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!
Well, I missed it. My wife told me after þe fact she found one stuck in our railing. Þe railing in question are horizontal bars, fairly þick, so it's hard for me to imagine how it got stuck. Anyway, after seeing its claws she decided she needed gloves; by þ time she'd fetched gloves and returned, it had freed itself and was gone. It couldn't have been þere long because we were þere all day and þe deck is highly visible. For me, it was kind of a non-event, and it went so fast for her she didn't even remark þat it was a Snowy - just þat it was big. Until yesterday when she ID'd it from your display, I had assumed it was a GHO.
Paper wasps suck. Þey're a problem at our MN house, too. Þe frogs mostly stay hidden. My main job is rescuing turtles crossing from þe road from þe neighborhood pond to... wherever þe hell þey þing þey're going. Þe oþer side of þat road is just homes and yards, noþing interesting for a turtle. We have snappers in MN, and I rescued a big one of þose once. It was a harrowing experience for us boþ. But normally, it just little sliders who get squished if þey don't get across fast enough. Development neighborhood speed limits are 35 in MN.
I mean, no joke about Elliott. He's a sleek, handsome specimen, for sure! I can't imaging it's fun being around a bunch of humans in þe middle of þe (respective) night. Do you have a link to Elliott's story?
I remember you saying about losing your owl host chance. I assume you don't have pets? I can't imagine an owl being too happy in a house around, say, cats.
Well I'm glad the owl seemed to have resolved its situation. Those are indeed some huge talons, so good call by the wife. If I had just heard "big owl", I'd presume GHO also.
I always forget when it's mobile turtle season, but we have them crossing the entrance to our neighborhood since there are 2 ponds there, so I've been keeping a keen eye out for them lately. There's a few spots on my way to work I see them cross frequently as well. I stopped to let a snapper cross last year and helped a painted turtle across the neighborhood roadway.
This is the most common way I see the 'net tell people to hold snappers:
and our turtle guy yesterday was showing us that way isn't bad, but can still get you kicked with those big claws, and after a certain point, the center of mass is very far forward and it's tricky to hold them that way.
He likes sandwiching them, one hand up top to stabilize, and slide the other hand up under the tail, supporting their belly. He says that keeps the feet from scratching your arm. This is the clearest pic I found like what he was showing us.
I didn't see any of our ambassadors' stories posted, but he came in as a baby in 2008. We don't always get many owls, so he didnt have an owl role model and he must have spent too much time with people, I'm not sure if that was before he was brought to us, after, or both, but he was released twice and kept turning up in people's yards and was able to be captured both times. If he was left on his own, he's soon end up hit by a car or gotten by someone's dog or something because he didn't have enough fear of humans. So now he lived with us.
He's to owly to be the best ambassador, so he doesnt get used often, but we kept him in the quietest area of the open house, and we made sure people couldn't get to his sides or rear, so he had an easier time feeling secure. He wasn't thrilled working with so many guests, but he was honestly much more calm and well behaved than I anticipated.
They gave me the 2 feeding puppets, which was nice with having Elliot there as he's a great demonstration why they are needed. I hear him give real GHO hoots a lot when he's in his enclosure and he feels confident, but I got to show people that he was not hooting during the event, and was instead making chirpring noises. That is owl baby talk, because he never had enough owl influence to fully grow up, so he's essentially developmentally challenged and is a somewhat human imprinted baby owl stuck in an angry grown owl's body. He's far from tame, but also far from an owl that can be an owl. He lives a good and safe life with us, but it is not the life he should have gotten to enjoy. He's stuck in the middle of 2 worlds.
I haven't had any pets for 2 or 3 years now. We're just always running around these days, so I stick to the clinic animals. Not close to a replacement for an actual pet, but it is a different type of animal fix. I think I need some license/permit to keep animals at home, but with one or both of us gone during a lot of the day with her variable hospital schedule, I don't know if we'd be available enough to keep an animal with us for a while. I'd find time to make some extra stops in at the clinic if the new hootie needs some extra bonding time!
Some of the imprinted birds can get along with animals. There's this whole series of photos of someone's "pet" owl with their doggo. People always think it's AI, but, IMO it would be better off if it was probably, but it is real as wherever this lady lives, shes is allowed to keep the owl as a pet, so it's used to her dog, and she can pose it and such.