From Stone Zoo (Massachusetts)

Owlfredo is very serious about bath time.

Full video

From Raptors Rise Rehab Center

We may not have our ducks in a row, but we have Most of our Barred Owls in a row!

From Misty O'Neil Epstein

I was so excited to see this fledgling Long-eared Owlet in a Joshua tree! That is a first for me, owls are usually in pine and cottonwood trees here.

Not often do you see this owl species here in Las Vegas, and let alone with 6 owlets!

How adorable is he with those pom pom-looking ear tufts!!

From The Raptor Trust

It is with heavy hearts that we share the passing of Pearl, our beloved 18-year-old American Robin.

For many years, Pearl was a favorite among visitors, volunteers, and staff alike. Her striking appearance, gentle presence, and resilient spirit touched countless lives, making her a truly unforgettable ambassador for her species.

Pearl was leucistic, a rare condition that causes a partial or complete loss of pigmentation in an animal's feathers, skin, fur, or scales. Unlike albinism, leucism does not affect the eyes, which retain their normal dark color. While most American Robins are known for their vibrant red-orange breast, Pearl carried only a faint blush of color there, with the rest of her plumage a beautiful, almost pure white.

As Pearl aged, she received a little extra care and comfort. During the cold winter months, she spent her time indoors in our infirmary, safe from the harsh weather. But when warmer days returned, Pearl was always eager to be outside. Visitors delighted in watching her hop about her enclosure, bask in the sunshine, and enjoy her favorite treats of fresh fruit and mealworms.

At 18 years old, Pearl was one of the oldest American Robins ever documented in captivity; perhaps even the oldest. Her longevity was extraordinary, but even more remarkable was the joy and wonder she brought to everyone who met her.

Though her enclosure now sits a little quieter, Pearl's legacy lives on in the memories she created and the countless people she inspired to appreciate and care for wildlife. Thank you, Pearl, for sharing your life with us. You were truly one of a kind, and you will be deeply missed.

Godspeed, sweet Pearl.

From Misty Briggs

These are Barn Owls. They live in a barn.

Arizona, USA

From Richard Jackson

Sooty at Nattai 22 May, whilst walking with a mate

From International Owl Center

Owl bills and talons are essentially keratin sheaths over bone. When we trim their bills and talons (coping), we have to be sure not to trim too close to the bone, just like you don't want to trim dog and cat claws too short or they will bleed.

Some species have light colored bills, like American Barn Owls and Eastern Screech-Owls (like JR, pictured here.) With some backlighting you can see the bone inside the bill, which makes it far easier to know how much we can safely trim.

This isn't the best photo since JR doesn't sit still well, but if you squint just right you can see the bone inside his upper mandible.

From Harold Wilion

I was starting to get bored of the same old Bluebird perch shots on the same perches and didn't feel like finding new ones. So, I've been concentrating on trying to get some flight shots. I actually find it totally impossible to get them in a real fight scenario for a number of reasons.

One, is that they are so fast as soon as they jump off a perch the autofocus just can't keep up. Also, I'm not shooting in bright light which I'm sure would help. So, I decided to just go with the jump shot, the first fraction of a second when they leave a perch knowing I can't really follow them.

Unfortunately, my reaction time just isn't quick enough because they really give no sign they are about to take off. So, I've resorted to using pre-capture on my Nikon. Unfortunately, Nikon only does JPEG for pre-capture, so couple that with low light, the quality just isn't as good as if I were able to use RAW.

Also, with the shutter speeds I have to use in order not to get too much noise, pretty much everything has motion blur, which I actually love in the wings, but pretty much always need some Topaz in the head.

I'll definitely try more in better light, but in the meantime, these are what I got. But it is what it is, and it has kept me occupied.

From Jen Marie

Mom, are you up there???? I've seen owls rotate their necks 270 degrees horizontally, but I've never seen one look up so far that their face appears to be upside down. This recently fledged baby barred owl had its back to me and was looking up to the parent that just flew in and landed above it.

From Paul Woodford

Predator becomes the prey.

I had this lucky chance encounter recently on a trip to Lake Kerkini in Greece, This Dice Snake had just caught this Zander while we were watching it

04/06/2026

Lake Kerkini Greece

Sony a1 ii

300mm

F2.8

ISO 250

1/2500 sec - with Borislava Georgieva at Lake Kerkini National Park.

From Carlos A Carmona

Owl Dad of the Year!

This little Don Juan had two ladies owls yielding a total of ... wait for it ... NINE(9) owlets; 5 on one nest and 4 on the other.

Let me paint a picture for you, once the ladies are in their nest starting to lay eggs, dad is responsible to provide food for them and also for the owlets once they hatch. This keeps going until moms leave the nest and then dad keeps feeding the owlets even a few weeks after they fledge. It takes a rock star to be able to pull this off.

HAPPY FATHER's DAY everyone!

From Harold Wilion

While saving a shot this morning I came across this shot that I posted exactly one year ago. I think it's my favorite "keep me hanging on" Barred owl photo. I remember it was a real cool moment to behold as he fell from a bad hop and caught himself on the way down. I wish I saw a little more of that this year, but I did post some shots earlier.

From Wild Skies Raptor Center

We released this cutie pie last night! She was found down, not feeling so hot near a trail up the Rattlesnake. After a little tlc, mice, and a little time she was ready for release. How could you not love a fledgling Northern Saw-whet Owl?

From Chris Fowler

Saved my favourites till last. I'm just blown away at how dark, and beautiful this barn owl is!

From John Crooks

Young Great Spotted Woodpecker pushing the boundaries.

From Butch Fermil

Young Black-tailed jack rabbits / Hare at play and having fun. Glad to witness their famous acrobatic and energetic spring show. Took about 75 exposures all eye level and here's some.

From Scottish Owl Centre

Our sweet female Mottled Owlet may still be waiting for us to come up with her grown up name, but she's been out and about meeting and greeting and exploring the centre now she's got anklets fitted to keep her safe when out on the glove. It was nice to have a bit of sunshine today to bring out her lovely caramel colour 😎

From Dane D Ward

Female Eastern Screech Owl Megascops asio

Pulling up her pant legs and seeing hairy legs. Actually she was biting around the brood patch. She was sitting nearby on a branch because the babies inside the nesting box got too big. Once babies hatch, the male is always within 20 feet of the nest, on guard. The female stays in with the babies until they get too big and then you can see both parents in trees close by

My yard Dunnellon, Florida

From Stu Atefish Pev

On a riverside walk whilst looking for Dippers I spotted this Tawny Owl. It was near ground level looking intently at a mound of soil with what I expect were Bank Vole holes in.

From The Lonely Camp

A bat in the American desert lands on the ground, folds its wings, walks up to a scorpion, and eats it. The scorpion stings it repeatedly during the fight. The bat shows no reaction.

Researchers at UC Riverside injected pallid bats with the venom of the Arizona bark scorpion, North America's most venomous scorpion species, at concentrations that would kill a mouse, and the bats behaved as if nothing had happened. The pallid bat is immune to the most dangerous scorpion on the continent and it hunts them on foot in the dark by listening for the sound of their legs moving across sand.

Most bats hunt by echolocation, sending out ultrasonic pulses and reading the returns to locate flying insects in midair. The pallid bat does not do this. It belongs to a small group of species called gleaners, bats that hunt from surfaces rather than in flight. The pallid bat uses its enormous ears to listen for prey-generated sounds on the ground: the scratch of a cricket's leg, the rustle of a centipede through leaf litter, the click of a scorpion crossing hardpan. When it locates the sound, it drops out of the air, lands beside the prey, and attacks on foot. It uses echolocation mostly for navigation and obstacle avoidance, not hunting. Its primary sensory tool for finding food is passive hearing so acute that it can pinpoint a scorpion walking across sand from flight altitude in total darkness.

The bat weighs between half an ounce and an ounce. It is roughly four inches long with a wingspan of fifteen inches and a blunt, pig-like snout. It is pale yellow- brown, built for blending into the desert substrates it hunts across. White Sands National Park says a pallid bat can eat half its body weight in arthropods in a single night. Its diet includes crickets, centipedes, cicadas, beetles, small lizards, and mice. The scorpion is the signature prey.

The venom resistance was confirmed in a 2017 study published in PLOS ONE by Bradley Hopp and Khaleel Razak at the University of California, Riverside. The researchers filmed pallid bats hunting live Arizona bark scorpions in controlled lab conditions. The bats were stung multiple times during every encounter. The stings produced no visible change in behavior. The bats did not flinch, did not slow down, and did not hesitate before attacking the next scorpion.

To test the limits, the team injected pallid bats with bark scorpion venom at the dose that kills fifty percent of mice (1.5 milligrams per kilogram of body weight). No effect. They increased the dose to nearly seven times the mouse lethal concentration. Three out of four bats showed no effect at all. The fourth showed a brief, transient response and recovered. A sting that sends a human to the emergency room and kills a mouse outright does not register in the pallid bat's nervous system.

The mechanism is not in the blood. The researchers tested whether pallid bat blood serum neutralized the venom before it reached the nerves. It did not. Venom incubated in bat serum retained full potency when injected into mice. The bats do not detoxify the venom. They ignore it. The resistance operates at the level of the sensory neurons themselves, likely through altered sodium ion channels that the venom's toxins are designed to activate. The scorpion's weapon targets a lock that the bat's nervous system has changed.

We covered a similar adaptation on this page with the grasshopper mouse, the small desert rodent that eats bark scorpions and howls at the moon. The grasshopper mouse uses a comparable mechanism: a mutation in its sodium channels converts the scorpion's pain signal into an analgesic effect, essentially turning the venom into a painkiller. Two unrelated desert animals, a bat and a mouse, evolved the same answer to the same problem independently. The bark scorpion's venom is one of the most effective chemical weapons in North American wildlife, and two of its neighbors found the off switch.

There is one more layer. Pallid bats visit cactus flowers. They are not doing it for the nectar, or at least not primarily. They are hunting insects that congregate around the blooms. But in the process of landing on the flowers and crawling across them to grab prey, they pick up pollen on their fur and carry it to the next flower. Bat Conservation International lists the pallid bat as a natural pollinator of several cactus species. An animal that spends its nights landing on the desert floor to eat scorpions that sting it without effect is also, by accident, keeping the cactus population alive.

The pallid bat does not echolocate to find its food. It listens. It does not catch insects in the air. It lands and walks. It does not avoid the most venomous scorpion in North America. It eats them. It gets stung during every hunt and processes the venom as background noise. And when it flies between scorpion kills, it pollinates the desert. Nothing about this animal works the way a bat is supposed to work, and all of it works.

Source: Hopp et al. (2017), PLOS ONE. Bat Conservation International. White Sands National Park Service. Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan. UC Riverside Department of Psychology.