ScienceWildlife watching like a scientist30 min★★ difficulty

Night shift: owls, bats and moths

When the day shift clocks off, a different wildlife clock in. This lesson looks at how night animals are built for the dark — and how closely related species can live very different lives.

Lesson overview

What you'll learn in this lesson

Understand differences between species and the variation between individuals of the same species

Key learning points

• The owl's toolkit
• The bat's sonar
• Splitting the night between them
• Same family, different lives

This lesson at a glance

30 minutes
20 parts to scroll through
4 quick checks
Marked quiz at the end
Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses

Words to know

differencesspeciesvariationindividualstoolkit

Scroll down — the lesson carries on below

Part 1 of 20 · Discover5%

Watch & discover

Part 1 of 20

Watch first

Night shift: owls, bats and moths

An English teaching video on this topic from Fancy Scientist. Watch it, then scroll down for the lesson.

In a nutshell

Understand differences between species and the variation between individuals of the same species

What you already know

Part 2 of 20

Before we start

What you already know

You know animals are adapted to their habitats and vary within and between species.

Key words

Part 3 of 20

Key words

Words you'll need today

echolocation: Using echoes of your own calls to map the world in the dark.
adaptation: A feature that helps an organism survive in its way of life.
niche: A species' role — what it eats, when it hunts, where it lives.

Learning cycle

Part 4 of 20

Learning cycle 1 of 2

Part 1 — Built for the dark

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

Explore the idea

Part 5 of 20

Learn

The owl's toolkit

A tawny owl's eyes are huge for gathering light, but its real weapon is hearing: one ear sits higher than the other, so a vole's rustle arrives at each ear a fraction of a second apart, giving an exact fix. Fringed flight feathers silence the wingbeats. The prey never hears death coming.

Explore the idea

Part 6 of 20

Learn

The bat's sonar

Bats shout into the dark — too high-pitched for us — and read the echoes. A pipistrelle can detect a midge and catch hundreds an hour. Different bat species call at different frequencies, which is how bat detectors tell them apart without seeing a single animal.

Quick check

Part 7 of 20

Quick check

A tawny owl pinpoints prey mainly using...

Quick check

Part 8 of 20

Quick check

Echolocation works by...

Reset break

Part 9 of 20

Pause

That's sitting 1 of 2 done

Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.

Stop here for now

Learning cycle

Part 10 of 20

Learning cycle 2 of 2

Part 2 — Sharing the night

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

Explore the idea

Part 11 of 20

Learn

Splitting the night between them

Owls take mice and voles from perches; bats take flying insects on the wing; moths feed on night-scented flowers like honeysuckle. Three groups, one habitat, three different niches — the night is divided up so they rarely compete directly.

Explore the idea

Part 12 of 20

Learn

Same family, different lives

The brown long-eared bat has ears nearly as long as its body and picks insects off leaves; the Daubenton's bat skims water. Same order, same night, different equipment. Differences between species like these — and the smaller differences between individuals — are what evolution works with.

Quick check

Part 13 of 20

Quick check

Owls, bats and moths can share one habitat because they...

Quick check

Part 14 of 20

Quick check

A bat detector identifies species by their...

Investigate evidence

Part 15 of 20

Evidence 1 of 1

primary

Tawny owl pellet dissection record

British Trust for Ornithology schools project, School field study

One pellet, 4 cm: skulls of 2 wood mice, 1 bank vole; 14 small leg bones; fur making up most of the mass. No bird remains. Pellet found beneath an oak branch overhanging a hedgerow.

Owls swallow prey whole and cough up the indigestible parts as pellets. Dissecting pellets lets scientists diet-map a predator without disturbing it.

Think like a historian

What does this single pellet tell you about the owl's hunting ground and its prey? Why is a pellet a better source of evidence than simply watching the owl?

Source: BTO schools owl pellet project recording sheet.

View the archive record ↗

Common mix-ups

Part 16 of 20

Common mix-ups

Things people often get wrong

Thinking bats are blind — they see reasonably well; echolocation is an extra sense.
Thinking owls hunt by sight alone — hearing does the pinpointing.
Assuming all night animals compete for the same food — niches divide the night.

Challenge round

Part 17 of 20

Game · Sort it

Which of these are true?

Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.

True

Not true

Challenge round

Part 18 of 20

Game · Fill the gaps

Finish the sentences

Choose the word that belongs in each gap.

Different bat ____ call at different frequencies, which is how bat detectors tell them apart without seeing a single animal.

____ between species like these — and the smaller differences between individuals — are what evolution works with.

Mastery quiz

Part 19 of 20

Marked quiz

End of lesson quiz: Night shift: owls, bats and moths

3 questions, marked with the reasoning shown. No timer.

1. An adaptation is...
2. Owl flight is silent because of...
3. A species' niche is...

Lesson round-up

Part 20 of 20

Lesson round-up

Ready when you are

Quiz score

Not sat

Games

Not played

Points this lesson

Best run

0 in a row

Luna: 0 out of 4 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?

Ask Luna

Do the work

Your written work for this lesson

This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.

Case study

Why the school greenhouse failed

A science club grew tomato plants in the school greenhouse. In June the plants grew well: leaves were dark green and the fruit set quickly. In July the club went away for two weeks and left the greenhouse door shut. When they came back, the leaves were curled and pale and most of the fruit had dropped.

The club had a data logger inside. It showed the temperature reached 46 °C on several afternoons and the soil moisture fell close to zero. The club knew photosynthesis needs light, water and carbon dioxide, and that enzymes in a plant work best in a narrow range of temperature. Above that range the enzymes stop working properly.

The club repeated the summer with the door propped open and a water bottle drip on each pot. Temperature peaked at 31 °C and the plants survived.

Written for Good Learning Co.

Reading questions

Name the variable the club changed the second time, and one variable they kept the same.
Explain, using the words photosynthesis and enzymes, why the plants were damaged in July.
Write a conclusion for the club's report, saying how far the evidence supports it.

Source for this lesson

Use this for the source work task below.

Tawny owl pellet dissection record

primary

British Trust for Ornithology schools project, School field study

One pellet, 4 cm: skulls of 2 wood mice, 1 bank vole; 14 small leg bones; fur making up most of the mass. No bird remains. Pellet found beneath an oak branch overhanging a hedgerow.

Owls swallow prey whole and cough up the indigestible parts as pellets. Dissecting pellets lets scientists diet-map a predator without disturbing it.

Source: BTO schools owl pellet project recording sheet.

View the original record ↗

Method and results
Writing
Write the aim, what you changed, what you measured and what you kept the same, then record your results in a table.
1 page + results table
Conclusion
Writing
Explain what your results show and why, using the scientific words from the lesson. Say how you know you can trust them.
6–8 sentences
Labelled diagram
Diagram
Draw the apparatus or the process in pencil, label it fully, and photograph it.
1 labelled diagram
Reading and notes
Reading
Read the lesson text again and write the key ideas in your own words.
Half a page of notes

Write your answer, notes or working here

Saved as you type.

Photos of paper work, diagrams or working outHow many minutes did the written work take?

Part 1 of 20 · Watch & discover

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