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!

Snoring

I haven’t been able to log into WordPress for the last few days, so apologies for the lack of blog entries. It isn’t the first time I’ve had problems with the site and I envision moving to a different host at some point. For now it appears I’m here.

We have been continuing to experience an overabundance of eggs in the collection this week, it seems to be the theme for the year. Well, except in the case of the Tropical Screech Owls who seem to have ‘lost’ their three eggs at some point. It isn’t unusual for a female to eat eggshell to get the calcium back into her system so I assume her eggs were infertile and she did some recycling of materials. It’s a shame but at least she laid some eggs to begin with. Maybe next year, with no disruption from moving home and the noise of a building site, they will have fertile eggs.

So like I say, an overabundance of eggs; we discovered on Thursday that our two female Ferruginous Pygmy Owls had six eggs between them, both sat in the same little nestbox. If only we had a male! We have the same situation with our Tawny Owls of course, with both girls sitting faithfully on four eggs each, squashed together in a nestbox built for one.

Our lone Southern Boobook Owl laid a second egg on Thursday, discarding it on the woodchip floor of her aviary. A more positive discovery was that our Little Owls are definitely nesting now, with the female sitting on five eggs. At least there is a pair of them, although they are unproven when it comes to breeding, so we can at least cross our fingers and hope for the best.

Even Oulu, our trained Great Grey Owl laid an egg yesterday! She’s been flying most days in our displays too! She has been heavier and in the mornings I have seen broody nesting behaviour from her, so I’m not so surprised that she is in condition and ready to breed. We will not fly her in shows now until we are sure she is not carrying any more eggs inside her. If she was, and they broke inside her, she could die of a condition known as egg peritonitis. Her egg, at this time of the year, has given me unexpected renewed hope that there may still be a breeding attempt from our pair of Great Greys in the collection.

At least all these eggs show that we have a lot of very healthy female owls in our collection.

I suppose if we were to look on the positive and hopeful side, there could still be time for a late breeding season this year. If we had a warm June through to late September that would give plenty of time for our owls to court, mate, incubate and raise owlets before winter comes. I don’t like looking on the gloomy side of things, and it has been disheartening lately seeing birds like our Northern Hawk Owls and Ural Owls breeding attempts result in infertile eggs. All we need is a good period of good weather…

Over in our display arena we have continued to train the smallest member of our team – smallest but not youngest. Poncho the Tropical Screech Owl has been flying really well these last few days. I still find it odd to see such a small owl flying around the arena but he acts like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Once he reached his ideal weight – just 100 grams! – and sat on the glove for half an hour or so, he figured it all out really quickly. Quicker than some of our larger owls!

Our youngest member of the team is doing well too. Sam the American Barn Owl already towers over little Poncho at just six weeks old. The owlet has been appearing in the displays this week and has begun to walk around, exploring. He or she (we won’t know which for at least another month or more) has been amusing us all with behaviour none of us have seen in an owlet before – snoring! The owlet seems to like standing with it’s chin resting on or against the top of the box and go to sleep. Then after a few minutes it begins to squeak. When I first heard it I thought there was something wrong with it, but it’s just sleeping! Maybe dreaming of mice?

Well I’ll sign off and get some sleep myself I think. No dreaming of mice though I hope! ‘Til next time then, gnite!

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!

Cold day in the sun

Well one thing you will never be when it comes to Scottish weather is bored. No two days the same. After the rain, today was lovely and sunny. That sun was hardly cracking the flags but it was very welcome all the same.

The sun had dried out our Great Horned Owlets too, making them look more like the fluffy toy owls sold in the shop than real ‘in the feather’ owls. I enjoy watching them explore their aviary, and as I did the ‘food run’ at the end of the day one of them was walking around while the other was climbing up onto a tree stump beneath the parent’s favourite perch. It’s a nice stage in their life as they are so inquisitive.

There has been no more sign of new hatchings around the centre, with the African Wood, Brown Wood, and African Spotted Eagle Owls all in their estimated period for hatching. I don’t blame the female owls for sitting tight on their nests though, with such changeable weather we’ve been having. Any owlets would need protecting from the elements, especially when so small. All we can do is hope for the best and put a little extra food in every day.

We had a new owl arrive today, hopefully to join our flying team. A friend of mine, Amy, needed to find a good home for her African Spotted Eagle Owl and asked if we could take the bird in. I met Amy when she did a placement at the World Owl Trust, where I worked as a keeper. Because she knew how I worked and looked after the birds, Amy knew that I would look after ‘Bramble’ well, as will all of us at the centre. After a little while to settle into her new home we will spend some time with the owl and get her used to being around us, then see if she will sit on a gloved hand, and so on. Sometimes owls moving to new homes can take a while to settle, but within a few minutes of stepping out of the travel box and into the newly prepared aviary Bramble was perched and standing on one leg – a sign that the bird is relaxed and comfortable. She hooted her farewells to Amy but they will meet again soon. Amy is very welcome to come and visit Bramble any time.

I rounded off my half day today with something a little different. There has been one last member of the established flying display team to join the ranks flying in the new centre, but he has finally reached his ‘flying weight’ and is ready for training. Poncho is the smallest trained owl I have ever seen – a Tropical Screech Owl – and prior to coming to work at the Scottish Owl Centre I would scarcely have believed such a wee thing could be trained. Poncho has always regarded me with suspicion since I moved here, eyeing me from the corner of his aviary and not budging. Now he flies to the front of his pen and to the glove quite readily – ‘food is the great motivator in life’ as we used to say in shows. For the last few days we have taken turns in encouraging Poncho to make short hops and flights to the glove within the aviary or ‘prep room’. Today I waited until closing time and took the step to enter the arena with him. I was surprised but he flew really well! He didn’t fly the full length but several halves were plenty. It is strange to see such a small owl flying in an arena but fascinating too. We’ll keep working with him each day to continue the training, then eventually he will be ready to meet the public!

Okay time to sign off. Til tomorrow, gnite!

Seasons Greetings

Bank holiday weekends always bring us a mixed bag of weather. Today started out cool, became warmer, then late afternoon it snowed for a few minutes. Snowed! In May! I had read a news headline over breakfast that said the weekend daytime temperature would be colder than Christmas Day but I didn’t really believe it; then it snowed! Thankfully it only lasted a few minutes and within the hour there was blue sky and sunshine but it goes to show that the weather is just bizarre lately.

Talking about the weather is a British past time of course, but it matters more if you happen to work outdoors all day and your work involves looking after animals or birds outdoors all day too. I don’t know what our Great Horned Owlets thought of the wintry stuff falling from the sky today but at least they are covered in thick downy feathers. The second owlet jumped ship and left the nest overnight, joining the older one at ground level to explore the aviary. For most of the day the younger, smaller owlet sat as near to it’s parents perch as it could but by the afternoon it had wandered up to the rocky outcrop where the first owlet has taken up residence. I can hardly believe how ‘perfect’ they look sitting among the rocks – like we deliberately placed them as ornaments!

The Bank Holiday weather is set to turn to rain again over the next couple of days so we’ll be checking that the owlets are able to keep sheltered when we make our rounds first thing in the morning.

The flying displays today went well again, with good numbers of visitors making up the audiences for three shows. Hudson the Great Horned Owl made his second appearance with an audience today and flew more confidently again. Once in the right frame of mind to fly he is definitely a no nonsense kind of fella, as one or two members of the audience found as he clipped them on the back of the head with a wing tip on his way past them! It can be a bit of a surprise if you are the recipient of a wing on the back of the head but thankfully everyone so far has found it to be part of the thrill of the displays. Hudson has no intention of harming anyone, and it is only his wing tip he clips you around the ear with but I keep one eye on what he is up to all the time!

Our American Barn Owl made his or her debut appearance today, joining Hudson and Prince the Ashy Faced Owl in an all ‘Americas’ themed display. Of course the owlet is too young to fly – only four weeks old! – but was paraded around the audience like royalty by Lauren. The little owlet seemed to enjoy seeing all the new people and things and was very popular too.

I’ll sign off tonight with another pic of the little one. See you tomorrow, gnite!

Out and about

A busy day at the Scottish Owl Centre, thanks to some decent weather and a Bank Holiday weekend. The morning started off cold, with ice in some of the water dishes in the owl aviaries, then by the afternoon the sun was breaking through and bringing very welcome warmth. It’s still hard to believe that this is May with weather like this, unseasonably cold, and I hope we get more ‘normal’ weather soon. Until then we all have to make the most of the bit of sunshine when we get it. This afternoon was pleasant enough for even our male Milky Eagle Owl to spend a little quality time sunbathing on the ground in his aviary. One of our Great Horned Owlets chose last night to leave the nest so spent the day exploring their aviary at ground level. In the afternoon warmth the little adventurer was enjoying the sunshine while disguised as one of the rocks in the centre of the pen.

 

The ongoing saga of our elderly Long-eared Owl continues, and she is still eating well. I wouldn’t go so far as to say she is improving but today she seemed to have a good day, making some effort to preen herself and moving around her outdoor area a little. She made her way over to sit in the sunshine this afternoon, just as many other owls did likewise in their aviaries. This gave her some semblance of a normal quality of life. We are still making daily decisions about her but as long as she continues to have days as good as this we will keep helping her do so.

We had good numbers of visitors to the centre today and our flying displays were popular. In the third show I decided to fly Hudson the Great Horned Owl (elder brother of the little adventurer pictured above). One of the last of the team to join the regular flying displays, he has taken the longest to get into the right mood and weight to fly, and the longest to adjust to the new microphone system in the display arena. Unlike the single speaker system he grew up with, the new one has ‘surround sound’ with a speaker in the corners of the room. This has confused and distracted a few of the owls that use their hearing to locate the presenter in a show, and Hudson has been quite bewildered by it. Gradually through training sessions he has learned to ‘ignore the voices’ and watch for where I go and where I place the all-important piece of food! Today he left the gates a little flustered but pulled himself together and flew really well for me. He hardly hesitated flying from one perch to another and even anticipated my destination and headed over to the high perch as I stepped up to it one time. As I have never flown a Great Horned Owl before I haven’t got a good flowing talk put together for Hudson yet. I was a bit distracted by watching him fly too, so my content was a bit lacking. For those of you who have followed my blog over the months you will know I’ve come a long way since my arrival and my personal fear of these owls with such a formidable reputation. For me to fly Hudson at all is quite an achievement I guess, and I’m quite proud of myself overcoming this personal hurdle. We’ve both come a long way together really. Hudson today showed no aggression during the flying display. He was just nervous about the audience at first but then all business like and flew well. With a few more shows both he and I will become a well-tuned machine I hope!

The other two birds I flew in that show were Prince the Ashy Faced and Tiger the Brown Wood Owl, and Prince was on form as he always is these days – a little star! Tiger on the other hand, well we have a different kind of working relationship. She does her own thing and I have to try to keep up! I lost my train of thought while flying her today – the first time I’ve actually had to stop and say to the audience that I forgot what I was on about since coming to the Scottish Owl Centre! I said it with a laugh though, and everyone laughed along. These things happen and I always prefer to laugh them off rather than get more flustered. These flying displays are supposed to be a fun thing rather than serious and sombre so if I slip up I make a joke out of it. The Train of Thought had left the station today! Tiger had the last laugh though and snatched her last reward piece of food from my hand and flew off at the end of the show. Fair play Tiger, you win this time!

Last item in tonight’s blog; our American Barn Owlet has had quite a chilled day but seems happy and settled. At around four weeks old a hard day’s work entails quite a lot of sleeping, eating, sleeping some more etc. Tomorrow may be a bigger day even than today; our little owlet may make it’s Flying Display debut!

Well I think it’s time I got some of that sleeping done myself so I’ll sign off.

Hopefully I’ll be back blogging again tomorrow night so until then, gnite.

 

May the Fourth Be With You

Well it’s been a few days since my last blog entry. For some reason WordPress refused to let me log in to make a new post. The rest of my internet access has been fine, just not WordPress. The problem seems to have mysteriously sorted itself out around the same time I registered with a rival blogging website, funny that!

It’s been the usual blend of ups and downs at the Scottish Owl Centre since I last wrote.

Mixing the bad news and the good news about I’ll start with some good; today we welcomed new Keeper Lauren to the Scottish Owl Centre and she took to her training straight away. Resident ‘nosy parker’ Sarabi the Milky Eagle Owl also took to Lauren straight away too, behaving ‘im-peck-ably’ as Lauren started her bird handling training with our Big Friendly Giant.

We were visited this morning by volunteer Steph with her Barn Owl ‘Spirit’. Steph wishes to train Spirit to fly and was invited to try out our indoor flying display arena as a good safe venue. Spirit is probably the most beautiful female Barn Owl I have ever seen, with a very calm and friendly manner about her too. She sat on our scales quite happily and looked around our Prep room as she waited patiently. We were quite surprised at her weight; about the same as our Tawny Owl Hosking, rather than our two male Barn Owls Lofty and Dylan. Steph’s homework for her visit next week is to lower Spirit’s weight a little to see if this encourages her to fly in the arena. I’m looking forward to seeing how she does.

Some bad news came in the form of the Ural and Northern Hawk Owl nests failing. The Ural was a couple of weeks overdue hatching so I checked on what was going on. If there had been owlets they would have been old enough for the mother to leave for a minute as I peeked in at them, but sadly she was sat in the nest on four unhatched infertile eggs and one broken eggshell. Today I found the female Hawk Owl had come out of the nestbox and was preening on top of her favourite perch. Beneath the perch lay two eggs with holes in them. I retrieved them and saw they were punctured by talons (presumably as she picked them up to take out of the box) and they were also infertile. Leaving it until later in the day, I returned to check the nestbox itself and felt two more eggs. They were quite warm so I left them in there. As she has been spending time out of the box it is pretty safe to assume the eggs were all infertile and she has started to give up on them.

It is something of a setback and hard not to be disheartened for our breeding season with these two failures. I know we would be lucky to have any of the owls breed this year considering the upheaval they have all undergone to be moved to the new site, but all the same we saw so many good signs of courtship from the Hawk Owls we felt sure they would produce young this year. Oh well, it is early days after all.

To balance this news out we have added Mottled Owl and Ashy Faced Owl to our list of birds sitting on eggs. The Ashy Faced are proven breeders – Prince in the display team was from their clutch last year – so our fingers are once again crossed for owlets this season. We do of course still have two Great Horned Owlets that are doing very well in their nest, and to see them grow each day is just great.

Adding to the good news today we also welcomed another owlet in the form of a four week old American Barn Owl that arrived from a collection in southern England. He or she will be hand reared and trained to be part of our team of owls that perform in flying displays, photo sessions and walkabouts around the centre. We have plans to put on an ‘Owls of the Americas’ themed display and are working on a talk linking three owls from that region already. It’s hard to get an idea of how the owlets will turn out when they are just this age but the fluffy wee thing seems pretty calm and laid back. I’m sure s/he will be a big hit with everyone over the coming weeks, months and years!

Cool Kids

Well I’ve had a day or two off so a day or two without blog writing. Back in this afternoon and other than being a bit nippy for the time of year (come on, it’s nearly May!) the sun was shining and the centre had good numbers of visitors.

I was pleased to see that the Great Horned Owlets are now getting so big there is at least one visible most of the time. They seem to almost double in size every day at this stage! I’ve never seen owlets from this species before so I’m loving every day of seeing them.

No news is good news, definitely the phrase of the week as far as the other nesting birds go. Our female Ural Owl is still sitting tight on her nest, and the male is calling to her in the afternoons after food has been put in the aviary. They must have one or more owlets, surely? Over the way in the Northern Hawk Owl aviary the male spent most of the day sitting either next to the nest box or on a perch where he could face the box – could he hear owlets/hatching? The fact that both these female owls are still sitting in the nest box is a good sign, but we won’t know for sure that any eggs have hatched for some time yet. If only I had the Great Grey Owl’s super hearing I could hear if there are owlets in these boxes!

In the last few days we have added more owls to the breeders board; Southern White Faced Owl, Mottled Owl, and hopefully tomorrow the Ashy Faced Owl.

I doubt our Siberian Eagle Owls will breed this year given that the female is going through a moult at the moment. Today I found one of her primary feathers from her left wing – it’s huge! I have in my collection the same feather from a Eurasian Eagle Owl, a Turkmenian Eagle Owl and a Red Kite, and this Siberian’s feather is the biggest of the lot! She’s a very impressive bird!

Today’s flying displays that I took part in were not my best, nor did the birds perform that great either, but everyone has an ‘off day’ every now and then. Sarabi had a bad encounter with wheelchairs in the morning, and seeing another in the afternoon show just put her in a stubborn mood. She was still lovely for the photo sessions, just not inclined to fly today. Hudson the Great Horned managed two short flights and one long one today. Not great by flying display standards but still a milestone; his first flights with an audience and the mic system switched on, so two distractions to put him off. Luckily Prince the Ashy Faced and Lofty the Barn Owl put in good performances, Lofty being particularly aerobatic showing off his hover and pounce technique!

Before my days off we had our first school visit here to the Scottish Owl Centre. One of the local schools – Polkemmet Primary School – came to see the centre. There were maybe 40 to 50 children I think, and they enjoyed their ‘Walk to the North Pole’ guided tour followed by a flying display. There were other visitors in that day too and they were invited to join the tour if they wished, then see the flying display in the indoor arena. The owls put on a good show for the children – I could hear their gasps, laughs and squeals from through the wall as Broo the Eurasian Eagle Owl swooped over their heads. I prepared Lofty for his turn as Hosking the Tawny Owl whizzed around the arena before returning through his little door in the wall to his aviary. Lofty was in a good mood and really showed off for the kids. He is stunning as he is so pale underneath and a rich honey colour on his back, and he flies around the arena quite happy to do his own thing while I talk, then comes over when I offer food. As he will fly to the glove I can go and stand behind – or within! – the audience and bring him over to fly right over their heads or land right next to them. I love seeing the reactions of the audiences as our owls do this, and the school children really enjoyed it. I rounded the display off with a ‘question time’ and was amazed and pleased with all of the things the children asked. There were so many questions I had to stop myself from getting carried away, I could have kept on going all day with a crowd as enthusiastic as that! Well that couldn’t happen of course, and I suggested that the children send us questions through the school or ask next time they visit, maybe with their families.

I really enjoyed this flying demonstration as it was quite different from anything I’d done before – so much fun! We hope to have a lot of schools visit us this year. If you live in the area, maybe you are a teacher or know a teacher, or have children at a local school – get in touch and arrange a visit!

Anyhow I think I’d better log off and get some sleep, it will be a busy day tomorrow!

Gnite!

40

I’m back! Just in case any of you were getting ‘blog withdrawal’ symptoms after my day without blogging!

I enjoyed my day off/birthday yesterday, went through to Edinburgh for the day and visited the zoo in the afternoon. This is kind of a ‘busman’s holiday’ for me I know, but as they have no owls at the zoo I’m there to enjoy looking at other animals and birds. I saw the Pandas again, and again they were asleep! I did look over their enclosures with a critical eye though, thinking about the good tips I could pick up for enclosures at the owl centre. On my wanders around Edinburgh in the morning though I found a statue to native born philosopher David Hume, albeit with the obligatory traffic cone adornment. In the cemetery in Calton Hill I found his mausoleum.  I am reminded of one of my favourite quotes of his;

‘A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow real poverty.’

To which, I consider myself a rich man indeed.

Back at work today I found that the sickly Long-eared Owl is still with us, with a surprising amount of strength and energy, a lot of life in the old girl yet. We are evaluating her condition daily and daily making a decision whether to take her to the local vets.

Over at the Great Horned Owl aviary the two owlets are growing so fast you can almost see them getting bigger by the day. With the spells of warm sunshine today the female felt able to leave the nest to take a break, with the owlets now big enough and downy enough to keep warm without her in the good weather.

No sign of owlets next door in the Ural Owl aviary though. There may be, or may not be, we will just have to be patient and watch what happens.

Other good news for the breeding season is that the White Faced Owl female is still in the nest box and now counted as nesting. As with the other owls I’m now counting on the calendar for when to estimate their hatch date. These owls are great and their owlets are cute and fun to see when they fledge – just don’t get between parent and young, they have no respect for how much bigger than them you may be, they protect their babies!

Today’s mystery lies in the Mottled Owl nest box, literally. There has been one of these owls in the nestbox for the best part of a month now, but it (presumably the female) has always been standing up rather than lying down on eggs. Today I could barely see the top of her head as she lay so low down. If she is really breeding she will still be lying like this another full day or two before I’ll believe that they are breeding. They have been playing at it for so long, and I’ve never seen this species breed before, I’ll need some good convincing before I write them on the list with those breeding.

We’re getting a good number of volunteers coming through the centre lately. Once everyone is trained up to speed the place will just be jumping, and I’m sure we’ll all have a good time along the way. I enjoy interacting with people as well as the birds so this is just perfect.

As I sign off for this blog, I leave you with a pic from the birthday surprise that was sprung on me at work – cake, candles, song, the works! Gnite!

Owlet signs?

Do we have more owlets? That’s the question I was asking as I ended my day today.

But first, ‘more?’ you say? If you haven’t been to the Scottish Owl Centre yet, or haven’t been following my blog entries, you may not know that we already have owlets hatched at the brand new owl centre!

Our first bundles of fluff and talons are two Great Horned Owl chicks. They are doing well, eating like it’s going out of fashion, and getting so big that mum has trouble keeping them both under her wing, literally! Today the lovely sunshine meant that it was warm enough for the female Great Horned Owl to leave the nest for a well deserved break – the owlets would be warm enough without her what with the heat from the sun combined with their thick downy feathers. I noticed today that the owlets are starting to change colour from pure white with black eye masks to a grey and black with wavy bands. I’ve never seen Great Horned Owl chicks before so I’m watching them grow with interest. Nothing is changing when it comes to parental duties though. Even though ‘mom’ is able to leave the nest for a break she is quick to return and both she and her mate are quick to click, a warning to me to steer clear or suffer the consequences!

I did back off of course, I wanted to see the two owlets were okay but I also didn’t want to cause disturbance either to that owl family or to the potential new family next door.

We’re into the ‘estimated hatch dates’ for the Ural Owls, and at the end of the day today, just as the doors were closed and I was doing my feeding rounds, I heard the male Ural Owl calling. A few minutes after I had fed them he was over on the perch close to the nest shelf. I take this as a very good chance that there is something very interesting going on in the nest – maybe one or two new owlets! Well it’s a long shot just from hearing an owl calling, but calling at 5 p.m. is unusual behaviour for this nocturnal owl so I’m hoping it’s a good sign anyway.

Other potential breeding news at the owl centre today is that the female White Faced Owl has been in the nestbox for three full days. This is the timeline I take for estimating that she is nesting and maybe has her first egg. I’ll start counting on the calendar from today and get an estimate on when there may be eggs hatching. It is all guesswork but the anticipation is good I think.

I also noted at the end of today that there was only one Tengmalm’s Owl visible. They have been going through a quiet kind of courtship, with subdued hooting during the day (so not to attract attention from would-be predators like Tawny Owls) and allo-preening, where they groom and preen each other’s feathers as part of forming a strong bond between the pair.

Elsewhere, our elderly Long-eared Owl is still under care. She has eaten less in the last 24 hours although her condition otherwise seems stable. Examining her in my hands today I found she was fairly well off when it comes to weight and muscle tissue, I have found much thinner owls in worse condition than this one. She was relatively relaxed in my hands but had good strength and was pretty feisty. However, she was also wet and bedraggled, having sat in one place out of shelter and has done no preening for days. Her food intake has dropped since yesterday too. I’m not very hopeful now and will be evaluating her condition and quality of life at more regular intervals from now.

As it is so often, the cycle of life is evident at the owl centre. Just as one life – one incredibly long life – is slowing down and reaching an end, other lives are just beginning. This job isn’t for everyone, but the cycle of life is with us all and can bring a lot of joy for those that choose it.

Well I’m signing off for this blog entry, then having a day off tomorrow as it’s my birthday. Probably having a ‘busman’s holiday’ trip to the zoo so don’t be too surprised to see a blog entry for tomorrow! Anyway, gnite!