Birds do have ears, but they don’t have external ears. So, unlike humans and our big ear flaps (that came from gills, dontcha know?) they have, well, just a hole really.

She mentioned that Boreal Owl ears are particularly asymmetrical. In the Raptor Center lobby is a display of owl skulls, and drawers holding raptor wings, feathers, and feet.

Try to spot a flicker or woodpecker hole. Near the base of a tree with an owl nest, you'll find small piles of regurgitated pellets — the undigested bones and hair of the owls' prey.

Most of the time, as in the photo, the short tufts of feathers that look like ears are not visible. When alerted to danger the owl's little "ears" will spring up.

In “ What an Owl Knows” she offers an absorbing ear-tuft-to-tail appreciation of the raptor that Mary Oliver, a poet, called a “god of plunge and blood”. Owls, it seems, know a lot.

Inspect such nests for the telltale plumicorns (owl ear tufts) projecting over the top. About half of our great horned owls use stick nests, most of the others nest in tree cavities.