There is a super species living among us whose admirable capacities and character exceed that of humans in many aspects.  This species lives everywhere throughout the Americas except in the Amazonian rain forest, above the Arctic treeline, and in the extreme south of South America.

This super species can see in the dark, hear a mouse beneath a foot of snow, swivel its head twice as far as a human can, mates for life, communicates, has a sense of humor, possesses a 500 pound-per-square-inch grip, is utterly silent when it moves, and is a superbly dedicated, devoted parent.  It is also a homebody.  Once it reaches adulthood and chooses its home, it rarely, if ever, strays from its 2-1/2 square mile home area.

I speak of the great horned owl.  This month (February) is its nesting season.  I know of no other bird or animal that has its young so early in the season.  The female great horned owl takes over an old hawk’s or crow’s nest and lays from one to five eggs therein.  With the weather being so cold in February, the eggs have to be sat upon and kept warm continuously.  The female can’t leave the eggs untended while she forages for food to sustain herself, so she and the male take turns incubating the eggs.  He probably also brings her food.

During the breeding season, if you’ll step outdoors anytime from evening to midnight, or just before dawn, you’ll hear your local pair of great horned owls talking to each other.  His series of hoots is lower pitched than hers, but she’s the bigger bird.  Their hoots carry so far that they can hear one another from one end of their 2-1/2 square mile range to the other.

The owls sit upon their eggs for five weeks.  They’re fiercely protective of their nest.  They’re devoted parents.  Woe to any intruder that tries to disturb their home or to harm their babies.  The owls are big enough, and strong enough, that they can do serious damage to creatures much larger than themselves.

When the eggs hatch around the first of March, the parents’ real work begins.  The owlets still need to be kept warm, and they have to be fed, too.  Their parents are excellent hunters.  Not only do they have superb eyesight and hearing but because the edges of their feathers are not smooth, but rather ragged and fringed, owls can fly perfectly silently.  You can hear the wingbeats of a goose overhead, but not of an owl.  The owls drop soundlessly from the sky upon their unsuspecting prey.

On each foot they have four long talons.  With two talons in front, and two behind, they grip their prey, apply a 500 psi pressure, and crush it.  The skunk or cat, mouse or rat, crow, goose, or even porcupine never knows what hit it.  If a pressure of 500 psi was applied to our heads, they’d be crushed, too.

It takes a long time to raise a brood of baby owls.  They’re dependent upon their parents for over two months before they’re fledged out, can fly, and can begin hunting on their own.  The young owls remain in their parents’ territory, and under their parents’ supervision and help, until they’re ready to be adults, choose mates, and establish territories of their own.  Great horned owls probably make the sacrifice to lay their eggs in the uncomfortable month of February in order to give their young a maximum length of time to prepare for adulthood and life on their own.

They may be fly-by-night hunters, but they’re not fly-by-night parents—unlike some humans.  Neither are they casual in their marital relationships like some humans.  They mate for life.  They don’t spend much time together after the kids leave home each year, and you don’t hear them communicating then; but they remain in the same 2-1/2 square mile area, and are surely keeping track of one another.

The scriptures contain many lamentations about people who have eyes, but will not see; and who have ears, but will not hear.  People would do well to imitate owls, sharpen their senses, and open their understandings.  Owls are symbols of wisdom.  Maybe that’s because of their fidelity and good sense, which comes from proper use of their senses.

The owls’ eyes are the size of a human’s.  Like a human, their eyelids blink from the top down.  Unlike a human, their eyes are fixed in their heads.  In order to see something to the side, an owl must turn its head, and look right at the object.  We’d do well to give such direct attention to our tasks and concerns.

With eyes fixed in their sockets, and needing to turn their heads in order to see, owls have the ability to swivel their heads and to look almost directly behind them.  Their heads can swivel over 270-degrees.  With such superb eyesight and hearing, there’s no sneaking up behind an owl.

Farley Mowat wrote a couple of fun books that tell of the experiences he had as a boy when he kept two great horned owls as pets.  Owls in the Family and The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be are worth reading.  It was in The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be that he told about Wol, the great horned owl that took great pleasure in teasing Farley’s dog.  The dog tried to not nap when Wol was around.  Wol would watch, and as soon as the dog fell asleep, he’d begin his stalk.  He’d carefully walk across the lawn, taking perhaps an hour to reach his target, and then pounce on the sleeping dog, bite his tail, and fly up into a tree where he’d observe the dog’s consternation and nervousness.

The owl obviously had a sense of humor, though the dog failed to see the humor in the game.

Jacob, in the Book of Mormon, pled with us to repent and to keep the commandments.  He made the best case he could, and then said simply, “O be wise; what can I say more?”  (Jacob 6:12).

We’d do well to be wise as owls.