Explore Cape Coral, Florida’s burrowing owl world, and be awed by their unique traits and behaviors. Beverly Ahlering Saltonstall’s “Cape Coral Burrowing Owls Don’t Hoot” is devoted to these birds’ beautiful eyes. Florida burrowing owls have lemon-yellow to nearly black eyes.
Burrowing owls have binocular vision and can see distance and depth in three dimensions because their eyes face forward. They are excellent night hunters because of their keen eyesight. Owls’ huge eyes show they depend on vision for hunting. Their eyes have evolved into highly specialized tools over millions of years.
Burrowing owls have moving tubular eyes, unlike most birds. This modification makes their eyes better at hunting.
The cornea is the first lens and transparent layer covering an owl’s eye. Controlling and focusing light, it guides it to the lens. The iris, a muscular diaphragm, controls pupil size and light intake. Finding that an owl’s hunting style matches its eye color is intriguing. Black-eyed owls, like the Barred Owl, can blend in better because they hunt at night. Yellow-eyed owls, like the Burrowing Owls, hunt during the day.
Florida Burrowing Owls’ eyes aren’t colored like this. They hunt at night as well as day, as shown by a night vision camera. These non-migratory owls breed together, possibly explaining the recessive gene that changes eye color.
Burrowing Owls’ large pupils, which improve night vision, are intriguing. Light is absorbed by the retina and converted into brain signals to create images, like in humans. Owls and other night-active animals have the tapetum lucidum, a membrane behind the retina that reflects light. This improves night vision and gives them the unsettling “eye shine.”
Making gaps, Raptors and other owls have three eyelids. One has a nictitating membrane that lets them see but keeps their eyes wet. Their unique ability to determine distance comes from parallax, where they turn their entire head to view objects differently.
Besides their incredible eyes, the book discusses how they nest and reproduce. Burrowing Owls are lifelong partners and have unique mate selection methods.
Beverly Saltonstall’s “Cape Coral Burrowing Owls Don’t Hoot” takes us to the fascinating world of burrowing owls. Unique behaviors and eyes reveal their complex lives. The fascinating behaviors of these birds in Florida’s wilds always amaze and delight observers. Order the book today on Amazon.