Owl Silent Swoop Depends On Down
Unlike the wings of most birds, an owl's wings have structures, including a downy surface, that render their flight virtually noiseless. Sophie Bushwick reports.
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Owls are nearly noiseless hunters, swooping down on prey without any warning whoosh. How do they do it?
We’ve known that the leading edge of an owl's wing has a comb of stiff feathers. And the trailing edge has a flexible fringe, unlike the rigid trailing edge of a conventional bird wing. These two features contribute to a structure that produces almost no noise as it rushes through the air.
Now it appears that these predators have a third trick up their sleeves—or rather, wings—that allow them to be so silent but deadly.
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Researchers modeled the effect of the layer of down on the wing’s top surface. And it looks like that fluffy stuff absorbs sound too. The work was presented at a meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics. [Justin Jaworski and Nigel Peake, Vortex Noise Reductions from a Flexible Model of Owl Down]
Mimicking owl wing down may lead to new sound-proofing materials. Down and the other silencing features could inspire wind turbines and plane engines that produce less noise and fewer vibrations. So that all we hear is [silence].
—Sophie Bushwick
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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