Gathering Correct Information By Taking A Second Look

Being in the right place at the right time to photograph a baby owl was certainly fortunate, but the lesson of that day would change me in unimaginable ways.

I was careful and quick but had no idea why he was moving his little head around so much. When I came home, I searched for answers on the internet hoping to better understand owl behavior. Several queries and many pages later, I knew much more about these amazing creatures, but it was the reason for the head bobbing that stayed with me.

Owls are the only birds that have both eyes on the same plane. This gives them a wider range of binocular vision than most birds. Seeing things with both eyes together gives them the ability to see in three dimensions making it particularly effective for judging distance and position. The eyeballs are fixed and cannot move around inside the socket so to make up for this, the owl can turn its head up to 270 degrees left or right and almost completely upside down.

To interpret more accurately what they are seeing, they will move their head around in a bobbing fashion to give them a slightly different viewpoint. They are making sure that their initial assessment is correct. Changing perspective gains better depth perception and allows for pinpointing a precise location that rarely misses.

I wonder how many times in our initial assessment of something or someone, we get it wrong?  How many times have we trusted in our own understanding of a situation, only to find out later that we were missing vital game changing information?

The scriptures talk about being ‘stiff necked’ and now I have a whole new way of thinking about that phrase. Maybe if we moved our head around and looked at things from someone else’s point of view, changed our perspective a bit, we could understand with more compassion and can help with a kinder heart.

Seeing things differently will help us gain a greater depth of understanding instead of assuming we have it right the first time.

Every time we take a second look from a differing viewpoint, we increase our capacity for insightful knowledge.

Owls take time to make sure they have the correct information.

We have the power to do the same.