 there's something especially obsessive and fascinating about owls. Why is that? Why are owls singularly so interesting? Well, I think, first of all, they're utterly unlike other birds. They're just so unique. And as I said, there's something very familiar about them. We see ourselves in them. Most birds don't have forward-facing eyes the way that owls do. So they look like us. And at the same time, we see this suggestion of a whole other way of being. Most owls are night creatures. They move about unseen. They really reveal themselves only with their weird hoots and cries. And I think it's spooky how they appear out of the dark without advance notice. And living things aren't supposed to appear and disappear this way, but owls break the rules. And I think we kind of put them in a supernatural category for that reason. So I think it's this combination of things, the familiar and the strange, that makes these birds really so powerful.