Owlsare masters of stealth . While trace at dark , their ranking hearing and nocturnal vision allow them to situate faraway quarry and their nigh - silent flight let them sneak up on their dinner party unheralded . Compared to the owl ’s silent soaring flight , many other birds can seem downright noisy as they move through the air ( we ’re looking at you , doves and pigeon ) . But what allows owls to fly so restfully , when other birds can be heard flapping and fluttering from far away ?
According toGizmodo , a mathematical group of researchers decided to suffice that head , and their experimentation seem in the shortBBC Earthvideo below . Using sensitive strait equipment , the BBC Earth team register the sounds of apigeon , aperegrine falcon , and abarn bird of Minerva , all in flight . Then , they film each bird wing over a wad of feathers to study how their wings disturbed the airwave — and the feathers — beneath them . They found that differences in sound came down to each bird ’s proportions : The pigeon , for instance , has small wings in relation back to its torso , forcing it to undulate desperately to stick around in flight . The bird of Minerva , meanwhile , supports its small soundbox with relatively gravid wings , allowing it to glide further on a unmarried wingstroke , creating less air Sturm und Drang .
“ The barn bird of Minerva is far more graceful , ” the video explains . “ Just one gentle wingbeat sees her gliding effortlessly through the air , creating little more than a whispering in the feathers below . ”
It is n’t just wing proportion that let bird of night to move silently . They evolved to have specialfeather structuresthat dampen sound . As Audubon magazineexplains , the leading bound of owl annex feather summercater serrations that break up the air flow as the birds fly , so the common whooshing sound that turbulence creates is quieted . The soft textures of the other bird of Minerva feathers muffle the speech sound further until virtually all of the hearable noise is absorb .
scientist suggest owls germinate these adjustment to facilitate hunting , either to snarf up on skittish quarry , or to allow bird of Minerva to mind and triangulate the prey ’s location as they take flight , without any distracting sound .
Learn more about the science behind the silent flight of the barn bird of night in the video above .
A version of this tale was issue in 2016 ; it has been update for 2024 .
