From Southwest VA Wildlife Center of Roanoke
We've gotten oodles of Eastern Screech-Owls (Megascops asio) this fall and winter! While it's normal to receive more raptors in the colder months, we usually see roughly the same amount of owls AND hawks... However, we've had mostly Screechies, and ALL have come in due to vehicle strikes!
They are expert nighttime hunters who sometimes like to wait by roadsides, since the open road makes it easy to spot their scurrying prey. Since they don't know to look both ways before swooping in for the kill, they are frequent victims of vehicle strikes, often resulting in death for the owl.
Luckily for the 6 Eastern Screech-Owls currently in our care, all of them had disabling but treatable head trauma, bruising, and eye abrasions from their collisions. Even when they're not feeling well, these tiny owls have BIG personalities and-to the human eye- very expressive faces!
This species comes in both red and gray morphs, with reds making up an estimated 1/3 of the Eastern Screechy's population. However, since we're on the eastern side of their range, we see the red morphs more often! This could also be a case of injured red Screechies being easier to spot on the side of the road, while the well-camouflaged grays go unseen more often.
If you haven't ever heard the hauntingly adorable song of an Eastern Screech Owl, treat your ears to some recordings at the link below! (The aforementioned link!)
They have a reflective layer in their eyes like cats? Makes sense.
This picture is showing them looking at the eye. It's a florescent dye that shows damage to the cornea. You might get this at the eye doctor, its the yellow drops. :)
You are both correct! I do think it looks like eye dye. I do have a post on eye damage I think I will share at some point. It's very interesting to me, but also a little gross, so I've been a bit hesitant to share.
As to the reflection, it turns out it is like a cat's eyes. It's a part of the back of the eye called the tapetum lucidum, and I put a bit about it in another comment on this post.
~~Ah. That explains it.~~ Thank you.
Turns out they have that reflective layer called Tapetum lucidum.
I don't know if it's so much a reflective layer. I tried looking this up for the recent Stygian Owl post. It sounds like the light hits the physical back of the eye (retina) and bounces back through that giant dilated pupil. With all the blood vessels back there, that gives that characteristic red eye from early digital camera photos. It's hard to find things that explain enough without being written in language only medical/veterinary people can understand.
Owls do have that semi-transparent third eyelid that cats have though! It's called the nictitating membrane.
So it's not reflective like in cats or deer. Just red... I mean yellow eye effect. Thanks.
It turns out I had an incomplete answer for you. The good news is now I have a better answer for you, and I also know a new bit of anatomy!
First I found this: (I left in some extra facts because they are good facts, but the tapetum lucidum turns out to be the specific thing we're after!)
Armed with that new word, I checked out to see if kitties have that same body part:
So that seems to tie all those stray facts together a bit more. Owls and cats can also get the same "red eye" as we get, but they also can get that yellow-green reflection depending on the angle the light is being sent/received.
Thanks! So they have it. With the right technical term in hands I found the wiki article. Cats, dogs, deer, owls. Usually nocturnal predators.
Spiders have it, too. Shine a flashlight on a summer meadow. Thousands of little lights will shine back on you. Spider eyes! :)
PS: really nice gif. 👍
I've been finding lately that sometimes asking the right question can be tougher than finding the answer on nice you know the right terms! 😅
I knew about the spiders too, but I never knew it was all the same thing in each type of animal or the exact reason why the phenomenon occurred.