Owl Owl Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes, which includes about 200 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 polar ice caps and some remote islands. Owls are divided into two families: the true (or typical) owl family, Strigidae,
The Birds (film) as they carefully escort Melanie to the car past a mass of birds nearby. The car slowly makes its way through a landscape in which thousands of birds are ominously perching. Residents in the town of Capitola, California awoke on August 18, 1961 to find sooty shearwaters slamming into their rooftops and their streets covered with dead birds. News reports suggested domoic acid poisoning (amnesic shellfish poisoning) as the cause. According to the local "Santa Cruz Sentinel", Alfred Hitchcock requested news copy in 1961 to use as "research material for his latest thriller". At the end of the same month,