Owls

Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes, which includes about two hundred species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers adapted for silent flight. Exceptions include the diurnal northern hawk-owl and the gregarious burrowing owl. Owls hunt mostly small mammals, insects, and other birds although a few species specialize in hunting fish. They are found in all regions of the Earth except Antarctica and some remote islands. Owls are divided into two families: the true owls or typical owls, Strigidae; and the barn-owls, Tytonidae.

Quotes

Owls are not like other birds. I suppose one could say this about any avian tribe, but owls are particularly unlike, with layered dimensions of dissimilarity.
- Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds (2001), Chapter 2

Smallest of the British owls, the Little Owl is only 22 cm from head to tail, which is less than a centimetre larger than a Starling. ... Although Little Owls may be seen during the day, most of their hunting takes place at dusk or the few hours after dark and again around dawn. They will catch small mammals and sometimes birds, but most of their food is insects and earthworms.
- Bill Oddie and Peter Holden, Birds in the Nest. Robson Books Ltd. 1996. ISBN 086051983X.

While I am talking of owls, it may not be improper to mention what I was told by a gentleman of the country of Wilts. As they were grubbing a vast hollow pollard-ash that had been the mansion of owls for centuries, he discovered at the bottom a mass of matter that at first he could not account for. After some examination, he found that it was a congeries of the bones of mice (and perhaps of birds and bats) that had been heaping together for ages, being cast up in pellets out of the crops of many generations of inhabitants. For owls cast up the bones, fur, and feathers of what they devour, after the manner of hawks. He believes, he told me, that there were bushels of this kind of substance.
- Gilbert White, The Natural History of Selborne. 1st of 2 volumes. London. 1813. p. 261. (1st edition 1789)

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 574-75.

The large white owl that with eye is blind,
That hath sate for years in the old tree hollow,
Is carried away in a gust of wind.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Isabel's Child, Stanza 19.

St. Agnes' Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold.
- John Keats, The Eve of St. Agnes.

The wailing owl
Screams solitary to the mournful moon.
- David Mallett, Excursion.

The screech-owl, with ill-boding cry,
Portends strange things, old women say;
Stops every fool that passes by,
And frights the school-boy from his play.
- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, The Politicians, Stanza 4.

Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit;
Tu-who, a merry note.
- William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost (c. 1595-6), Act V, scene 2, line 928.

It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern'st good night.
- William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act II, scene 2, line 3.

The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders
At our quaint spirits.
- William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream (c. 1595-96), Act II, scene 2, line 6.

O you virtuous owle,
The wise Minerva's only fowle.
- Sir Philip Sidney, A Remedy for Love, line 77.

Then lady Cynthia, mistress of the shade,
Goes, with the fashionable owls, to bed.
- Edward Young, Love of Fame, Satire V, line 209.