Today's animal of the day is the camouflage master, the long-eared owl.

Long-eared owls have an impeccable ability to blend into the background, despite their yellow and orange coloring. They spend their days tucked up in some shrub, hiding away, and come out at night to hunt. Their diet primarily consists of rodents, amphibians, and small birds.

The long-eared owls are long and lanky, and many people claim their faces seem frozen in surprise. Their long ear tufts typically point straight up and over their eyes like an exclamation point. However, they are incredible flyers with an acute sense of hearing. They can track and catch their prey even in the dead silence of the night.

Fun Facts

• Long-eared owls are active at dawn and dusk and sometimes at night. They use their advanced hearing to locate and hunt prey.
• Their diet consists of small reptiles, birds, rodents, and sometimes amphibians.
• Long-eared owls make use of abandoned nests during the breeding season. Without abandoned nests, the long-eared owl will make a nest on the forest floor.
• Long-eared owls are preyed on by eagles, hawks, and foxes.
• The average long-eared owl can live for 60 years and weighs 300 grams.
• Most long-eared owl populations practice monogamous ties with one partner.
• The eyes of a long-eared owl are orange or yellow.