anon6789

They will tend to scrunch and elongate when they're trying to hide. Since their eyes are pretty big, closing them most of the way makes that feature stand out less.

They go big when they're standing their ground. They've already been spotted, so now they want to look like the biggest, toughest owl possible.

Here's the classic White Faced Scops video showing the little owl's reactions to an owl slightly larger than itself and one much larger.

Birds usually don't want to fight. There's too much chance for anyone involved to get hurt and be left unable to fly and be unable to get food or stay safe. They want to either stay hidden or have the other party back off before anyone actually gets too physical.

You will see small birds drive off larger, more aggressive birds due to this. Usually the larger bird will just move on if it doesn't need a meal at that moment.

"Pfft... I was born with better zoom and focus than this thing...

Amateurs."

I wouldn't say there are a ton of famous owls in media, but the ones that are there all feel pretty memorable from their visual impact and they tend to be great helpers to our heroes.

The bay owls have what I feel is the most unnerving look, but they are pretty tiny, so that takes away some of their visual power if you have a sense of scale. 😁

Here is one with its typical expression, and also the scrunchy face like the owl in the main post.

Yes, indeed. White Faced Scops does not have sole rights to metowlmorphosis. With muscular control over their feathers, they can shrink or swell tremendous amount.

This one is taking it the other direction:

This is the same species of owl, just the American coloration instead of the European.

At least it seems Jim brought him luck! That's a good sized meal he's bringing home.

"Dear diary, I saw these strange, near-hairless monkeys today and they were doing the darndest things!"

I do love me a rare owl.

This one has the otherworldly character of a bay owl, but softened with some extra fuzziness to take some of the alien look away. It should be a bit larger as well. Little owls are very cute, but I want all the owl I can get for my money!

That is the most salacious.

I know. I was just tossing out some facts to the audience. Plus salacious is a fun word.

I'm glad the branch was enticing enough to get you to check out the whole thing! 😜

Owls have no external naughty bits, so no camera angle is too salacious!

Same bird as yesterday's upload, they look completely different.