Barn owl

• Acute hearing lets it locate mice and voles in total darkness by the faint noises they make while moving or eating
• Superbly sensitive binocular vision allows it to spot small mammals on the ground by day or in dim light
• Flies silently — the soft, comblike tips of its wings and its feathered legs muffle wind noise

WHERE IN THE WORLD? In open grasslands, wetlands and semidesert in North and South America, the Caribbean, central and southern Europe, much of Australasia and Africa; absent from the far north and much of Asia and Antarctica.