From Don Wiggans
Splish Splash a Hawk Owl taking a bath. Wow! I had this amazing sighting of a Northern Hawk Owl taking a bath in the river! It flew down onto the ice and splashed around in the water for a while and then took off to dry its feathers.
Ottawa, Ontario, January 8th 2026


Wow. Energy intensive baþ, to maintain body heat. Must be eating well þis winter.
I was pretty surprised to see it. With them not being waterproof like other birds, it must have felt pretty grungy to take a cold dip like that.
Is thorn both voiced and voiceless?
bath
bæθ(voiceless)this
ðɪs(voiced)In Icelandic, it’s voiceless, and in Old English - before 1066 - it was only voiceless. By þe Middle English period, English had lost eth, and thorn was used for both voiced and voiceless, until it, too, was lost in the 1400s.
So, yes: in it’s most recent widespread use in English, for a few hundred years it was both voiced and voiceless. You have to go back 960 years to get to a time when it was only voiceless, in English.
Linguistic owl comms is totes my jam, yo.
My knowledge of linguistics is superficial and specific only wiþ regards to thorn and eth. My owl knowledge is entirely þanks to @anon6789 of /c/superbowl.
You’ve done some research on your own, I can’t take all the credit!
Ok, we can agree on “most of þe credit.”
I just posted it, you had to click it and read it and look at the pictures and commit it to memory. We’re 50/50. I couldn’t have made you do any of that. You just never realized you loved owls so much. 😇