Baby birds, especially
Owls, are a favorite for most people. One of the amazing and fun benefits of working at
World Bird Sanctuary is to assist in raising young birds for the World Bird
Sanctuary education programs.
Currently I am assisting
with raising a young Barred Owl.
This young Barred Owl was brought in to our Wildlife hospital after a
storm. Our vet was looking over this
bird before we moved it to an outside enclosure for later release to the wild,
and found that this youngster has eye
problems. It is blind in one eye
and has poor vision in the other eye so he would not survive in the wild and
could not be released. The
education department was asked if we were interested in a young Barred Owl and
we said yes. So now begins the socializing part of the job.
When we socialize an owl
we take the owl home and introduce them to human life--TV’s, music, activity, other
people, and sometimes pets--with
lots of supervision. This is to
get the owl exposed to many different things so they become more accustomed to
the situations they may experience at programs.
As the owl gets older we
start introducing the equipment, such as anklets and jesses. Then the last step is to introduce
perches.
When we introduce the
anklets and jesses we put them on and then leave the bird alone to become
accustomed to them. We then handle
the bird on the glove. We pick
them up standing on the glove and holding them. At first we sit with them on the glove for a few minutes. Over time we increase the amount of
time they are on the glove. This
gets them comfortable with the glove at a young age. Then we introduce the perch. The perch is introduced slowly so they become accustomed to
being tethered.
All during this training
time we enjoy the cute moments--the great looks, the playfulness they exhibit,
such as pouncing on shadows, pouncing on toys,
and also falling asleep in “interesting”
positions. Of course, we all take lots of photos of our little charge
during this stage.
Submitted by Cathy Spahn,
World Bird Sanctuary Naturalist
All Owl photos by Cathy Spahn
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