First, I bought a "Dalen's Life-Sized Great Horned Owl Natural Enemy Scarecrow" from Dalen Products Inc. Coincidently, My local Walmart is clearing them out for a mere $7.00. I cut the owl's head off with a hacksaw (I kinda enjoyed that part) making sure to keep the cut in a single plane. In addition to blinking, the owl's head turns back and forth.
Using a Dremel tool, I cut a semi-circular quarter-inch thick gash above each owl eye. The gash traces the outline of each eye. For eyelids I used two teaspoon measuring spoons (the hemispherical kind. I took an eyeball down to Walmart to find the right size. I wound up having to buy two sets of spoons). The measuring spoons' handles were cut back to about 1/2" so they would fit in the head along with the gearbox assembly. The spoons were pushed through the gashes from within the owl head, and were held in place by the sphericalness of the eyeballs. The 1/2" remaining handles act as levers to open and close the eyelids.
I used a gearbox assembly from one of the $12.98 12" animated Christmas figures (from Walmart) and hotmelt glued it into the owl head, positioning it so that the stiff wire that used to be the figure's arm will move just in front of the spoon handles. I attached a strip of soda straw plastic (again with hotmelt glue) from each of the spoon handles to the stiff wire. The motion of the stiff wire now makes the eyelids slowly open and close.
I ran the battery wires down into the owl body and attached a switch to the owl's butt. The infra-red motion control came out of a toy I bought from the clearance isle at Toy'R Us. For the owl head turning, I used another toy, a "snoring sleepy bear" whose chest rises and lowers on a timed circuit when its paw-switch is squeezed. I eviscerated the snoring mechanism from the bear, and soldered the leads from the bear's paw-switch to the motion detector's circuit board. I used a DVM to determine where I should solder the leads.
I then hotmelt glued every thing into the owl's body, positioning the snoring mechanism beneath the neck hole. The motion of the snoring mechanism pushes a lever attached to the owl head and causes it to turn back and forth when someone walks in front of the owl. I have the eyelids on a seperate circuit, so they are always in motion.
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bob@restin-petes.com