This week I have some extra news to report, with the advent of the Arlington Eagle Festival as well as my trip to Sarvey. First things first, let's introduce our new educational Saw-whet owl.
He doesn't have a name just yet, but we're hoping to have a suitable name for him soon. I'm sad that he won't be able to return to life in the wild, but I'm also pretty excited to get to know him.
The Education Animals...
The day started out pretty much like usual. I chatted briefly with a newer volunteer who was helping maintain the property, but quickly got to work after. I wasn't entirely surprised to find Athena in nesting mode today. Last week I had noticed she'd dug out a corner of her flight. This time around she was seated comfortably inside of it. She was a little hissy upon my entering to clean, but otherwise, she stayed firmly rooted in her corner. I'm fairly convinced that if she keeps up this behavior consistently there will be an egg by the next time I visit.
Alice the Great horned owl, who lives in Minnesota with her handler Karla Bloem (You can read about Alice here), has been laying eggs in captivity for years now. According to Karla, Alice stops eating for a short period of time before laying eggs, and after developing a brood patch. What's a brood patch?
When a female bird starts getting ready to lay eggs she will start losing feathers from a concentrated area on her under belly. In most species feather loss happens automatically, but ducks and geese may pluck feathers from the region to line their nests. This fleshy, feather-free area is supplied with blood vessels close to the skin, that allow the incubating female to transfer heat to her eggs. There are some species of birds that do not develop brood patches, including pelicans, boobies, and gannets.
Great horned owls lay their eggs in three day intervals, and start incubating them as soon as the first egg is laid. As a result the eggs will hatch a few days apart. Staggered hatching like this is a great evolutionary advantage for owls. Since the baby owls will all be at different developmental stages, if food is scarce and they are forced to fight over what the parents can provide, the largest and most developed bird is the most likely to survive. As horrible as it sounds, this strategy actually helps ensure that at least one of the owls will survive to fledgling. If the mother owl were to wait, and incubate all of her eggs at the same time, the chances of any of the young surviving in times when food is scare, are much worse.
One of the cool things about a captive, egg laying owl like Athena, is that you can often get them to foster baby owls in a rehabilitation center like Sarvey. Athena has fostered many baby owls that went on to live as happy, healthy, wild owls. She's still a great, protective mother even though she will spend the rest of her life in a wildlife center.
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I headed in to see Nanjiska, the Snowy Owl next. One of my favorite behaviors of his, he does consistently every time I approach his flight. He tries to hiss so fast/hard that no sound comes out, and he ends up with with mouth hanging open comically in a pseudo-yawn. I'll try to get a picture of it next time I'm in. It really is quite endearing.
Nanjiska isn't the most mobile bird, so most of his mess is contained to a small portion of his flight. This makes cleaning fairly quick and easy, other then the fact that he has a tendency to poop on his feeding platform, and then stand close to it the majority of the time. Most of the time when an Ed bird is standing close to a spot that needs cleaning, and doesn't want to move, I'll bypass it for the time being for the comfort of the bird. The only problem with Nanjiska is that he never really moves away from the one spot. He can be just as touchy about anyone getting close to him as the other birds. I know that those spots around his feet are bound to get nasty fast if I don't clean them though. 
Over time I've been able to get him to let me clean progressively closer to him. He still gets a little fussy, but he tolerates it. Which is good since a slightly fussy bird is better than said bird standing in his own poop all the time. Another result of this slow process of adjusting him to my presence, is that he'll let me get fairly close to him with my camera, which has made for some great shots. I'm still using a cheap (as far as lenses go,) starter lens, so I can really only do so much with it. I'd like to get my hands on a nice zoom lens at some point. They're a bit spendy though. 
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The rest of the Education animals went by fairly quickly for me. Over time you start to get a pretty good idea of what needs to be done during the day. I know I at least get pretty good at establishing a routine. Routines may not be for everyone when it comes to this sort of work, but it definitely helps me personally get through the day in a timely manner. It definitely helps me stay on track. In any case, here are my highlights from the remaining Education animals:
Iya being her usual silly self. She started preening partway through the time I was in her flight.
Celi wasn't particularly happy to share her flight.
Cetan was especially riled up today. She was hopping all over her flight while I was cleaning.
A sleepy Chesmu poked his head out to say hi.
Lil D and I'sta Are also prone to being all over their flight. I've been using the opportunity to learn how to predict movement and take good flight pictures. Nothing significant yet as far as flight pictures go though. I'm still learning how to use my SLR, and with everything I have to get done at home it's happening slower than I'd like for it to. Hopefully soon enough I'll have learned the ins and outs of my camera and I'll be taking some great shots.
More of the girls
Just as an aside, I was extremely excited to find a Peregrine pellet while I was cleaning. You may remember me talking about raptor pellets in a previous blog. Many species of wild birds cough up the indigestible parts of their meals in the form of pellets. Owls seem to produce pellets most frequently, as they tend to consume a lot of their food whole. A lot of other raptors, when they feel at leisure to do so, will often pick at their prey pulling off feathers and fur before consuming it.
Our Peregrines eat a lot of quail, so I think that probably contributes to the creamy gray color of the pellet I found. I love finding them. Not too long ago I found eagle pellets in the eagle flight, and they were an off-white, presumably from consuming rats over a period of time.
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I stopped by to visit scout, who admittedly, I tend to forget about. He's a bit tucked away, and since his run is only cleaned by staff members, it's easy for me to forget he's there all together. However, today he was making noise while I was in with the peregrines, so I decided to come visit. I love his squinty snaggle-toothed face.
Canowicakte was last on my rounds for the day before I headed inside.
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I spent the rest of the evening helping out the new volunteers again. There seems to be several fresh volunteers on Thursdays right now. It was mostly finding them things to keep them busy, showing them where certain resources were, and having them assist me with tasks such as the night time feeding, and prepping foods for the next day.
At one point during the evening A double Crested Cormorant had seriously messed up his enclosure. I have to say, for a bird that size he poops a LOT. There was poop everywhere inside his green. I had one of the newbies attached to me help me clean out the enclosure. Her reaction to the mess was rather amusing. I don't think she expected it. I was kind and didn't make her clean up the nasty bits... this time. We finished cleaning things up right as our lead returned with the cormorant.
That's about all there is to say for Sarvey, but I also get to share details about the Arlington Eagle Festival, that I was lucky enough to attend, and several of our education birds starred at.
The Eagle Festival
I wasn't sure exactly what to expect upon arriving at the Eagle festival. This was my first time being able to attend an event like this. When we arrived in down I was excited to see the town humming with activity. There was wagon rides, plains and tractors on display, and wood carving, in addition to our feathered friends.
When I entered the room in City hall set aside for Sarvey there was already quite a crowd there. The birds were behind a long row of tables set across the length of the room on one side. There were also educational displays as well as a table to collect donations. It was great to see so much support for Sarvey. I also had the chance to meet several staff members I hadn't met before.
What struck me the most was how calm most of the birds were, and how differently they acted then usual. Iya was quite and alert, Tadita was relaxed,a nd aloof, I’sta was trying to get out of her jesses, and Cano had his back to the crowd.
Here are a few of the pictures I took while I was there.
Wanbli Askate and David
Cetan and Robert
Tadita
Iya
I'sta
And lastly, Canowicakte.
After visiting with the birds I moved on to watch the wood carvers for a bit before heading home. That's about all there is to say for that. I hope you all enjoyed reading about it. I'll leave you all with a random picture of a Thayer's gull I saw on the way to Bremerton during the weekend.
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