I'm All Eyes and Ears!

From Center for Wildlife

This Northern Saw-Whet Owl is one of our most recent clinic guests! This little guy (the smallest species of owl in New England) arrived at CFW after he was found hanging out at a daycare center. He was perched on their playground equipment and did not attempt to move when his rescuer approached him. It's never a good sign when wild animals aren't acting with a natural fear of humans, so we're glad his rescuer brought him to get checked out! Along with his lethargic demeanor, our clinic team noted that he was pretty emaciated and mildly dehydrated as well. When they did his initial check, they also found some bruising on his left ear, a bit of a slowed pupillary response in his left eye, and potential blood in his feces. So far, they have been administering fluids and starting him on anti-inflammatory meds. Our team is still assessing his condition and getting him settled in, so we will keep you all updated with more details to come!

It may be hard to tell at first, but the close-up images show his ear canal and a bit of his eye socket. Believe it or not, there was no surgery or invasive procedure done in order to get this cool look at his ears. By simply brushing his feathers over to the side, we are able to (literally) see what's going on in his head! The gray/blue area to the left is the tubular socket holding his eye in place. Owl skulls have long tube-shaped eye sockets which hold their giant eyes, but restricts them from moving their eyeballs around. They can't look left to right or up and down without completely moving their heads too, which is why they have 270 degrees of motion to turn their head almost entirely around! (We have added an image of one of our owl skull bio-parts to show the tubular sockets in the skull.)

On the right of the eye socket is his ear canal. As you can see, owls have huge ear canals (it almost feels like you could see right into his brain through them - not quite though!). Their ears are actually positioned in different places on each side of the head to give them "surround sound" hearing. One of their ears is usually higher up on one side of the head, while the other is lower on the other side of the head, allowing them to hear a multitude of critters around them.

We think these animals are SO COOL and we're so glad to have a community that shares our passion for wildlife!