Fascinating, indeed owls are fascinating; well, some of us wonder why owls are interesting birds. One common reason would be their huge eyes and their nocturnal behavior. I only see these creatures in National Geographic Channel or when I imagine them while reading a book. I want to highlight about their nocturnal behavior. It is common for us to think that owls observe its surroundings and sometimes gives us the hooting sound; which is creepy. They may be identified as a symbol for death, because of these mythological beliefs done by each culture. I indicated that owls are personified as death, but it is still a mystery to proclaim them as “death’s other form.” Thus, this made me go further to read some articles in the realm of science; which somehow we may also watch this in National Geographic Channel.
Introducing owls in the scientific realm is mostly composed with their physiological features. Well, I found scientific article entitled “When books die. And owls. I don’t mean “When owls die”… I just mean: owls. As in: this article is mostly about owls.” Written by Darren Naish from Scienceblogs. It is a fun fact article about the bird, but that gave me full understanding in terms of their physical appearances. From the beginning I classified owls as a single entity, but that concluded here, due to the fact that there are two different kinds of owls; which are the barn owls and the strigid owls. In terms of their physiological aspects, these birds have no spherical eyes, but rather they have the tubular shape like a cylinder for their eyes; which somehow their cornea and lens are relative to their retina. Their field of vision would only allow them for about 50 to 70 degrees; which somehow straight forward when we describe it. At the same time the retina collects sunlight to have their eyes gleam in the dark; which concludes to their sight at night. All birds fly with the help of their wings and feathers, but most of the predatory birds fly with such noise through the flapping of their wings. Well, the owl is different from them; owls have light and thin feathers that makes them fly in near-silence, so when they hunt prey the victim will never know who killed him. The bird's facial feathers also helps them to collect sound; never the less they are advantageous in the night even though it is dark.
Aside from their huge eyes, they also have their huge ears. Well, what would be the reason why these ears are huge? Well, it does not literally mean that they are deaf, but rather it helps them to locate the faintest sound in their vicinity. Not only that they have huge ears, but also their ears are asymmetrical. What do we mean by asymmetrical, well, it simply means that the ears are not balanced to one another. In the owl's case, one ear is higher and the other is lower, which gives them the highest advantage to pinpoint sources of sounds from the highest to the lowest altitude. Another would be their rotating heads, well, their heads can rotate for about 270 degrees; which help them locate their targets for almost a full circle.
We now know that owls have huge eyes and ears; somehow we must also consider that they also have huge feet. Well, most predatory birds rely on their hooked beaks and talons to kill prey, but only the owl uses their huge clawed feet to strangle their prey to death. They simply have a specialized bone as their secret towards full force strangling and resistance towards stress in their bones and muscles; well, the bone is scientifically called as “sesamoids” according to the article. Sometimes, we also wonder why some of the owls are not active at night, well, it simple to say that the answer is all about their tiresome activities at night. During the day most owls roost on a tree or inside their burrows in trees or underground; if they roost outside, well, they are simply vulnerable to their attackers, but that ends there because owls who roost in the outside world have their intimidating eye like pattern behind their heads. This simply represent as their protective ward against those ferocious attackers.
From those physiological features I would like to focus on their behavioral aspects of being nocturnal. From my previous post, I simply indicated and proclaimed that owls are personified as death himself. It may be true or false; simply by looking to their behavior as nocturnal birds they practice their own psychological activities in terms of killing. Well, they can see during the night because of their collected sunlight from the sun or from the moon. Why moon? We all know that the moon does not produce its own light, since it is only just a chunk of rock; the light simply came from the sun; which makes the owl collect sunlight from the moon and enables them to see during the night. In term of their flight schemes they act like murders who cunningly appears behind their prey and strangle them with their huge clawed feet.
Simply from just focusing to their scientific physical features, we may also connect this to the psychological aspect in the society. Well, I have done further thinking that the owl's behavior is somehow linked to a person's specialized behaviors. Thus, I have gone into deeper research in terms of psychology about the night owls (person).
Most of us actively do activities at night like: surfing the internet, reading fascinating books, doing requirements for work or in school, chatting with other people and many more. Well, at some point we tend to be sleepy during the day. I commonly stay late at night, due to some reasons like making my requirements, projects, reports, studying and so on. Well, other people stay at night because of parties, gaming and some other activities. It is true to some of us that we stay late at night due to these reasons. The most common result of staying at night would be stress and drowsiness when you are in school or at work. Well, these people who lately stay at night are called as “night owls”. Night owls are people who are active at night and sleepy during the day. Being a night owl is a little bit difficult to adjust when you are student, since it is also important to stay awake during classes in order to cope up with your lessons. It is also the same to work, wherein it is also important to stay awake to continue and complete our tasks diligently.
In the psychological realm, I found this article entitled “Study says night owls more likely be psychopaths” by Anjana Sreedhar in policymic. The article simply stated that most night owls obtain the “Dark Triad Characteristics.” The dark triad characteristics are narcissism, machiavellianism, and psychopathy.
When we say narcissism, it means “to seek affection”, machiavellianism means “the desire to manipulate”, and lastly psychopath means “the manifestation of having an antisocial behavior”. Well, these characteristics are applicable to most night owls. Simply by observing their behavior during the day. Night owls can be categorized into three aspects which are the students, workers, and criminals. When we say in the aspect of students it is normal to describe them as “hard-working”, but there are several instances that the Dark Triad Characteristics (DTC) would most likely occur. One example would be my experience in high school. Well, my narcissistic attitude towards perfection is inclined to myself; thus, when someone who overcomes my successes in school I do have the thinking to manipulate them. Well, the result is really bad since that made me a loner due to my manifestation of the DTC. A student is simply identical to a worker, but in some instances workers simply do things in a different way. Well, on the other hand, criminals do things differently. In my own perspective they do things like the owl's style of killing its prey. I may be referring to a murderer actually, but it is simply identical when we view it literally. When we see murderers in movies or in novels; they simply appear like shadows who would suddenly stab or strangle you to death. Seeing the narcissistic side it is simply expressed as the “affection towards the death of a person or complimenting himself that he is good at killing.” For machiavellianism, they manifest it through the manipulation of time. Lastly, for their psychopathy it is simple, since they mostly do not appear in such crowded places and at the same time they despise human life through their crimes. Well, It does not only limit to the murderers, but also applicable to drug addicts and many more.
Like I said in the scientific side of the owl, they are nocturnal and at the same time their behavior in terms of hunting is practically similar to a murderer. Which somehow connects that the owl is not only personified as death himself, but also an archetype to a human being. What would be the claim right now? Well, I simply say that the owl is represented as the human person's rationality. Why rationality? All of us are born in this world as rational; but when we turn to the wrong pathway, that simply is an assumption that we are now irrational. Irrationality in my realm is simply denoted by the act of doing things that is not according to the order of this world. Technically speaking that when you do things that is bad in the eyes of a rational person, thus that makes you irrational. I do not simply say that an owl is irrational in terms of their behavior, since it is part of their life cycle to survive in the wild. Although, science claims that animals are practically irrational, since they lack the intelligence to do certain things right in their own way.
To conclude, owls does not only represent death to which all cultures identify the most, but it is also an archetype to a human person's rationality. Night owls constantly manifest the Dark Triad Characteristics, but there are also good sides when you are a night owl. Well, in majority night owls are the poets, artists, creative introverts, and actors. True that the persona of being a night owl is not good for a person, but it is said that when we grow older we tend to sleep earlier.
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