this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2024
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just came across this really cool photo of a barn owl being errrrrr run off this little guy's property?! what an absolute chad who has absolutely no idea how big he is :>

check out the link - there are some other photos from the same set:

https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/591235181

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[โ€“] anon6789@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Whoa, get a room, you two! ๐Ÿ˜ฎ

๐Ÿ˜†

[โ€“] casmael@lemm.ee 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I always find it strange how quite a large predator can be chased off by a small angerey bird but there we are

[โ€“] anon6789@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago

In bird logic is makes sense. Birds are built to be as light as possible, with delicate, hollow bones that can get easily damaged by impacts. Their vision is imperative to finding food. One scratch to the end can make it impossible to eat. Enough damaged feathers and they can be left either unable to fly or the energy expenditure to compensate for the damaged feathers can lead to them starving.

They're fantastic little fighter jets when they're all in one piece, but it does not take much to put even a large bird into a very dangerous situation they can't recover from without us giving them medical attention immediately. They seem to have the appropriate awareness of fragile nature, and not matter how big or small the bird, they actively avoid physical confrontations. All the small birds have to do is make it inconvenient to the predator to stay, and it won't want to risk injury just to catch a nap.

All the small birds understand this as well, and it is a rare case of different species consciously working together when they gang up to run the big baddy out of town. They've learned an effective way to make up for their size. Stealth and speed are the big things the predators rely on, so in the day, as soon as they are spotted, they've lost the upper hand on the little ones.