eats it.
Somebody tell me it's instinct. How was this tawny owl informed that his beloved was trapped in the nest: he had to guard the eggs and would starve to death if he didn't feed her? After all, he flies around the forest and brings her two or three mice. He only eats the fourth or fifth by himself. Saying it's instinct is an exaggeration. Pay attention to the moment when the male thought so deeply. He listened to an inner voice whispering to him, "She wants to eat." "
