Sequence of perching and hunting strike events throughout a Barn owl foraging trip.

A) GPS tracks during a typical barn owl foraging trip where perching events (squares) and both unsuccessful (circles) and successful (triangles) hunting strikes are shown. Black arrows indicate flight direction. Successful hunting strikes were identified by the presence of self-feeding events or by the direct return to the nest box (using the acceleration data, ground-truthed with the nest box camera footage). B) The heave acceleration and the estimated force during a perching event (highlighted in orange) and a hunting strike (highlighted in purple). C) Variation in peak landing force for perching events (orange dots, n = 56,874) and hunting strikes (dark dots, n = 27,981). White dots show the estimated mean, and data distribution is represented by both violin and box plots. Owl picture at the top left of Panel A is courtesy of J. Bierer, and owl drawings are courtesy of L. Willenegger, all used with permission.

Pre-hunt landing force affects hunting success during sit-and-wait hunt.

Variation in hunting success according to the pre-hunt landing force (N), depending on whether owls initiated strikes from the wing (yellow) or from a perch (blue). Solid lines show the estimated means (averaged over both sexes) and shades corresponds to the 95% confidence intervals around each mean. The owl illustrations at the top right are courtesy of L. Willenegger, used with permission.

Sequential changes in perch type and reduction in landing force prior to hunting strikes during sit-and-wait hunt

A) Landing force during perching events in relation to the time until the next hunting event and perch type. Each line represents the predicted mean for each perch type (here shown for males), with the 95% confidence intervals. B) The selection of perch type in relation to time until the next hunting strike, highlighting the change in perch type that occurs ∼10 minutes prior to a strike. C) A sequence of perching events prior to a successful strike for a typical sit- and-wait hunt, showing the variation in peak landing force through time. White arrows indicate flight direction. The owl illustrations at the top of Panel A are courtesy of L. Willenegger, used with permission.