Owls

I like to share my most recent owl drawings from my visits at the California Academy of Sciences. I spent many hours in their science lab studying these beautiful taxidermy mounted owls. It was a wonderful experience, and I will be back to do more illustrations in the fall.



This is a Barn Owl. The barn owl can hunt in complete darkness because of its excellent hearing. The disk shaped face attracts the sounds to the ears, that are located behind the eyes. The ears are assymmetrically placed to capture sound from various direction. The barn owl can also identify very complexe sounds and associated them with certain prey.




A Great Horned Owl. Also a fierce hunter and as the other owls have great hearing. The cat like ears are not ears, these are just extended feathers. The feathers are so soft and they muffle the sound so that the owl can silently approach the prey.

The final drawing! My next step is to use these studies in a painting..