Status Updates From Intriguing Owls: Exceptiona...

Owls are accurate in both horizontal & vertical hearing (man is similarly accurate with horizontal hearing but not at all with vertical hearing).
They have asymmetrical ears, varying in size and/or position. This is the reason their vertical hearing is so spot-on. Sometimes they turn or tilt their head to increase asymmetry and therefore accuracy when hunting.
They can even hear their prey underneath 12in. of snow!

They have blood-vessels at the back of their eyes, like humans, and therefore get 'red eye' in flash photography.
The Great Horned Owl does not have horns… And the Long-Eared Owl does not have long ears… but rather tufts of feathers.
They have earflaps (called operculum) that they control- open to hunt at night and close during the day to sleep.

One Barn owl eats, on average, 11,000 mice in a lifetime. That means approximately 13 tons of grain/crops are protected from mice with JUST ONE barn owl!
Female owls are larger than males, presumably to keep eggs warmer during incubation or b/c they don’t need to be as agile as the males who do the main hunting for their family. Also, female owls fluctuate in weight when their young needs the food more than they do.

I didn't read this one cover to cover but learned some interesting facts about owls:
There are 19 different species of owls found in the US and Canada.
Owls have 14 bones in their neck (twice as many as humans) providing them with a 280-degree radius of motion for their head.
Owls have such proportionally huge eyes that they cannot turn within their eye sockets, hence the necessity of a 280-degree neck rotation.