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.

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.

A hop, a flap and a hoot

It’s been a good day to see progress from our owlets at the Scottish Owl Centre today.

Sam our five week old American Barn Owl made two more appearances at our ‘flying’ displays, to the delight of our audiences once more. Once s/he has been paraded for all to see close up, Sam is gently lifted out of the box and placed on the floor of the display arena. In the centre of the room, and centre of attention, the owlet is showing a growing skill for standing up and taking a few shaky steps. Last night in my living room I was astonished to find the owlet stood on the living room carpet looking very pleased with itself, having climbed through the hole at the front of the cardboard box! Each day now we will see a few more steps, then with growing confidence the young owl will be wandering around and exploring all over.

Out in the centre, the two Great Horned Owlets have made it through another night of awful weather. Wind and heavy rain persisted through most of yesterday and the night too. I was pleased to see both sunshine and healthy fluffy owlets this morning. Today the pair were doing their own exploring around their aviaries. By feeding time one was perched on the tree stump below their parents perch, and the second owlet stood on one of the rocks in the centre of the pen. As we stood admiring the owlet it launched into the air and flapped frantically. The flight was less than graceful but made it all the way across the pen to land, if land is the right word, on the tree stump with it’s sibling. There was a bit of a scramble as both owlets tried to balance and not fall off but they just about managed it. I made one last tour around the centre as I finished my day and passed by their aviary for another look. If I was surprised by that first flight you can imagine my delight as I saw one owlet perched high up with one of the parents! They sure are growing, and now they can start to fly they will be very entertaining to watch in their explorations! I hope they put on a good show for the school group visiting the centre tomorrow!

An update on our new African Spotted Eagle Owl. Having arrived the day before yesterday, she has settled in very well indeed. In her first night she ate three chicks, and three again the second night. Today I hooted at her and she responded. Now as each member of staff or volunteers goes past her we hoot and have a good ‘conversation’ with her. This afternoon we heard our male African Spotted, one of the pair along the African Avenue, joining in the hooting, then the male Siberian Eagle Owl joined in too! It’s nice to see not only that the new bird has settled okay, but that she has others to talk to (as well as the staff!)

Okay that’s it for today so until next time, gnite!

Opening day!

Whew what a day! The Scottish Owl Centre is now open and the first day went by without a hitch!

Last minute preparations began at daybreak. Even before I arrived at 7 there were joiners on site to finish off things around the site. The back gate needed completing and the owl climbing frame just one or two last details before it was done. Even with this there were things that still needed doing as opening time quickly approached. We cleaned the aviaries, tidied round and swept up sawdust, and finally the doors opened.

Visitors began to arrive, slowly to begin with but getting busier as the morning went on.

At ten thirty we gave our first flying demonstration in the display arena. With the birds still getting used to the new place and people they were a little hesitant but this was understandable. Kenya the little White Faced Owl was the first bird in the first show, and she did well considering she has only flown three or four times here even without an audience. Lofty the Barn Owl came next, thankfully in a really good mood today. Third out was Sarabi the Milky Eagle Owl. This was to be her first flying demonstration in front of the public since arriving at the Scottish Owl Centre so the pressure was on. At her previous home she was known to have a fear of pushchairs and buggies. Unfortunately the first thing she saw as I brought her into the arena today was a pushchair. I walked her to the end of the arena to the far perch but she was just fixed on the moving wheels and would not fly. I eventually got one small hop out of her then picked her up for a parade around the audience. Oh well, can’t be helped. I put her away to settle down until later in the day.

I have to say that my talk was a bit ropey to begin with. I am new to working with these particular birds and I was too distracted watching and thinking about where they were and what they were doing to concentrate on my words. This is only to be expected too so I wasn’t that worried. Practice makes perfect as they say.

The second display went better as we were getting into the swing of things. Hosking the Tawny Owl, Bruce the Boobook Owl and Oulu the Great Grey Owl flew in the second show. Hosking and Bruce did their routines well and the audience loved seeing the birds flying so close to them or just inches over their heads. Oulu was more spooked by the strange new situation, and like Sarabi would need a bit longer than the small owls to get used to it all.

 

 

By the third show we had a bigger audience and the birds were a bit more keen. I flew Hosking (my first time flying him) and Lofty, and the Barn Owl was just brilliant. He was very quick to fly and anticipate where I was heading, following on to the next perch or flying on ahead of me. I enjoyed the fun of neither me or the owl knowing where to head to next, Lofty often flying laps around the arena or switching back to land on a different perch. It was fun and the audience were laughing as much as I was! Last up was Sarabi again.

After her not budging in the first show I was more than a bit apprehensive about whether she would fly, but I didn’t have to worry. After a couple of minutes to settle she flew the whole length of the arena several times. I was able to settle into a pattern talking about the Milky Eagle Owl as she flew more reliably. By the end of the show I was very pleased with her. She definitely earned that round of applause, her first public flying demonstration probably for years!

We did a few photos for visitors holding Tiger the Brown Wood Owl or Sarabi and got a system working for the new camera and printer set up. We know now that even on busy days this set up will work well.

Finally as the day was coming to an end the collection owls all needed feeding. I was helped all day by new volunteer Veronica and I really have to say thanks to her again, she was invaluable today! What a day to start volunteering! She and another volunteer helper Stuart joined me feeding the birds. Woody the Tawny Frogmouth, sat in his aviary in the Rainforest Realm, was very eager for his food and flew like a shot to my glove to swallow a whole (small) rat in one gulp! I’d always thought these birds were slow moving but Woody is like greased lightning!

The collection birds themselves seemed to take the first day of public visitors well for the most part. I was aware that one of the Indian Eagle Owls, the young male, was quite jumpy in the afternoon as a crowd gathered around their aviary and the pond, but he wasn’t distressed or injuring himself. I popped by a couple of times to see he was okay but other than being jumpy and flying from one end of the aviary to the other he wasn’t too bad. I thought up an option of building a screen in one of the back corners for him to feel a bit more secure should it look like him not calming down over the next day or two.

So, that was our first day open to the public. No major problems at all and a steady build up helped us all settle into the swing of it all; just what was wanted from a ‘soft opening’ before the busier Easter weekend next week.

As you can imagine we were all exhausted by the end of the day so I’m going to sign off and get to bed, it all starts up again in the morning!

‘Til tomorrow then, goodnight!

Dirty deeds done dirt cheap

(A friend made a bet that I wouldn’t use this song title as a blog title, so I have!)

My day was spent catching up on the cleaning of the aviaries today. I didn’t do much else but then there was an awful lot of catching up to do. With weeks of freezing winter weather and no water supply, the aviaries were in quite a state.

Today was mild but not as nice as yesterday at all. The sunshine proved to be brief and today we had grey cloud and drizzle. I didn’t mind that at all as I was wearing full waterproofs for cleaning. It was tiring and dirty work. It isn’t always a glamorous job being a keeper, and that’s a fact. Anyone who wants to get into this line of work thinking it’s all about standing talking to people with an impressive owl on your arm, or flying one in a display really needs to think about the days like today.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining one bit. As I think I’ve said in another blog, once you have cleaned all the enclosures and stand back and look at them you do get a sense of satisfaction. Knowing that the animal that lives in that pen is in the best place, well looked after and well fed does give you a good feeling. Even when you are wearing clothes covered in mud, grime and owl droppings!

Well with there being so much cleaning to do I actually didn’t get all the way round in the day. To give each aviary a really good and thorough scrub and rake I only managed about a third of the centre on my own today. Imagine if all of the aviaries were built and occupied! (Like …next week!)  I really need to get into a daily routine and then it will only take a fraction of the time. Now all of the hosepipes and water supply are repaired I can start that routine.

So, guess what I’m doing tomorrow? Yep more cleaning!

One thing did make me chuckle on my rounds today though. While I was cleaning Lofty the Barn Owl’s aviary he followed me round, as if supervising my work. He is a friendly soul – especially now he’s at his flying weight, he’s more likely following to see if I will feed him! I had to laugh as he landed and perched on the rim of the bucket as I was scrubbing the droppings from the wall. I turned round to rinse the brush and found an owl sitting looking up at me! He did this everywhere I moved to. I put the bucket down, started to scrub at the wall, turned around and there he was again! He did get his reward, as did they all, once I called it quits for cleaning today. I went round with the feed bucket next and Lofty was first in the queue. Having said that, the Great Grey Owls were both ravenous again even though I feed them the same daily amount as the Snowy Owls, Siberian Eagle Owls and Great Horned Owls. Soon they will be in good fitness and condition, hopefully ready to breed by the end of March. Wouldn’t that be great? We already have Great Horned Owl eggs being incubated by mother owl, who will be next?

Oh well I think I’d better sign off and go get some rest ready for tomorrow, I’ll need it. Til then, gnite!

Big plans and small packages

Note; due to technical problems (my computer keeps crashing!) my blog didn’t seem to post last night. Here’s what I could salvage;

Today I could definitely feel that Spring is on the way – I was down to just three layers! The sun shined almost all of the day making it very pleasant indeed. There may be another cold snap at the weekend but there’s definitely a feeling that we’re getting through Winter now.

There was also a sense that we’re ‘getting there’ with the building work at the Scottish Owl Centre. The joiners were quickly putting together the framework for the last few aviaries to be built – Tawny Owl, Barn Owl, and one for these little guys;

We’re hoping to have a pair of these tiny owls arrive at the centre at the end of the month. They are Ferruginous Pygmy Owls and one of the smallest in the world! (Ferruginous means ‘rust coloured’, and they have lovely reddish brown plumage) I have worked with these birds before (where I took this photo) and they are amazing little things. We are including them in the unique Realm of the Rainforest feature we are developing.

We have a date penciled in our diaries for when these and our other new birds will arrive and I’m really excited about seeing them all arrive. There are one or two surprises in store too, but I shall save them for when they arrive

Right that’s all for this blog, nice short one for a change! Til tomorrow, gnite!

Bath Day for Dylan

While most of England shivers through the ice and snow it has been mild here in central Scotland today. Hopefully it will last this next week too.

With the rise in temperatures it has still taken until today for the ground and ice in the owls water dishes to thaw out. This made today – bath day!

During periods of freezing weather owls forego the bathing that they like and need to keep their feathers in good condition. Who can blame them? I certainly wouldn’t want to spend the whole day wet and cold in sub zero conditions! When the thaw comes the birds make the most of it. As I did my morning rounds to check on them all I saw that a good few of them had already taken the plunge. Female Indian Scops, male Ural Owl, female Great Grey Owl, even Tiger the Brown Wood Owl in our display team were all soggy and sitting with wings dripping in the weak morning sun. This was good to see. Unfortunately the one owl that I really wanted to see bathing was still perched up in the corner of his aviary looking decidedly dirty – Dylan the Barn Owl!

 I mentioned in my blog last week or so that he had a dirty face. For some reason since moving to the new site from the original Scottish Owl Centre in Campbelltown, Dylan has decided not to bathe. As I say I can’t blame him while the weather has been so cold for so long, but I have been growing concerned that not only is his face covered in dried food remains, he isn’t washing his ‘underparts’ shall we say. He does not seem ill and is certainly eating well, and will even fly in the arena with no hesitation, but he just won’t wash. Today I decided to take matters into my own hands – literally.

I’m sure many of you will have read about wildlife rescuers who have bathed oil covered sea birds or swans etc. In my last post I and my colleagues had to bathe owls that had fallen down chimneys or had sat in dirty nestboxes etc, but we had the benefit of facilities to do so. Here at the building site of the new Scottish Owl Centre, at the moment I don’t have water plumbed in to the ‘prep room’ – don’t even have working hosepipes until the plumbers come back to fix them this week! So how on earth do I bathe Dylan? Well what would he be bathing in if he did do it himself? His water dish. With a sigh I resolved myself to the task. Calling him down to my glove, I took hold of his jesses and dunked him in the water! It is only deep enough to call it ‘paddling’ really but it got him wet at least. Holding him in with one hand I used my other hand to try to clean off the dirt around his legs and tail, then to soften the dried food on his face. He wasn’t pleased as you can imagine! Having said that he could have been worse, he is a good natured owl. I felt so mean doing this to him. Mean old nasty me. I told myself that tough love was still love and did my best to clean him up. I didn’t get everything off but it was a good start. I left him standing in the water while I brought his food – this time de-yolked, as it is the yolk that has been drying on his face. He soon got over his sulk at being stood in water and pounced on the food. Later in the day I passed by and saw him sat on a rock drying out. Maybe now he’s been in the bath he will do it himself again now? If not I can see some more ‘tough love’ in his future!

Well now I was nice and covered in as much mess as Dylan was, it was time to train the display birds. Time for Owl School.

As always there were successes and … well not so successes. Prince was over his ideal weight and managed no more than two short flights for me. Kenya was still not intereseted, and even Sarabi the Milky Eagle Owl was less interested today. She did two or three flights the full length of the arena though so all was not lost. She also came out with me to do todays Meet the Keeper out in Polkemmet Country Park. Thanks again to Walter and Susan who came along for a second day! Sarabi did very well out and about again. She seems unconcerned by cars passing by, but still panics when she sees dogs. She didn’t mind a group of adult cyclists too much, but was freaked out by a child on a bicycle! Oh well never mind!

Todays surprise guests in the second training session this afternoon were Bruce the Boobook Owl, who did three short flights to my glove in the arena, and Lofty the Barn Owl. Now Lofty had been out yesterday but did not fly. Today he weighed 10 grams less and seemed a little more interested in flying. As Dylan had been so good flying in the arena a couple of weeks ago I thought Lofty would ‘just work’ once he hit the right weight. I thought wrong! Lofty decided he was going to make the rules up today and I would just have to like it. Instead of flying to my glove, Lofty went exploring…

Well I suppose if any owl was going to discover the tall perch in the darkened corner it was going to be a Barn Owl! He then flew two complete circuits of the arena before finding some other dark place to perch; the top of the door into what will be our ‘dark room’. Unrepentant at giving me the run around Lofty refused to come down off the door until offered a large enough piece of chicken. Lofty the Bad Boy!

*Sigh* Well you can’t win them all. Today I wasn’t winning any! Tomorrow as they say, is another day though.

I’ll leave you with a photo. I had some luck getting some nice pics of a couple of the owls this afternoon. Here’s a pic of the male Great Horned Owl (yes, Hudson’s father).

Til tomorrow, gnite!

Hudson has a good day.

We enjoyed a freezing cold but sunny day here in West Lothian today. Quite a good day for progress at the Scottish Owl Centre too.

Firstly, we acquired some more large sections of felled trees for our new aviaries, delivered to our door by the council woodcutter that we met last week. Some of these sections of trunk and large branches will take some effort to shift into position, but once in they will look great and provide good perching options for the owls.

The workmen were low in number today but high in motivation, and the roof for our Education Zone is now complete. Excellent! Our painter will be able to get over to there in the next few days. The joiners then moved on to the aviaries next door to the Education Zone, where we will have Milky Eagle Owls and MacInders Eagle Owls. Both are african species and quite big birds so the aviaries are nice and large. The aviaries only need a frame and mesh roof and perching and should be done by the end of the week.

Once those aviaries are complete the joiners will be putting more of the larger pieces of tree for perching into the Great Grey Owl aviary and starting on making some nestboxes. This will keep them occupied and then when the full team are in next week they will get onto the Tropical Zone and the British Owls section.

It was great to feel a sense of getting somewhere again after slow progress on roofing. For my part, I am looking forward to the indoor display area being wired and connected with electricity and the kitchen of the ‘prep’ room being plumbed in too. This will mean I have much better facilities for food preparation and for training the display birds. I hope our new digital scales will arrive in the post tomorrow, then we can start to weigh the trained birds and get a proper programme for getting them all in shape and at the right weight for flying. I’ve been flying Prince and Dylan, an Ashy Faced Owl and Barn Owl respectively, in the display area already, but being smaller owls it takes less time to get them down to the right weight.

Today I couldn’t fly any of the trained birds in the display arena, as the electrician climbing about on ladders and fitting cable conduit would have been too distracting. Instead I went back to working with birds in their aviaries. This means I can work on birds that are a long way off being ready for the arena, but get the idea that they need to fly to my gloved hand/arm to get any food. I had some great successes today and am very pleased. Firstly I managed to get Broo, the European Eagle Owl, largest and heaviest of our trained owls, to fly to the glove and sit there while eating. She did this a couple of times and that was enough for me. I then went on to try that with our Milky Eagle Owl, next down in size from Broo. She hasn’t been flying to the glove, even in her pen, for some weeks now due to the distractions of the wild Great Grey Owls bouncing around in the next pen to her. Even so, today she did fly and land on my arm and stay there while eating. A good success. I repeated this with Bruce the Boobook Owl too. These owls are from Australia and Bruce will be a great part of displays as we can talk about owls from far flung exotic places, as well as those that go ‘twit twoo’ in these parts too.

My major success today though, was with Hudson. I have mentioned in previous blog entries that these Great Horned Owls really worry me, a personal thing. I know they are very aggressive and I know they can do some serious injury if I get on the wrong side of them. Hudson has shown to be quite aggressive in his pen already, but as I am assured he is a good bird in a show I have vowed to overcome my phobia of sorts and get in there and go for it. Well today I went for it! Hudson seemed in quite a good mood, if such a thing exists for Great Horned Owls. He had a huge feed yesterday and today was just a little peckish. Taking some food and taking the plunge I opened the door and threw in some pieces of chicken to distract him. Stepping inside I found he ran over and attacked my feet. Not the best of actions but at least I couldn’t feel anything through the several layers of thermal clothing I was wearing! Placing a large piece of chicken on top of a post I was pleased to see him let go of my feet and fly up to the post. I had one more large bit of chicken left, so I placed that on my gloved arm and held it out. Calling his name once I was pleased again when he flew over, landed, and stayed put while eating. Not wanting to push my luck today, I then threw a smaller piece of food down onto the floor at the back of the aviary. Hudson flew after it and I made my exit. I breathed a sigh of relief then smiled, amazed at how well it had gone. Tomorrow I will see if Hudson is in the mood to have another try at this. I feel this was a great step forward, both for the bird getting trained for the shows, and for my eventually getting over my fear of these owls. That’s not to say I will ever turn my back on him, but one step at a time!

That’s all for today folks, until next time, gnite

Under the weather

The title today has two meanings, both weather and health wise, as I woke this morning feeling like I had some cold or flu thing. I knew it was going to be one of those days where I wished I was under my duvet in the warm all day.  Outside, well one thing you could never call the weather round here is boring. I think we had a bit of everything during the day, starting with nice sunshine, sleet, snow, rain, hail, wind, even thunder!

I decided that my priorities today were just to make sure the birds were all okay, and get them fed. They of course were all sensibly tucked away from the weather in the corners of their aviaries and under shelter. It was only silly humans that chose to wander about in weather like this!

Not for longer than I had to that’s for sure!

If only I had the same ability to keep warm as the owls, with layers of feathers to trap in warmth and insulating enough to keep it there no matter how cold it is around them. By keeping still they conserve energy as well as heat, so next time you hear someone say ‘owls don’t do much do they? Just sit around all day’ you know who is the wisest critter around!

Speaking of wisdom, today I was delighted to receive my copy of ‘A Wisdom of Owls’ by author Mary Pay Hyland.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wisdom-Owls-Maeve-Kenny-ebook/dp/B006O5AL72/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1326991803&sr=8-2-fkmr2

Mary Pat was kind enough to use one of my photographs of a Barn Owl for the cover of her latest novel. I have to say it was strange but thrilling to see my name in print on the back cover and inside with the credits! My sincere thanks go to Mary Pat and I hope her book becomes a best seller!

So now I have a good book to read I’m away to my bed to hide under the duvets until tomorrow. Gnite all!