Joseph M. Boek - Carving - 1 Raymond Drive

Owls

Here are a few owl sculptures:

Owls are nocturnal raptors. They hunt at night with keen eyesight. Thier pupils open wide and they need very little light to clearly see their prey.

Since the forest is quiet at night they must approach silently. Their wings are especially adapted to this, because there are fuzzy feather edges that serve to muffle even the slightest sound that might otherwise originate from beating their wings in rapid flight as thier attack begins.

They swallow prey such as mice whole. The soft tissue of prey is digested and the hard tissue - hair and bones - are formed into small fur balls and expelled by mouth. The tiniest bones of the mice are still perfectly recognizable and these are used in early biology classes for anatomy study.

Owls have extremely good hearing too. They can indetify the exact location of a mouse several inches beneath a blanket of snow and pounce directly on it without ever seeing it - guided only by its scratching sound on the soil. Without this ability some owls might not survive hard winters.

Owls are attacked by smaler birds in the daytime, so owls usually perch against tree trunks and try to blend into the background and remain almost motionless. If an owl is discovered in an area habitated by song birds, the song birds will create such a disturbance that the owl often will have no choice but to fly away and hide elsewhere.

Unlike other birds of prey, owls eyes are always looking forward. Their eyes cannot rotate and therefore their entire heads must rotate when they need to look left and right.

Saw-whet Owl (full size) carved in tupelo wood and painted with acrylics. Owl: 7 inches; Overall: 13 inches
Saw-whet Owl

Saw-whet Owl (full size) carved in tupelo wood and painted with acrylics. Owl: 7 inches; Overall: 13 inches
Saw-whet Owl

Saw-whet Owl (full size) carved in tupelo wood and painted with acrylics. Owl: 7 inches; Overall: 13 inches
Saw-whet Owl

Snowy Owl (full size) carved in bass wood and painted with acrylics. Owl: 18 inches; Overall: 27 inches
Snowy Owl

Snowy Owl (full size) carved in bass wood and painted with acrylics. Owl: 18 inches; Overall: 27 inches
Snowy Owl

Owls Links

Joseph M. Boek · 1 Raymond Drive · Woodstock, NY 12498 · Phone (845) 679-7165
E-mail:joe@woodstock-carving.com