Hunting/food
The diet of the Eurasian Pygmy Owl includes mostly small vertebrate mammals like voles, lemmings, and mice. They may also catch small birds like thrushes, crossbills, chaffinches, and leaf-warblers. They are even able to catch these prey birds in flight sometimes. Other prey may include small lizards, bats, fish, and insects. During the winter months, the owls may store food in tree cavities. Because these small owls lack the ability to fly silently, they are mostly diurnal. This means that they are mostly active during the daytime, a unique trait since most people think of all owls as being nocturnal creatures. This is advantageous because much of their prey is also diurnal. The owls are most active just before sunrise and shortly after sunset.
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Famous quotes containing the words hunting and/or food:
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“Men should not labor foolishly like brutes, but the brain and the body should always, or as much as possible, work and rest together, and then the work will be of such a kind that when the body is hungry the brain will be hungry also, and the same food will suffice for both; otherwise the food which repairs the waste energy of the overwrought body will oppress the sedentary brain, and the degenerate scholar will come to esteem all food vulgar, and all getting a living drudgery.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)