Long Cold Winter

Brief sunshine and blue skies between the snowfall. Beautiful!

I read something interesting recently. Apparently here in Scotland (and the whole UK I suppose) we are on the same latitude as Siberia. The only reason we don’t have the same cold and extreme weather as over there is because of the Gulf Stream bringing a more temperate climate.

Drifting snow at the Scottish Owl Centre last week

You could have fooled me lately!

They say we have ‘unseasonably late’ cold weather, and for March that’s true, but looking back at my blogs from twelve months ago I find I was complaining about the heat and how I was having to water the plants twice a day – in March!

Now that’s a Snowy Owl!

Serves me right I suppose, I should learn to shut up and take whatever weather comes our way.

That’s hard for me though, when I worry about what it is doing to the owls in the centre. At this time of year we have trained birds at their lower ‘hunting weight’ but they need that extra bit just to keep going. If they get too much food they don’t fly, so it’s a difficult balance sometimes.

We also have birds sitting on eggs. This week I was counting up on the ‘Breeders Board’ and was happy to write on our tenth species laying eggs. Our female Siberian Eagle Owl has surprised us all by laying 6 eggs! Some eggs have been due to hatch lately too. A brief window of mild weather a month ago fooled some of the owls into breeding early; a week early for our Great Horned Owls, two months early for the Ashy Faced and White Faced Owls. Now we have had two weeks of bitter easterly wind and light to heavy snowfall most days and it’s starting to take its toll.

Yesterday I had a niggling worry that the female Great Horned was spending too long off the nest on her ‘loo break’. At the end of the day I gave in to the niggle and went in to check on the nest. Now these owls are not best pleased when someone goes in their aviary, and they do have the reputation for being the most aggressive owl in the world… but this pair seem to recognise that I don’t mess around and just want to keep out of my way. Good plan owls! Well I climbed the ladder and found the nest empty. There were two eggs on the ground, thrown out of the nest during the blizzards on the 13^th and 16^th of the month – right bang in the middle of the hatching period. One egg had been fertile and an owlet was well developed when it was thrown out into the snow. A real shame, but we remind ourselves that this is still pretty early in the year and breeding season for these owls. There is plenty of time for this pair to ‘recycle’ and try again, and this is something they have done once before. (Go look back at the blog for this date last year) Fingers crossed for them then.

My fingers are remaining so crossed these days and it’s so cold I’m surprised I can move them apart! It’s freezing!

In better news, we passed our second Zoo Inspection in the last week. The inspectors seemed really pleased and happy with the work done at the centre over the last 12 months, and liked what we have planned for the coming months and years too. This was a big relief for me as I’d always approached these inspections with some trepidation before I came to work here in Scotland. This inspection went so well I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming! So that’s us good to go until 2016 and our next inspection to renew our zoo license.

Well I think I’ll finish up this chilly blog with a chilly pic of a chilly owl. Here’s a close up of Hudson the Great Horned Owl with a dusting of snow on his head.

Snowy Owl? No it’s Hudson the Great Horned Owl, covered in snow!

The Stars (are out tonight)

The Stars (are out tonight) … and I hear owls hooting. Living next door to the Scottish Owl Centre means that from my sofa I can hear Great Horned Owl, Siberian Eagle Owl, MackInders Eagle Owl, Barn Owl, oh and the local wild Tawny Owl that comes calling on our female Tawny’s in their aviary

Well it’s March 2013 and the sun was shining most of the day today. To be fair we’ve had a run of a few sunny days lately. The owls, staff and visitors alike have all been enjoying the sunshine. It’s still cold at night though, reminding us that Winter has not finished with us yet.

It’s been a good long while since my last blog. My falling out with WordPress last year meant I was faced with finding another host, or hopefully using the blogging capabilities of the owl centre website. That wasn’t possible so I’m back to square one. Our new website is now live on the internet and looks really good, and has this WordPress link incorporated so I’m going to give WP another chance.

So what has happened since last year? Well, lots, I suppose is the short answer. We closed the centre to the public over December and January and reopened on 1^st of Feb. During the closed period I had intended to get all of the maintenance work that needed doing around the centre all done and finished in time for opening. The winter weather put some of the work on hold and some stuff still needs better weather to get to work on. Painting for example. But I’m happy with what we did get finished.

One of the very first things we did when the doors shut was to take down the majority of the barriers that ran along the front of the aviaries around most of the owl centre. They weren’t really necessary, and it was always my hope we could phase them out. Without them visitors with disabilities have better views plus staff and volunteers cleaning aviaries can reach without a lot of hassle now. We left the barriers around the Great Horned Owl aviary, as they are very aggressive birds, and also the MackInders Eagle Owls as in my experience they can be aggressive too, if you happen to get one that way inclined. It turned out to be a good idea for different reasons though. We got in a new male MackInders last year, and he has chosen the perch right up at the front of the aviary to be his favourite place. People can stand by the barrier, two feet from him, and he does not move, so people get to see him close up but he doesn’t feel threatened enough to fly away. He’s a great bird though, and currently hooting away telling the female that the breeding season is here!

We’re seeing more signs of the breeding season’s arrival around the centre. The Great Horned Owl female has been sitting on eggs for nearly two weeks now, a week earlier than last year. Much earlier though is the Ashy Faced Owl. They (like the Great Horned) raised two owlets last year in the same aviary and same nestbox, which was unusual too, as they normally only have one owlet. I think this all means that they like the new location for the owl centre, prompting unusual behaviour. If these eggs hatch okay we will be rearing one of the owlets for our Flying Display team. Sadly we lost our trained Ashy Faced very recently. ‘Prince’ was loved by everyone at the owl centre, particularly me, as I had taken him into my house on extended recuperation a couple of times in the last year. He was a very friendly happy soul, willing to fly for anyone and as many times as they liked in our Display Arena, or just sit near you and chill out. He just had a nice character and disposition. I was really shocked to find he had died when I went to check on him. He had been fine in the morning, fine when I finished work, but died before my bedtime. I had been looking after him in my spare room, a habit of zoo keepers and animal carers around the world I guess, and he had been recovering really well from a serious wing injury sustained during the coldest temperatures encountered here in December. We sent for a post mortem but the results could not show any cause of death. It’s a mystery, and very very sad, but we won’t forget him and must move on, must continue the good work he started in our conservation talks for his ‘most endangered’ species in our collection.

We have lost, in my opinion, more than our fair share of well loved owls in the last year, including the centre’s ‘founding’ Barn Owl ‘Dylan. Each one we lose saddens and upsets us, but as long as we do our best to give them as long and happy a life as possible then they repay us with fond memories that last our lifetimes too.

Back to this breeding season. Along with Great Horned and Ashy Faced Owls on eggs, our Southern White Faced Owl is on eggs about two months earlier than expected, our Ural Owl has been sat in the nest for three days, and our Indian and African Spotted Eagle Owls may be days away from nesting too. I was pleasantly surprised this afternoon to see that the female Boobook Owl was sitting inside the nestbox looking out, and the male was perched nearby looking quite relaxed. We hadn’t thought this pair were getting on very well, and had been watching camera recordings of their behaviour over the last week. The male had been calling to the female but she had been ignoring him, hiding behind a post. The male had been inside the box during the week but now the female has taken that place. I hope it means they have bonded after all, it would be great to breed them this year.

Signing out for tonight, I hope it won’t be as long before my next blog update.

Goodnight ‘owl.

Midnight Oil

Title is a reference to how long this blog thing is taking me to post. How can something that so many people use be causing me so much grief? My last blog entry took three hours and three re-writes due to WordPress losing all of the formating then all of the text, causing me to do the whole thing again.

Well anyway enough of the moaning I’m here now.

Since the last post we’ve had a very wet week here in West Lothian. Days of persistant rain can get anyone down, so no real surprise then that some of our owls were feeling literally ‘under the weather’. A few of our trained flying display birds were wet and bedraggled, grounded and weak, so needed a little TLC and a few days in our Recovery Room until the weather improved. This worked well for them and they perked up enough to return to their own aviaries, but what about the collection owls? Well that’s a different thing. Our trained birds are handled every day and we quickly notice changes in their behaviour or moods, from this we can act accordingly. The other owls aren’t so easy to read. Owls, and many other birds and animals, will hide any weakness to avoid predation. They won’t show that they are sick or injured until they really can’t hide it any longer. Unfortunately for us trying to care for their welfare this sometimes means that by the time we see something is wrong, it is too late to fix the problem.

Sadly this was the case for one of our Western Screech Owls on Saturday. It had been sitting up in it’s usual perch beside it’s mate on Thursday and Friday, but a volunteer found it on the ground looking ill on the Saturday morning. Picked up and moved to the Rec Room it was apparent that the bird was in a very bad way indeed. There were no outwardly obvious problems, it wasn’t soaking wet, there were no injuries visible, no breaks, it was well fed (keel bone could not be felt through the feather and muscle), but it was sleepy and shivering. Left in the Rec Room but checked regularly the poor owl deteriorated until it was unable to stand, then passed away mid-afternoon. We don’t know as yet what the cause was, quite possibly some internal problem like a tumor, but being cold and wet may have brought the situation to a head. We will await the Post Mortem results anxiously.

So Saturday was tinged with sadness for all of us at the Owl Centre, but as is always the way when working with animals good things balance out the bad.

On Sunday we had another of Dean Bricknell’s photography workshops and as seems to be the way, he brought the sunshine along again. One of the great things about the location of the Scottish Owl Centre now is the wonderful resource that is Polkemmet Country Park. When the weather is favourable we can take owls out into the park that surrounds the Centre and photographers get some great natural looking pictures. I barely recognise Hosking the Tawny Owl in the photographs that have come from previous workshops, even though I see him every day he just looks like a wild Tawny that you would find out in these woods. Spock our Long-eared Owl is just a superstar in these workshops too, so patient and a natural poser! If only the midges had given us a break the day would have been perfect. Why are midges still around anyway? Oh well.

In the afternoon flying display I took a leap of faith and chose to debut Fetlar the young Snowy Owl in front of a public audience. It was a bit chaotic, with Fetlar still learning to fly in the large space that is our indoor display arena, but the fact he/she flew at all was a great result. It all takes practice of course, so each day we will continue with the training both with and without audiences. I have never flown a Snowy Owl before and there is just something magical seeing these big white birds in flight. If you don’t believe me, come see for yourself!

In contrast to our big white arctic owl, we are also training an owl of the desert… Our Pharoah’s Eagle Owl is around the same age as Fetlar, about 5 months or so, but had little human contact or handling after being creche reared and moved up to our Centre. We have been taking training very slow and gentle with this bird and we had a breakthrough on Thursday afternoon. She had been coming cautiously over to take food from our fingers for a while, but on Thursday I managed to get her to take the next step and fly to a perch then fly to the glove for a food reward. I was surprised to find she then sat happily on the glove waiting for more food rather than fly away again straight away. She did three short flights to my glove on Thursday and I called that a win and left it at that. On Friday she did it all again for Centre volunteer Ian, and again each day since. She is a beautiful owl and smart enough to remember what is expected of her each day. I can see us moving her training on to flights in the arena very soon at this rate.

I think I’ll call it a night with this short update, get it posted and get some sleep ready for work in the morning.

Gnite all.

Back in Black

Welcome to the return of my blog! After a summer haitus in which I had expected to migrate over to new software, I am returning to the WordPress version for the time being. I hope whatever technical problems I encountered before have been resolved during the break.

So, what has been happening at the Scottish Owl Centre? Too much for me to say in one blog that’s for sure! A summary of recent events would be that we have been busy! Last week we had new owls arrive, five school visits, a photo workshop and some decidedly undecided weather!

Today started a little differently from the norm. As well as the daily clean of the aviaries we needed to catch up the two juvenile Great Horned Owls to take feather samples. This was needed so that we can have the DNA tested so we know the sex of the birds. It often surprises people to learn that this is the most reliable way to tell male and female apart, but as plumage is almost identical in the majority of owl species there is little else to go by. You could go by size perhaps, as the females are larger, up to a third larger, than the males. This isn’t very reliable though as individual birds may be big or small, a big male the same size as a small female for instance. As another owl centre is looking for a male to pair up with their female we had better be sure we definitely have a male to send them!

Great Horned Owls are THE most aggressive owl in the world. Parents will be doubly so if they believe their offspring are under threat. With this in mind we took a net, thick welding gloves and two large pet carrier boxes round to the aviary along our Boreal Boulevard. Our task had to be done before the centre opened to the public, for obvious reasons. As I have caught up many ‘angry birds’ in my time working with owls I went in with the net first. The adult male was my first target – the one most likely to attack. I wasn’t that worried as the birds would not be too wound up at this time of year, but he needed to be secured if we were to spend any time with staff inside the aviary. The owlets are around 6 months old now so old enough to be learning to look after themselves in the wild. The parents wouldn’t be as defensive as a few months ago that’s for sure. Still, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

When I stepped into the aviary the four owls took one look at the net and decided it was ‘every owl for him-or-her self’ and flew in all directions. It was hard to keep track of which one was which when they were on the move but I followed the male until I got the net in his flight path. Netted and carried over to one of the pet carriers he was soon inside and put out of the way. Next target was the adult female. I got her pretty quickly but before I could get her into the carrier one of the owlets blundered into the side of the carrier and got a talon stuck. I put the net down and got hold of the owlet in my gloves. His talon wasn’t jammed in so I retrieved the bird and restrained it in my arms. It sometimes feels odd to be cradling an owl like a human baby but it really is the most secure way to handle them!

With my hands full now I asked Lobo, one of our trusty volunteers, to put the netted female into the waiting carrier. Lobo has handled many scary beasties both big and small while working in zoos so I knew he could cope with this owl with ease. Job done we were ready to collect our feather samples…

My fellow keeper Lauren entered the aviary with the necessary equipment and as quick as possible plucked a few feathers from the breast of the owl in my arms. Having a moment to get a good look at the owl I was pretty sure this one was male. The markings were similar to those of the adult male, and this bird lay quite still as I held it firmly. In my experience the males usually do this, while the females put up more of a fight! It didn’t take long for Lauren to finish taking the sample, then she sealed the plastic bag she had put them in and labelled it ‘small’. While we were doing this Lobo had netted the other youngster. As we were done with the first owlet I released it to the further end of the aviary from where we were standing and then retrieved the other owlet from the net. Oh boy was this one feisty! Noticeably bigger and stronger than the first owlet, angrier too, this was definitely a girl in my estimation! Restraining this one I felt the owl’s strength as it squirmed and writhed in my grip. I decided to try to calm her down a little by covering her eyes with one of my gloves. It worked for a while, long enough for Lauren to take three or four feathers from the breast again. Bagged and labelled ‘large’ she was done. I released the owl to join its sibling and we all started to depart from the aviary. I was the last person in and released the adults one at a time; the male last. The four birds flew up to their nest shelf for safety and the male gave his territorial hoot; telling us in no uncertain terms he was displeased. We left them in peace!

While all of this was going on our centre still needed cleaning, thankfully covered by volunteers Jo and Gavin. Sometimes there just isn’t enough time in the day to get all the routine duties done before opening time and our first flying display, but with enough help like today we had everything covered well.

The rest of the day was a breeze after the adrenaline rush of catching up four of the most aggressive owls in the world!

The three flying displays went well, with seven different species of owl flying today. At the end of the day we just had time to squeeze in a training session for one of our newest team members…

Fetlar the Snowy Owl is almost five months old now and almost ready to join the display team in the arena again. Yesterday’s training session went well, and was filmed and uploaded onto YouTube by Lauren. You can watch it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoEclv4fsU4, and also a video of Fetlar singing in the bath http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_s9lSZq818 after a triumphant flight!

Right, time to wrap up this blog. I hope it uploads okay, and I hope I can log back in smoothly next time. Not sure when exactly next time is so keep your eyes peeled!

Bye for now!

Smells Like Surgical Spirit

Quite an odd day at the Scottish Owl Centre today. Well, it’s not every day you take an adult male Snowy Owl to the local vets to have laser surgery (thankfully).

We’ve been monitoring the bird since the beginning of the year, and those who have followed this blog since January may remember the first time we called out the vet it was to look at the large swelling on the owl’s left wing. The diagnosis then was that this was a benign lump of fatty tissue, a xanthoma, and that the bird was not affected by its presence. In the last few weeks we have seen it become more prominent, possibly due to the hot weather. The bird was caught up at the weekend when we had a spot inspection by animal welfare inspectors and the decision was made to seek veterinary advice once again. (More on that inspection later).

Our local veterinary practice is very modern and well equipped and this morning a surgical laser was used to cut the lump off. The male Snowy is quite a calm bird once in the hand and so the vet decided that a local anaesthetic would be the best choice for the procedure. Once the area was frozen we all had to don protective goggles as the vet used the surgical laser to cut the tissue away. I won’t go into more gory detail but it was quite fascinating to observe. As fascinated as I was, after 45 minutes of this I was beginning to feel a bit hot and stuffy. I was wrapped up in four layers this morning, including waterproofs for the heavy rain, plus my ‘summer cold’ meant I could barely breathe. I thought I just needed to cool down but when the vet suggested I step outside for a moment I suddenly felt a bit wobbly! The cool air hit me and for one of the first times in my life I felt faint! I had to sit out the rest of the operation and hand over to Rod to handle the owl. Another 45 minutes later and the procedure was all done. I was disappointed not to have seen the whole thing through as I wasn’t squeamish about any of it, just overheated. The main thing though was that the Snowy Owl was sat up in his carry box looking a bit indignant about what had been done to him, but otherwise looked okay.

The prognosis from the vet was good. The lump had been an abscess and was removed quite easily. He felt that the bird could be observed for an hour or so then released into its aviary. Erring on caution we decided to keep the owl indoors overnight and see how it fares.

After a breath of fresh air and a trip back to the owl centre I was feeling more myself, a ‘medicinal’ ice cream later, and I felt fine – like I’d been the patient all along! Oh dear, never mind!

Back in the centre we did some checking on the nesting birds this afternoon. A few disappointments, a couple of surprises, some good news.

Our Little Owl female is still incubating 5 eggs, but they’re a little overdue now. The Mottled Owl has given up and thrown out a single infertile egg. The African Wood Owl had done the same. The White Faced Owl has thrown out an egg with a fully grown owlet inside but is still sitting on two eggs – fingers crossed one is fertile and she doesn’t throw it out too. Not a good start…

Better news came from the Tropical Screech Owl nestbox. I’d noted that the female hadn’t come out of the box since her last infertile eggs were removed, checking today we found she has ‘recycled’ and laid 3 more eggs. Fingers crossed that this clutch are fertile! One of our two female Ferruginous Pygmy Owls has laid another 3 eggs too, making 9 between the two girls – we need to get a male this year!

Best news still came from the Ashy Faced Owls, who are feeding at least one owlet! I got a glimpse of a small grey-white head yesterday while investigating owlet noises. Today we didn’t go in to look but watched as the male took all of the daily food delivery up to the box.

Ashy Faced Owlets would be fantastic for the centre’s first season in the new location. We’ll keep a close watch on them and hope they make it through to fledging safely.

I wrote up a list of nesting attempts made this year and came up with 15 species – not at all bad considering all the trauma and ordeal of moving to the new site. Even if we didn’t get any more owlets this year 15 species with eggs is a very respectable first season and gives us a lot of scope for next year. We’re not done with 2012 yet so let’s keep hoping for more fluffies this year!

Okay that’s my lot for tonight, I’m signing off and heading to bed. ‘til next time, goodnight.

Pole position

Well the heatwave seems to be over with us for the moment, and this morning there was a little moisture in the air. No rain though. Just as well really as we had another school visit booked for this morning.

This was our second school from the Edinburgh region, just a little way down the motorway really, and they easily arrived for ten o’clock. We’re starting to get into a pattern that suits most with the schools now, and began their visit with a short guided tour ‘Walk to the North Pole’. The children were primary 4 age and so were pretty clued up on the need for camouflage, food chains, and taking care of the environment topics. It was nice to get some thoughtful questions from the children and well thought out answers to my questions too.

Finishing at the ‘North Pole’ the children then had some time to explore the owl centre as they looked for the answers to ‘Professor Hoot’s Tough Test’ on the information boards and in our education zone. After all that running about and thinking they were ready for a sit down and so met up with us in our indoor display arena. We flew some of the trained owls for them with more good questions and answers throughout. We had some other visitors in at the same time and they seemed to enjoy the session as much as the children did.

The afternoon was quieter, not just because the school children had left to go back to school! We had a steady flow of visitors and Poncho the Tropical Screech Owl made an appearance in one of the afternoon shows. The contrast between this tiny owl and then Hudson the Great Horned Owl was quite something and the audiences were fascinated. It’s nice to have Poncho in the team now and he is proving to be a pretty steady and good natured owl, happy to be in the shows and to have his photo taken with the public.

We usually feed the collection in the afternoon and while volunteers Karen and George were taking the feed buckets around today I heard a familiar sound coming from the Ashy Faced Owl aviary. Were my ears deceiving me, or was that the sound of an owlet? Hmm. Well with a few people to act as witness we were pretty sure we did indeed hear the tell-tale hissing made by babies of the Barn Owl family to which the Ashy Faced belong. The male had taken food straight up to the nest the second it hit the floor of the aviary and passed it to his mate. She began to rip it up into pieces small enough for tiny beaks to swallow, and this was when we were hearing the owlet noises.

I’m hesitant to get too excited about the prospect of owlets here after such a run of bad luck so far this season. This pair have been reliable breeders in previous years though, so should be steady enough to keep looking after their young. The Ashy Faced Owl is probably the most endangered owl in collections in the UK so this makes them the main target species for us to breed. I’ll keep my excitement reigned in for a day or two as I don’t want to be disappointed with such an important species for the centre.

I’ll leave you tonight with a up to date picture of our two Great Horned Owlets, taken this afternoon with my shiny new camera. Enjoy, and good night!

Sleep well Sam

Today was a very tough and very sad day for us at the Scottish Owl Centre. Sam, the American Barn Owl we were hand rearing to join our flying display team died quite suddenly.

At just six weeks old this is a tragic thing to have happened. In my last blog I mentioned that the owlet had not been eating as much, and although since then it had taken more food, this morning it passed away. It was very quick and sudden, one minute seemed fine but the next gone. We will see if the vet can find what was wrong but sometimes these things just happen without reason.

While we are all upset it is some comfort to think of the little owlet as being a happy and curious little soul, and brightened our lives if only for that brief time with us.

Sleep well now Sam.