Barn Owl Swooping Low To Hunt Coloring Page

This is the only bird in the set with a proper barn owl face, a smooth heart shaped disc with no tufts at all and two dark eyes set high in it. Both wings are up rather than out, angled back as the bird brakes, and every flight feather is drawn separately and then filled with fine parallel barring. The body is covered in small paired speckles rather than scallops, which keeps it light against the heavier wings. Underneath, both legs reach forward with the toes spread and the talons open, and the tail fans out into a wide pleated shape below. The background stays mostly clear except for small floating dots and a band of curling scrollwork that rises along the bottom and thickens in the lower corners. Barn owls hunt this way in near total darkness, listening rather than looking, and their two ears sit at different heights on the skull so a sound arrives at each one a fraction apart. Whatever you do with the wings, keep the face pale. A barn owl seen head on is almost white, and it is the reason people who catch one in headlights so often think they have seen something else entirely.