BOPH Barn Owl Project Hampshire & Bird Of Prey Hospital

Understanding Owls

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 Hard Wired Existence

Consider the Brain

However clever and wise we expect the owl to be, it is in principal a very simple bird. Take the Barn Owl, our iconic white bird. The fine stature and small frame, with a brain size that is relative to the body scale. The replica skull seen here reveals the balance of scale as the eye sockets take up much of the internal skull space.

Replica cast Barn Owl skull

Owl existence is reliant on a few simple requirements. Food, shelter, procreation. Take away all the emotional human complication, and we revert to simple natural existence. Without food, there is no existence, without shelter there is no existence without procreation, the species fades away.

Owls form an example of a life once lived before the evolution of man. Beauty and simplicity. Understanding owls, and how they survive. Essential tools are ears and eyes, supported by sharp talons on strong feet.


BOPH team of Educators, Wisdom, Wonky and Sinch. Adult and child alike can enjoy learning the real life facts about these owls who spend life around us, barely seen, often heard, active at night time and usually the first to struggle in poor weather conditions or amongst our changing environment…

Keep it simple

Understanding Owls is simple, they are beautiful, elusive, private.

It is the imagination of humans that create a more complicated picture, when in fact it is the wonderful simplicity of camouflage, activity and existence that offer owls continuance. Curious how straight forward a species that has stood still in a world that has evolved to form such complexities. Imagine life eating a steak a day and nothing more. Almost inconceivable. Yet understanding Owls is quite simple, they seek only enough to keep them alive and in existence. Millions of different species have remained hard wired, unchanged and alive, centuries of life seen in history threaded through our very existence and evolution. Still today, their needs are unchanged.

To quote the needs of an elderly friend whose life approaches a century on earth “Warmth and Whisky”  replace lust for material or variety, now only the simple comforts remain important. As humans we spend life in search of fairytale happiness. Most grow to realise how much the simple things matter.



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