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!
Is that why harry potter used the far left type. because its so big?
I find it ironic that as particular as Rowling is with genders, that Hedwig is supposed to be a girl, but all the owls that played Hedwig are male Snowies. Females would have all their spots, but in the movies, and I believe in the books, Hedwig is all white, which would be a male. Males lose their spots as the age while the females dont.
They do look great in person and on screen though. If you ever get a chance to see one in person, they are as much or more charming in person than in photos!
Honestly its hard to see owls near me. Like I know we have them. Likely a lot but they don't exactly flaunt. Heck I know for a fact we have a lot of bats and I have rarely seen them.
Sometimes I used to catch the bats in the neighborhood flying around while I'd walk the dog at night or out along the railroad tracks passing through the woods behind my house.
Never seen our neighbors owls yet, but they love to hoot. Loving a nocturnal and antisocial animals is a strange life choice 😁