Baby Owls!

This is a special post for Marie-Claire, who suggested baby owls.

Cuddle cuddle.

Owls are found almost everywhere in the world, except Antartica and parts of Greenland. These cute birds have big, round eyes, for seeing at night. Owls can rotate their head almost all the way around in a circle!  This helps owls see because they cannot move their eyes from side to side.

Cute little owly hiding in a tree.

Most owls spend their time by themselves, and are usually active at night. They sleep all day and wake up at night to catch rodents and little birds. There are a few owls that fly around in the day, and some that are most active around dawn and dusk.

Some owls have special feathers that make the bird's flight silent! The edges of some of their feathers are jagged, which reduces the noise from the flapping wings. This means that they can sneak up on their food!

The Poll Winner: the Aye-aye!

A few weeks ago I posted a poll asking which animal you wanted to see next. Here's some info about the winner: the Aye-aye.

(Photo credit: Tom Junek)

The Aye-aye is a primate, and more specifically, a lemur. These fuzzy animals are  nocturnal and primarily live in rainforests on the East coast of Madagascar.

(www.madagascarpartnership.org)

This lemur searches for food during the night, starting shortly after sunset. Aye-ayes eat nuts, seeds, fruit, fungi, and nectar, but the main parts of their diet are insects and larvae. The Aye-aye taps on the tree bark to listen for hollow areas. After finding the perfect spot, the lemur will tear open the tree bark and stick its long skinny finger inside to grab its food.

Aye-ayes are great jumpers and climbers, and barely spend any time on the ground. They usually only leave the forest canopy in times of deforestation, so they can look for food. This means that Aye-ayes sometimes wander into human villages, which normally results in a bad situation for the lemur. Locals consider the Aye-aye a bad omen, and often kill any they come across. For these two reasons, Aye-ayes are considered threatened, in terms of conservation status.