The Owls are an order of birds of prey. Most are solitary, and nocturnal, with some exceptions (e.g. the Burrowing Owl). They are classified in the order Strigiformes, in which there are over 200 extant species. Owls mostly hunt small mammals, insects, and other birds, though a few species specialize in hunting fish. They are found in all regions of the Earth except Antarctica, most of Greenland, and some remote islands. Though owls are typically solitary, the literary collective noun for a group of owls is a parliament.

The living owls are divided into two families, the typical owls, Strigidae, and the barn-owls, Tytonidae.

Ancient Egyptians used a representation of an owl for their hieroglyph for the sound m. They would often draw this hieroglyph with its legs broken to keep this bird of prey from coming to life.[citation needed].

Among the Kikuyu of Kenya it was believed that owls were harbingers of death. If one saw an owl or heard its hoot, someone was going to die. In general, owls are viewed as harbingers of bad luck, ill health, or death. The belief is widespread even today.
In the culture of the Hopi nation, taboos surround owls and they are associated with evil or sorcery. In the United States, as with eagle feathers, the possession of owl feathers as religious objects is regulated by federal law (e.g. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 and Title 50 Part 22 Code of Federal Regulations).

The Aztecs and Mayans, along with other natives of Mesoamerica, considered the owl a symbol of death and destruction.
Other Native American tribes saw the owl as the carrier of the elders' spirits.[citation needed]

The Moche people of ancient Peru worshipped the animal and often depicted owls in their art.
In Japanese culture, owls are seen as either negative or positive symbols depending on species. Sometimes owls are seen as divine messengers of the gods, while Barn or Horned owls are perceived as demonic figures.

In Indian culture, a white owl is considered a companion and vahana (Vehicle of god/goddess) of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, and therefore a harbinger of prosperity. The owl has been adapted as an emblem to reflect its implications of wisdom (Wise old owl) by a revered military institution in India known as the Defense Services Staff College. In colloquial use, however, it is commonly used to refer to stupidity. The Hindi word for owl, ulloo is used to refer to a foolish person.

The demoness Lilith is thought to have been associated with (screech) owls as well, by way of the KJV translation of the passage in Isaiah 34:14. Prior to the rise of Islam, owls were considered bad omens and associated with evil spirits in most Middle Eastern pagan traditions. In modern times, although such superstitions are less prevalent, owls are still popularly considered "evil" because of their fierce appearance.

In the Malay language, owls are called "burung hantu", literally 'ghost bird'.
In Greek mythology, the owl, and specifically the Little Owl, was often associated with the goddess Athena, a bird goddess who became associated with wisdom, the arts, and skills, and as a result, owls also became associated with wisdom. They are the unofficial mascot of the high-IQ society Mensa.

The Romans, in addition to having borrowed the Greek associations of the owl (see Owl of Minerva), also considered owls to be funerary birds, due to their nocturnal activity and often having their nests in inaccessible places. As a result, seeing an owl in the daytime was considered a bad omen. For example, in Book 12 of Virgil's Aeneid, an owl appears before Turnus toward the end of his battle with Aeneas, prefiguring his death, and "a strange, numbing dread / Washed through Turnus' body; his hair / Bristled with fear; his voice stuck in his throat."[14] The vampiric strix of Roman mythology was in part based on the owl.

Likewise, in Romanian culture, the mournful call of an owl is thought to predict the death of somebody living in the neighbourhood. Such superstitions caused a minor disturbance when an owl showed up at Romanian President's residence, Cotroceni Palace.

In France, a difference is made between hiboux, eared owls, which are considered symbols of wisdom, and chouettes, earless owls, which are considered birds of ill omen.

In the Welsh Cycles of the Mabinogion, the Owl is considered cursed - the first owl was Blodeuedd, a woman born of flowers to be the wife of Lleu Llaw Gyffes. Because she fell in love with another man and plotted to kill Lleu, Lleu's guardian Gwydion turned her into the first owl, saying "You are never to show your face to the light of day, rather you shall fear other birds; they will be hostile to you, and it will be their nature to maul and molest you wherever they find you. You will not lose your name but always be called Blodeuwedd." The addition of the w in her name changed her from a woman of flowers to an owl.

In Finland the owl is paradoxically viewed as both a symbol of wisdom, and as a symbol of imbecility, presumably because of its "dumb stare".

Owl is the name of Pooh Bear's wise friend in the famous childhood stories by A.A. Milne.

The two largest cities in Yorkshire, UK- Leeds and Sheffield both feature Owls in their civic culture. Owls, feature on the Leeds coat of arms, as used by Leeds City Council and formerly by Leeds United Football Club, while in Sheffield they are the symbol of the cities most successful football club Sheffield Wednesday, who are even nicknamed 'The Owls'.

Owls are birds of prey. Most are solitary and nocturnal. They are classed in the order of strigiformes. They hunt small mammals insects and other birds. though a few species hunt for fish. They're found in all regions of the earth except Antarctica, part of Greenland and some remote islands. Although typically alone, a group of owls is called a parliament. Livings owls are divided into two families - the typical owl (strigidae) and the barn owl (tytonidae). The smallest owl is the elf owl, and the largest are eagle owls. Owl eggs are usually white and almost perfectly round. They can lay a few, or up to a dozen. Owls don't build nests, but rather look for a sheltered nesting site or an abandoned nest. Owls are thought to be very wise because of their strategic hunting abilities which depend on stealth and surprise.

Owls—Designed for Nightlife

OWLS are everywhere—almost. They are found on every continent except Antarctica. They range in size from that of a sparrow to that of an eagle. The littlest are the elf and pygmy owls; much larger are the eagle owls of Eurasia, the great gray owls, the great horned owls, and the strikingly beautiful snowy owls of Arctic regions. Some 140 species are widely distributed in such diversified habitats as grasslands, prairies, deserts, marshes, deep woods, rain forests, and arctic tundra. Their diets are as varied as their habitats: worms, insects, frogs, rodents, small birds, and fish.

With big head, large round orange or yellow eyes, both facing forward and staring out of saucer-shaped disks of radiating feathers, Mr. Owl looks so wise. No wonder he is called the wise old owl. Part of the impression of wisdom comes from the big eyes that stare with such a steady and unwavering gaze. That unwavering gaze, however, is not due to any deep meditative powers—his eyes are set in sockets that prevent their rolling or swiveling about. Even so, from ancient times the owl was credited with wisdom—it was the sacred bird of Pallas Athene, the Greek goddess of wisdom.

Not all owls exude such an aura of wisdom. The little elf owl does not have the impressive air of the great horned owl, nor does the burrowing owl. Elf owls live in desert areas and occupy woodpecker holes left in the giant saguaros. They have loud voices for such small birds, and when male and female sing duets—if you can call it singing—it sounds like the yips and chucklings of puppy dogs.

Burrowing owls live in the holes of prairie dogs or ground squirrels and are often seen bobbing up and down on mounds or perched on fence posts. Nestlings threatened in their burrows emit a frantic buzzing that mimics the rattlesnake’s warning signal. It discourages entry by unwanted visitors.

Many think that owls cannot see very well in daylight. They also think that owls can see fine in the dark. But they are wrong on both counts. Owls have very good eyesight. During the day their vision is excellent. At night they also do very well. The nocturnal owls—and most are—have retinas superabundantly packed with rods to enable them to see in the dimmest of light. In such surroundings their eyes gather in the faint light a hundred times better than ours do. But in total darkness, they might as well be blind. One researcher scattered dead mice on the floor in a totally dark room and put owls in it. Those owls did not find a single mouse.

When Ears Become Eyes

However, when a barn owl (page 15) was put in a totally dark room with leaves on the floor and live mice rustling among them, it caught them all. The same feat could have been accomplished by other nocturnal owls, but certainly the barn owl is a specialist. In total darkness its ears become its eyes. Barn owls have a sense of directional hearing that is more accurate than that of any other land animal studied.

When we want to hear a very faint sound, we turn our ear toward its source and may cup a hand behind our ear to collect the sound waves and channel them into our ear openings. The barn owl’s face is designed to do this automatically, and extremely faint sounds not perceptible to us are easily heard. World Book’s Science Year 1983 explains: “The barn owl’s great sensitivity to sound is largely due to the sound-collecting property of the facial ruff—the wall of stiff, densely packed feathers that makes a heart-shaped outline around the face. . . . Like a hand cupped behind an ear, the large surface of the ruff collects sound and channels it into the ear openings.”

The design for hearing does not stop with the barn owl’s ruff. Another ‘cupped hand’ is available for channeling the sound to the ear opening. Science Year 1983 describes it: “The pink flap that lies over the barn owl’s ear opening has a structural resemblance to the human outer ear. Feathers on the outside of the earflap and in the ruff behind the ear act like cupped hands to funnel sound into the opening.”

This earflap, however, is not just another ‘cupped hand’ to reinforce the sound-gathering power of the facial ruff. It, along with the ruff, is especially designed to add an entirely new dimension to the barn owl’s directional hearing capabilities. The ear openings in the barn owl’s skull are symmetrical, that is, the right and left ear openings are placed exactly opposite in the skull. The external ear structures, however, are not symmetrical. Both the right earflap and the external ear opening are lower and directed upward, whereas the left earflap and the external ear opening are higher and directed downward. Hence, the right ear, with its earflap and opening cupped upward, is more sensitive to sounds coming from above, whereas the left ear, with its earflap and opening cupped downward, is more sensitive to sounds from below. If the sound is more intense in the right ear, the owl knows its source is above; if more intense in the left ear, the source is below.

Similarly, if the sound’s source is more horizontal than vertical and is heard by the right ear before the left one, it is immediately perceived as coming from the right; if heard first by the left ear, it is perceived as coming from the left. The owl’s head is small, so the difference in time of arrival of the sound at one ear as compared to the other is minimal, measured in microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second). The owl’s directional response to sound is immediate—within a hundredth of a second, the owl’s face turns toward the source. Its ability to process instantaneously these split-second cues is critical to pinpointing the sound’s source.

As mentioned before, the owl’s eyes are virtually immovable. This is not a mistake in design, however. The owl’s neck is so flexible that some owls can turn the head as much as 270 degrees, enabling it to see even directly behind itself. Moreover, that the eyes are immovable is an asset. It means that whenever the owl hears a sound and turns its head toward the source, its eyes are automatically aimed in that direction. It sees the source of the sound a hundredth of a second after it hears it.

Wings Designed With Silencers

The feathers of most birds make noise as they whir through the air in flight. Not so with owl feathers; they are specially designed for silence. They are soft and downy, with a velvety feel, so wind makes no noise as it passes over them. The flight feathers do not have straight, hard edges like those of most birds, which produce a whirring noise as they fan the air in flight. The barbs on the owl’s feathers are uneven in length, leaving soft fringed edges that make no sound as they sweep through the air.

This devotion to silence, however, is abandoned when owls engage in owl talk—hoots, warblings, whistlings, clacking of beaks, and claps of the wings in flight. Some researchers refer to these noises as owl songs, and to owl ears some of the noises may pass for singing, since they do play a role in courtship communication between mated pairs.

Though they may not originally have been created for this purpose, owls are valuable today in controlling insects and rodents. The barn owl especially is considered the farmer’s friend, ridding his fields of mice and rats and other pests that eat his crops. In some places owls are encouraged by special “owl doors” to provide easy access to farm buildings. In Malaysia, oil-palm growers put up nesting boxes for barn owls—and that’s not charity. The pair that lives there pays rent, annually ridding the farmer of up to 3,000 rats that otherwise would have eaten his crop. And the barn owls add a touch of beauty. They are among the most beautiful of birds, distributed worldwide, and they have one of the most intriguing heart-shaped faces in nature.

When you think of the big yellow eyes that gather in the faintest light, the ears that catch a whisper of sound from any direction, and the flight feathers that slip silently through the air, you must marvel at those nocturnal owls that are created so well designed for nightlife.

The owl—what a marvel of creation! Its eyesight at night is a hundred times more acute than that of humans. Even in the diffused light from the moon, an owl is able to capture its prey. Human eyes have cells called cones that separate colors and cells called rods that gather light, but the owl’s eyes are packed tight with rods that contain a chemical known as visual purple. This converts the faintest glimmer of light into a chemical signal that gives the bird a sight impression, whereas humans see just the presence of light.

Owls cannot rotate their eyes in their sockets as most creatures can. Each eye is fixed like a car headlight. To compensate, the owl—thanks to an amazingly flexible neck—is able to rotate its head at least 270 degrees to see in all directions!

It has been said that from its perch 50 feet [15 m] up in a tree, an owl is capable of not only seeing a mouse but also hearing it rustling in the grass. Its amazing ability to hear comes from the design of its ears. If you look at the face of an owl, you will see that it is ringed by stiff curved feathers that collect and reflect sound waves to the ears, bouncing the sound onto the largest eardrums in the avian world. The ears are set one slightly higher than the other, allowing the owl to pinpoint sound accurately.

Once the owl has located its prey—whether by sight or sound—it will swoop silently. The owl’s body is covered with feathers so soft that all sound is muffled. Even the wing feathers have downy edges to eliminate whir when in flight. On a dark night, countryfolk have at times been frightened by the glowing form of an owl swooping low along the road. Unknown to them the owl can glow with a phosphorescence rubbed onto its feathers from luminescent fungi that grow on the rotting wood of its nest.

I continued to move upstream and soon came upon the gnarled old tree stump. The warmth of the morning had brought one of the young birds to the hollow’s entrance to bask in the slanting rays of the sun as they filtered through the leafy canopy above. There he sat, blinking his eyes in the breaking sunlight—a delightful sight!

Hidden somewhere in the branches above, the old tawny owl was perched with her mate, surveying all before her through half-closed eyes. I knew she would carefully watch over her young until they could fend for themselves with the instinctive wisdom given them by their Grand Creator.

I love Owls, here are a number of them, Barn owl, Barrel owl, Burrowing owl, Eagle owl, Elf owl, Great Grey owl, Great Horned Long Eared, Northern Hawk owl, Saw-Whet owl, Short Eared owl, Spectacled owl, Spotted owl,
My Favorite is the Tawney Frogmouth, not really considered a member of the owl family but we consider it a member as it looks and acts very much like one.....If you Goole the name of the Owl you will find all the information you need.....Good luck!

Owls have fascinated man from time immemorial - to some cultures they are symbols of wisdom, while to others they are harbingers of doom and death.

Here a website, The Owl Pages sheds some light on these mysterious creatures...Everything that you wanted to know...Click on this link

http://www.owlpages.com/