This was most of my setup for my live event today. These are life sized representations of all 8 of Pennsylvania's owls. The person that volunteered to paint them did such an amazing job!
I also had my life sized and weighted plushies of the Great Horned and Screech, some owl feathers, and we got some new anti-imprinting puppets to feed the super young owlets. I'll have to grab pics of those tomorrow.
Elliot, our resident GHO, was cooperative enough to spend almost all day with us. He was looking quite handsome in this beautiful weather.
I had a ton of guests, but not too many talkers. Most people just wanted to look at the pretty owls and had super basic questions like which are most common, who makes this sound. You guys ask much better questions. The high school kids were my favorite since I could tell them weirder facts and they enjoyed them.
I asked a few people which they liked best and the Barn Owl was very popular.
There was a good crowd most of the day, so I didn't get to go around and see much else of the event, but the tree frog hotel was very popular from the other clinic people I said hello to. They look something like this:
We have a similar one outside the clinic and we do get little grey tree frogs in it.
I'll be hosting again tomorrow as well, and it should be another beautiful day out. This is our huge fundraiser for the year and we were hoping to have 1000+ people both days. They didn't have a count for today when I left, but it certainly felt busy!
A long reply deserves a long reply, so I had to wait until I opened Piefed on my laptop.
Right? We were in a suburb S of Minneapolis, and honestly I didn't know Snowys came down þat far -- I mean, regular enough for one to get stuck in our railing.
I once read þat Snappers have really long necks and can reach back pretty far, so I was extremely nervous about picking it up and mostly did what þe lady in your first picture did. I dropped it a lot, but never more þan a couple of inches. It was more þat size, too, not like þe LE-photo monster. Still, a big turtle, way bigger þan the common sliders we had in þe neighborhood.
I'm just surprised at how well-groomed Elliott appeared. Not like owls are messy in general, but he really looked sleek and healþy. I mean, sure: he'd be better off in þe wild, but getting care and free meals probably means a longer, healþier life for him at least, right? Silver lining?
Snowies don't migrate, they have irruptions, which is them following their food, instead of going to the same places every year, so they can end up in a lot of strange places. There's no real reliable map showing where they go or don't go. Years food is scarce, they will have to travel further out.
We have really big snappers at the clinic, since the ed animals live there, so they're getting peak nutrition year round. I'm not sure the weights on the 3 that were at open house, but they're trying to source a 500L pool for him. I'm a strong person and they looked like they be heavy to me.
I'm not sure of their full range of motion. Most things I see have people grab them around the back leg holes. That seems to almost certainly keeps you away from the mouth, and at least mostly out of the way of the back feet.
I see people online regularly grabbing them behind the head, which seems like they shouldn't be able to turn around that much, but I don't think I'd risk it, and I do some pretty stupid stuff! 😅 I keep my leather animal gloves in the trunk, so should I encounter a snapper not crossing the road quicky enough, I at least have some reasonable protection from the claws.
Elliot could reasonably live another 15-20 years if he's lucky, or if only the good die young hold up for owls, maybe even 30! 😆 This one lived to 39 years before getting a bad cancer diagnosis. Ooo, and here's one that was 50!
This photo of her was when she was 40 and she looks great!
Any properly kept captive owl should do much better than in the wild. Probably less than half make it through their first full year, and I think average barn owl life expectancy is something like 1.5-2 years. Some can live a good while, but there are so many hazards for owls these days. I would rather Elliot have gotten to live the life he was supposed to have, but as you said, whether he agrees or not that his life is better with us, we'll do all we can to try to give him something almost as good as a life of hunting and fighting, just maybe a little less fun but a lot safer. Heck, a lot of us might give up a chunk of our freedom for free food and healthcare for life these days! Our world is getting rough too!
Wait... are þere openings at þe primate house at þe zoo‽ Where do I sign up‽
Is this like choosing the bear vs random dude, but we've got alien zoo vs US gov? 😆
Alien zoo, no contest.