SNN (ScrollingNetworkNews) ✿ ✿ Our Mel and Sydney returned to their nesting box with plenty of bonding occurring..but after 2.5 months of Sydney in the box from Dec 2013 to mid Feb 2014, the lack of prey gifts from Mel ( perhaps due to the severe and historic drought underway in California)and they have forgone the nesting process this year as many other raptors ✿ Compared to other owls of similar size, the Barn Owl has a much higher metabolic rate, requiring relatively more food. Pound for pound, Barn Owls consume more rodents – often regarded as pests by humans – than possibly any other creature. ✿ We remind viewers that sometimes owlets may not survive - the parents will dispose of things in "The Owl Way" -viewer discretion is advised, this is nature and the "Owl way". ✿ ~ ✿ “Animals, like us, are living souls. They are not things. They are not objects. Neither are they human. Yet they mourn. They love. They dance. They suffer. They know the peaks and chasms of being.” ― Gary Kowalski, The Souls of Animals ✿ Each species is a masterpiece, a creation assembled with extreme care and genius." ~ E.O. Wilson

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Somerset rescue center in TV appeal for owl companion


BBC SOMERSET NEWS
1 November 2011
A baby barn owl, abandoned in Somerset, is to be joined by two new companions following a television appeal.

Casper, a six-week-old fledgling, is currently being reared for release into the wild at the Secret World Wildlife Rescue Center near Burnham-On-Sea.
To improve Casper's chances of survival in the wild, an appeal was made on BBC's Autumnwatch programme for a young owl to be reared and released with him.

Since then two companion baby owls have been located in Swindon and Oxford.

Pauline Kidner, the rescue center's founder, said the abandoned baby owl had been handed in to a veterinary surgery near Langport, two weeks ago.
"Sadly they didn't find out where he had come from so we just hope that there were no siblings there that also needed help," she said.

"But he was only about three weeks old, when he came in, and was starving and very thin - so he wouldn't have made it through the winter."

Pauline Kidner appealed for companion baby barn owls on BBC's Autumnwatch show
Hatched "six months too early or six months too late", the fledgling owl is currently being reared at the rescue center ready for release.

"Obviously we're going to release him but it won't be until the spring," said Mrs Kidner. "And we knew he would do so much better if he could be with another young barn owl."

To avoid Casper facing "a winter on his own", an appeal was made on BBC's Autumnwatch programme on Friday, and two companions were located.

"They're about the same age, one is a few days younger, but it should be fine and we'll rear them as a group and release them together,"