Hayley Potter, Head of Animal Encounters set up her camera trap last night and this morning discovered shed had a special visitor, just outside her office in the Foot Safari. The video shows a visit from a tawny owl. If you look at it’s head you can see some wispy feathers, this leads me to believe it’s one of this year’s young; fledged recently (those are the last remaining bits of the fluffy grey baby feathers). Tawny owls are the owls you are most likely to encounter on the ground, when they branch out (start exploring the trees), but before they fully fledge (have flight feathers and begin to fly). They don’t yet have flight feathers but they can climb around the tree tops. If they end up on the floor, even before they can fly, most of the time they can get themselves back up to the nest by climbing up the tree! So if you see a chick, don’t move it! if you are worried, observe it and don’t touch! Mum and dad are almost certainly around somewhere nearby. This one looks old enough to be out and about on his own, but parents are probably still around somewhere, keeping an eye on him and supplementing his feed. The time is correct, he was around at about 4am. He was probably getting one last snack before bedtime, as they are nocturnal. He’d have been in bed by 5am.
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 09:01:19 +0000