© c. 1991 Guy Coheleach ...Science Art-Birds

Title: Balancing Act, Great Horned Owl
Species: Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus)
Artist: Guy Coheleach (for further information, click on the artist's name)
Image size: 19" x 25"
Media: Acrylic on board
Date: c. 1991
Collection of the artist


The artist notes: In ‘Balancing Act,’ the Great Horned Owl has heard something behind him, and is turning to prepare to take off in that direction.  Although the scene is quite bright, it is unmistakably nighttime.  Painting the one while conveying the other is not easy.  Painting nighttime is very, very difficult. Few artists have ever done it really well, and I am not including myself among them.  There are various approaches, such as painting more or less normally but subduing the light so you can get the feeling that it’s a moonlit night.  That’s one way. You don’t have to paint owls at night.  If they are hungry, they hunt during the daytime—in among the trees, of course, so it is still pretty somber.  Owls do not sleep like we sleep.  Like cats, they are always alert, so it would be quite realistic to paint an owl in a tree during daytime, with his eyes open.”

Research suggests that sleep may have evolved as a mechanism to refresh memory circuits, especially in organisms that process extensive visual information. Cave-dwelling blind fish don't sleep, while marine mammals are thought to sleep one half of their brain at a time. Research is needed to determine where birds--from migrants who fly non-stop for days, to male waterfowl who manage to both sleep and stand guard over their mates, to nocturnal owls--fit within this spectrum. A brief discussion of unihemispheric sleep will be provided in the forth-coming book and book-related website, Humans, Nature, and Birds.