Being a Fish Owl is probably the only upgrade I can think of. I think I’d take rodents over skunks, frogs, snakes, or bugs. The ones that eat birds also eat the nasty stuff to balance it out, so I don’t know if that’s a fair tradeoff, as the other stuff is probably easier to catch, so the slimy stuff to bird ratio probably doesn’t favor the bird part.

Many things get swallowed hole, and without a sense of smell (hence the skunk eating) I’m not sure they have all that much actual tasting to do anyway.

Owls also have special adaptations that allow them to produce a net positive amount of water from how they metabolize food, no soup required. While we get some water from digestion, that water is mainly used to flush things from our system (urine), since birds don’t pee, they get to keep all that water and then some. I had a post about it, but I can’t find it now. Here’s one I found instead:

From Secret Garden Birds and Bees

Here’s a little owl biochemistry for our 30th October Owls Post. Did you know that owls rarely drink? Owls get all the water they need from their prey. But it’s not just from water contained in the body of the prey – there’s some interesting chemistry involved as well. As the owl metabolizes the fats and proteins of the prey animal, the fats and proteins are oxidized, yielding water as a by-product. Water created this way – inside a living organism – is called metabolic water. Animal metabolism produces about 100g of water per 100g of fat and 42g of water per 100g of protein. Some desert dwelling animals rely exclusively on metabolic water as do migratory birds on extended non-stop flights. It doesn’t work for humans. We only get between 8% and 10% of the water we need though metabolic water production. We have to drink! Owls - along with many other animals - are simply much more efficient at utilizing water than humans.

But that doesn’t mean owls never drink. In very hot weather, owls don’t sweat – they pant. Moving air through their respiratory tract reduces their body temperature through evaporative cooling. It works well for thermoregulation but increases the owl’s need for water. So, when the temperature climbs into the 80s and 90s you might see an owl take dip in a pond or stream (or bird bath) and scoop up a few sips of water. And sometimes they take a drink just because they want to. This little 10 second video clip shows our own barn owl, Phantom, taking a sip from her water bath on a warm summer day - before she was moved outdoors to her permanent enclosure.

Transmogrification Blues