It’s true that kids often grow taller than their parents. And it
seems that as we moms and dads get older, not only do our teenagers
grow UP, we older folks appear to
”
shrink.
”
Did you know this often applies to the bird kingdom, too? The
6-inch screech owl on the left is Oscar, WERC’s 13-year-old
educational bird. The 7-inch owl on the right is a 4-week-old baby
that has just fledged (learned to fly).
It’s true that kids often grow taller than their parents. And it seems that as we moms and dads get older, not only do our teenagers grow UP, we older folks appear to “shrink.” Did you know this often applies to the bird kingdom, too? The 6-inch screech owl on the left is Oscar, WERC’s 13-year-old educational bird. The 7-inch owl on the right is a 4-week-old baby that has just fledged (learned to fly).
The owlet was found in March, fluttering on the ground at a home in San Jose. The poor baby was cold, dehydrated and sickly when brought to the Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley. There, staff immediately warmed it up in an incubator and administered medication and fluids. After a few hours, when the owl’s condition had stabilized, volunteers began hand-feeding it cut-up food. Two weeks later, the little bird was wonderfully healthy and eating small rodents on its own.
It was now time to “teach” the baby how to be an owl and to not become imprinted on its human caretakers. To this end, the owlet was transferred to the Wildlife Education and Rehabilitation Center in Morgan Hill and, after being quarantined for a day, was placed in Oscar’s enclosure. Oscar is an old hand at fostering baby screech owls. This owlet is the 15th baby with which Oscar has carried out his duties as a hoot’n-nanny over the years.
It’s extremely important for young birds-of-prey to imprint on their own kind. Imprinting is a species-specific type of learning during a critical early period where the bird’s social attachment and identification are established. An imprinted raptor is not releasable; it will not thrive in the wild since other owls recognize its difference and refuse to allow it to establish a territory, which is necessary for hunting and breeding.
The Western screech owl ranges from the Pacific to the Rocky Mountains and lives in open woodlands, parks, deserts and wooded streams. Contrary to its name, the owl’s vocalization is not a screech (if you hear that sound at night, it’s likely that there’s a barn owl nearby), but a tremulous trilling often compared to the sound of a bouncing ball. The nocturnal bird-of-prey is extremely adaptable and aggressively hunts large insects, small rodents, small birds, snakes, frogs and lizards. Screech owls are masters of disguise – their patterned coloring and tufts (“horns”) provide a perfect camouflage in a tree, where the owls roost during the day and nest in cavities, helping them to outsmart their primary enemy, hawks and other animals that hunt in the daytime.
This screech owl will mature in a few months and is expected to be released late this summer. Would you like to experience the amazing opportunity of witnessing his return to the wild? The exceptional raptor release will be auctioned off at WERC’s annual Barbecue-Auction May 30. You will have the chance to see the owl up close before he flies off free into the dusky sky. For more details on WERC’s event, go to www.werc-ca.org.
