Friday FaceOff
This is Pip ... he was a favorite at the Raptor Rehab Facility because he was raised from an egg by the volunteers (sadly before I started volunteering there). He was a first from a long term plan to increase the Barn owl population in the area as they had dropped to a possible extinction level over the previous years. He was so successful that we(including me this time) began raising Barn Owls from eggs.
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We fed them by hand initially. We had to wear Barn Owl Costumes so they didn't imprint on humans.
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When they were ready to fledge, they were moved into a flight cage where they developed their skills in flight and also we would release live mice so they could learn to hunt. When they became proficient, we would release them to the wild. Some were released with telemetry attached to them so we could follow where they were ... interestingly, most of them ended up going south to the Texas, Louisianna area. Oh well ... there were still more Barn Owls out there :)
Hope all is well with all of you ... stay warm, we are inching toward Spring 😁
Andrea @ From the Sol
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7 comments:
Wow!!!! What a beautiful story and that first photo is incredible. So nice that you were able to be apart of such a wonderful place. Thank you for sharing this with FFO and have a lovely weekend.
Fascinating! Such beautiful owls and such striking features! But where is the photo of you in a Barn Owl costume, lol?
Lovely photo of Pip and the barn owls
These are wonderfully beautiful birds. So glad you were involved in increasing the Barn Owl population even if they did fly south.
What an amazing experience Andrea. I take it the costumes you wore worked great. And it's so exciting that the number of baby owls that have grown to adults is so high. Do barn owls hibernate? I wonder if they will return, or if they are gone for good. Thanks for sharing this. I really enjoyed it. hugs-Erika
I am sure that your work with Barn Owls was both challenging and exciting, Andrea. Rewarding, too. As a species, they do not take well to cold winters so it’s not surprising they headed south. Best wishes - David
This is such an incredible series of photos. Pip is so cool! And thank you for volunteering. I suspect it is very rewarding.
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