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

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Trumpeter swan with history takes flight again

FERNDALE, Wash. -- It was nearly a year ago when members of The Trumpeter Swan Society and State Department of Fish & Wildlife captured their first group of trumpeter swans as part of a lead poisoning study. The first one they put neck and leg collars on was dubbed “M-50.” Society member Martha Jordan was there for that action and she was there earlier this year when M-50 was found wandering in an urban grocery store parking lot. M-50 had been shot.

 The bird had survived while 2,500 others just like her fatally mistook lead shot gun pellets for small rocks they eat to digest food. Jordan rushed the wounded swan to Sarvey Wildlife, where she was treated and rehabilitated.

Last week, M-50 was given a new collar number, M-49, and taken to Whatcom County. Martha Jordan took her and for the second time, she released the graceful swan back into the wild. Jordan was thrilled to see the elderly swan, at least 15 years old, stretch her wings and soar across a windy lake near Ferndale.

Blood tests showed the swan still had a lead free system, apparently by choosing breeding, nesting and feeding areas that are were not commonly used by hunters. Jordan hopes she will lead other swans by example. It is illegal to shoot trumpeter swans. Nobody has been arrested for shooting this one.