Night Flight

Big Picture Science

Science, Technology

4.5 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 January 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Owls are both the most accessible and elusive of birds. Every child can recognize one, but you’ll be lucky to spot an owl in a tree, even if you’re looking straight at it. Besides their camouflage and silent flight, these mostly nocturnal birds, with their amazing vision and hearing, are most at home in the dead of night, a time humans find alien and scary. Ecologist Carl Safina got to know an injured baby screech owl well. Their relationship saved the owl’s life and gave Safina insider’s wisdom about these aerial hunters of the night. Guests: Carl Safina – ecologist at Stony Brook University, head of the non-profit Safina Center, and author of “Alfie & Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe” Tom Damiami – natural resources interpreter, singer on Long Island, NY and leader of the Shelter Island Owl Prowl Gordy Slack – science writer, former senior editor of California Wild, the science and natural history magazine published by the California Academy of Sciences Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake Originally aired November 6, 2023 Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.
0:04.7	That way just got even better with the one and only Thierry-on-Ree, joining us as our new ambassador.
0:11.6	Expect big moments, great rewards, and much more.
0:15.6	18 plus T's and C supply, bet the responsible way gamblerware.org.
0:19.5	I'm Matt Kaplan, the host of Safeguarding
0:22.0	sound science, Evolution Edition. Evolution is the unifying principle of biology, yet it still breeds
0:28.6	controversy a century and a half after Charles Darwin. Join us as we meet the passionate
0:34.7	researchers and communicators who are expanding our knowledge
0:38.1	and fighting to keep good science in our schools and politics.
0:42.8	Subscribe to Safeguarding Sound Science on Apple, Spotify, Amazon,
0:47.4	or wherever you like to listen.
0:49.3	Music If you have a chance to get outside the city, away from the drone of traffic and glare of street lights, what do you hear?
1:06.0	Crickets, perhaps, cicadas, but if there are trees or wooded areas nearby, and you're lucky,
1:13.6	you might hear the call of an owl. It's an exciting and haunting experience.
1:18.6	Owls are such odd birds in the bird world. They're widely distributed, living on every continent except Antarctica, yet elusive.
1:29.2	They don't fly around making a racket, they sit and watch.
1:33.5	And with their extraordinary hearing and night vision, they occupy a sensory world unfamiliar
1:39.2	to most of us.
1:40.7	So what happens if we try to experience the world like an owl?
1:44.6	We'd surely become a little wiser.
1:47.5	This is Big Picture Science from the SETI Institute.
1:50.3	I'm Molly Bentley.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Big Picture Science, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Big Picture Science and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.