Reddit reviews Owls Aren't Wise & Bats Aren't Blind: A Naturalist Debunks Our Favorite Fallacies About Wildlife

If you're really interested in it, I'd be happy to go find actual scientific articles for you, but I don't have any sitting at my fingertips. There's a book I'll attach the info for


But I do have personal experience working with owls and other raptors and parrots. This experience/others who have worked in falconry and with raptors in rehab and education have slowly taught me that owls are not intelligent in comparison to other species.


Owls because of their eye shape owls actually don't have much room for a brain. Because of this, that means that their brain is actually smaller then other birds, and depend more on their instincts (an important component of their brain) and superior senses.


To put it from a training point of view, an owl is much harder to train, and therefore doesn't always connect events.


Example: "if I fly to the glove, I get a mouse"
They tend to see "i fly to glove. Wow cool I got a mouse".


This doesn't mean it's impossible to train them, but it is harder and does vary among species of owls. This is actually why it's a lot less common to see owls used in falconry.

Don't get me wrong. I really appreciate owls. I think how they've evolved their senses to be so heightened is fascinating, it just has led to their brain being a little less evolved. All in all, it makes them very interesting to study and work with.

Once again, sorry for the lack of journal articles, I don't have my computer with me, but once again, if you'd like me to do the reesearch for you, I'd be happy too.