Owls

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Subject: Owls Sun Aug 20 2006, 01:11

OWLS
Of all the birds in the world I find the Owl the most mysterious and interesting. Owls are nocturnal hunters with gigantic eyes. Some people think the owl’s eyes make it look kind and wise. While others think they make owls look scary and intimidating. There are about 162 different species of owls that are alive today that live all over the globe.

Owls can’t move their eyes around their sockets like people. They look around by moving their entire head which can turn about 270 degrees. Some owls have feathered ear tufts; these are not ears but are part of the owl's camouflage.

Merlin hardly went anywhere without his owl Archimedes and if you think about how owls are built and what they can do you can imagine how helpful they can be to wizards and witches. Owls can see in the dark, they’re great at grabbing and carrying things and they can hear very faint noises. The Greeks actually thought that owls carried a magic light inside their heads that allowed them to see at night.

Owls hunt by stealth and tracking. This means that they are great at sneaking up on their prey and they can fly in complete silence because their feathers are constructed with special down and fringed edges that block out the sound of air rushing over them. Their feet have very large talons with an opposable back toe kind of the same to how our thumbs work. The owls feathers create an illusion of a small beak but when opened wide an owl can swallow a small mammal whole.

Owls will always remain creatures of mystery and have been made very popular by J.K.Rowling including them in her books. The geeks believed that Owls could predict the future and that the Little Owl (Athene noctua) was the symbol of Athena the Greek goddess of wisdom. Owls are symbols of hope and wisdom but are also symbols of death. It is said that Owls predicted the death of Julius Caesar and famous Wizard Agrippa. So who knows maybe Owls can predict the future but we may never know and heres a tip, even though they are extraordinary birds don’t try and get them to deliver your mail.

By Katie.

The book of wizard craft by Janice Eaton Kilby, Deborah Morgenthal and Terry Taylor

www.enchantedlearning.com

Subject: Re: Owls Fri Sep 29 2006, 03:22

Well done! You have earned yourself 50 housepoints for your well written essay

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