Owls may not be silent fliers, but they are nearly so. In part this is because owls have low wing loading—their wings are big in relation to their bodies—so their flight is buoyant and slow, as slow as five miles per hour for a big bird like a barn owl, which makes it quieter. (Owls need to fly slowly to stalk prey in open fields and to navigate through trees and other obstacles in forests.) But it’s the marvelous and unique feathers and structure of owls’ wings that really hush their flight.
