KidWings

Science for Children of All Ages.

Up, Up, Owl!

A chick on its first flight, and a barn to get back to.

A barn owl chick has left the nest for the first time and has to get itself home. Hold the up and down arrows to climb and drop, slip past the branches and the fences, pick up the golden feathers on the way, and finish by flying in through the open loft window. Four flights, and the last one is at night in a storm.

How it works

Four flights home

The owl flies forward on its own and the countryside comes past it. All you do is decide how high it is, which is the whole of the first lesson a fledgling barn owl has to learn. The fourth flight is at night in a storm, and there the weather flies the owl as much as you do.

  1. 1Hold up, hold down

    Branches hang from above and fences and reeds stand up from below, and there is always a way between them. Hold a key and the owl climbs or drops; let go and it glides down gently.

  2. 2Catch the golden feathers

    They drift up and down on the way past, so you have to meet one rather than fly at where it was. Catching it is worth doing for its own sake: nothing is lost by missing one.

  3. 3Finish at the loft window

    At the end of each flight the barn comes into view and the countryside stops. The owl carries on towards it and you line it up with the open window at the top. Miss, and you try again.

  4. 4And then the storm

    The fourth flight is at night in the rain. The wind pushes the owl back down the screen, so there is less room to see what is coming, and the right arrow pushes it forward again. Rain makes it heavy, so it has to be held up. And there are cars.

The keys

two of them, and that is the whole game
Up arrow: climb
Down arrow: drop

On a phone or a tablet there are no arrow keys, so hold a finger on the screen instead and the owl flies to it.

What the owl is up against

four things that make flying hard, and all of them real
  • Low flyer! Barn owls often hunt close to the ground.
  • Road alert! Low-flying barn owls risk collisions with cars.
  • Rainy days! Wet weather makes hunting harder.
  • Wind warning! Strong winds make flying difficult.

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