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The long-eared owl has tufts near its ears, which provide camouflage while it roosts in
thickets. Since these tufts stand straight up, they give the owl a surprised expression.
These owls hunt voles and other small rodents in flat grasslands but hatch their young
in dense areas using the abandoned nests of other birds, such as hawks.

Max Beckmann was a German Expressionist who was born in Germany in the 1880’s
and who died in 1950 in New York. He was known as a painter and a printmaker who
used clear black lines to delineate his subject. At a time when the art world was turning
towards abstraction Beckmann relied heavily on the human figure and often portrayed
them in biblical or allegorical settings. He painted one piece in 1929 titled “Rugby
players”. He portrays a tangle of athletic bodies in a vertical format, with the white and
black jerseys showing the opposing teams. The vertical format adds to the energy of
sport and forces the viewer to see the bodies stacked on top of each other as the white
team tries to push the ball over to score a try while the black team fights to keep the ball
out. This shows a memorable moment in any game.