Owl

Is the owl a fowl? Or a bird. What do you think? Actually, it's all the same, since all fowls are birds; but we often call certain large ones "fowls." "Wise as an owl," they say. Not really so, for they're not so smart as some other birds are. That hoot-hoot which you hear at night is likely to be the barred-owl, who helps to get rid of rats and mice. Owls help us with many small pests--scorpions and the like.
Owl plays a part in fables and legends all over the world. One of those comes from India, telling of a war between the Crows and the Owls. Some scholars think it is another form of an older tale of war between the sun and the moon.
Can you believe that people used to make a soup out of owls' eggs!? The ancient Greeks did. They gave it to children to keep them from becoming epileptic, or addicted to drink! There was a hitch--the eggs had to be fertile, so if this treatment didn't have the desired result, you could always blame it on the egg. People get such funny ideas.
All over the world owls have usually been connected with magic, strange power and witchcraft. In some places considered "auspicious" (beneficial; for instance, some children in India had owl feathers under their pillows to "help them sleep"); in Europe, just the opposite: an owl was a warning; some unpleasant event might soon occur. In Nigeria, natives did not even like to speak the name of this bird. There are passages in the Bible which connect the owl with misery and ruin.

But if these odd birds can frighten us, could they not be used to frighten off our enemies? How about that? Yes, just as we have in America in some places, to frighten away pigeons. In Israel it is believed that the crops are protected by little gray owls. In ancient Greece. in Athens, the goddess Athene, (goddess of night) is shown with an owl as friendly companion.

We mentioned the hooting of our feathered friend. Some hoots and screeches are alarmingly like the human voice. Why do we hear these mostly at night? Because the night is the owl's day. Those large round eyes that look so wise, giving the hint of a human face, are specially made for seeing small prey on the ground and in tree branches. Owls' ears are sharp. These birds fly in silent, sudden swoops. They rest by day in holes and crevices, and when these are in a dilapidated building, it adds a further air of spookiness.

You must have read the Pooh books......So you remember how pompously pretentious Owl was, couldn't even spell his own name (WOL), yet looked and spoke so wise. But when his tree-home in the Hundred Acre Woods was blown down, all the other creatures felt such affection for him, they at once began looking for his new home-to-be: the Wolery.