Owl Time...

On Thursday 30th April and Friday 1st May, the children of Fairlop were very lucky to have 2 women, accompanied with owls, come and show us and explain how Owls live. The children all really enjoyed this! 

First the 2 women, Syrah and Jenna introduced themselves and then we met the Owls. They were beautiful, they had silky and soft feathers and humongous wings. We found out that there were 6 breeds of owls in Britain.  They are White Face Scott, Tawny Owl, Little Owl, long eared Owl, short eared Owl and the Barn Owl. In the entire world there is a total of 240 unique types of owls. 
After being introduced to these fantastic birds we were lucky to watch them soar gracefully above our heads. What we also learnt was that once owls have digested their meal of mice, raw meat, small insects and beetles the following day they produce small pellets, a small cube of what their prey was left of.

Then each class was given the opportunity to sketch the owls outside on Fairlop's field. The owls that they bought outside were perched on stands for us to draw. These were the Eagle owl, Tawny Owl and little Owl. 

These owls originate from many different parts of the world, which included Asia, Africa and Europe. Another outstanding opportunity the children were given was to have a photo taken with the barn Owl stood on their shoulder with a wonderful woodland theme behind them. Although the owls are nocturnal, the birds that we met were awake during the day. There were many facts that we learnt about the owls which were:

1. They have 3 dimensional hearing. This means that one of their ears could hear better than the other because they were higher.
2. Owls can turn their heads 3 quarters of the way around as their eyes are fixed to a certain place.
3. Owls are very quiet and elegant birds due to the fact that they need to hunt their prey, so they rely on their excellent sense of hearing to pinpoint where their prey is.

The children of Fairlop all really enjoyed this experience of a lifetime with the owls and would love to something like this again.

Thank you so much to Syrah and Jenna for coming

Taniya and Choi-ying  Class 5S