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7th July 2006 VESNA Z. (she of the heavenly Croatian tawny) emails "Do you know what the email address of a Hungarian owl is?". Answer at bottom of page. He he he! I need some of those dreadful jumping smileys.
Since Vesna has kicked off a new Scrapbook page, here's an exam question: Owls are stupid. Discuss It's what a lot of people say, including one renowned raptor person. I must get round to sitting the exam . . . one day. Needless to say it's not my impression.
8th July Revisit Darkec's pages in the Owl Gallery as more pics have been added. I'm off to Kent tomorrow after a too long stint stuck to the computer here in London. Will our fledglings show up? Who knows.
14th July -- more on Sophie's release Two reasons for the delay. First, the landowner to whom I originally applied for permission to release Sophie into one of his woods refused on the grounds that the wood already had too many tawnies. Well, there's a grand total of one pair in the wood, with another pair in a small wood on the other side of the valley and a "floater" -- a youngster with no territory. The pair in the first wood occupy its lower end near the stream. An attempt to reason with him that the top end of this large wood, along with an extensive area of partially wooded hinterland, is vacant fell on deaf ears. I know because I spent a night out there last November checking the area. It was a night of frenetic owl activity when every tawny for miles around seemed to be hooting (or kewicking) its head off! The top end of the wood and the area behind were silent. So another wood belonging to a more sympathetic landowner has been found, but in the meantime Sophie started to moult. Not only that, but over the last eight months or so she has broken all her tail feathers! As the radio tag aerial has to be glued along the length of a full tail feather to secure it firmly, it would be impossible to attach it with any confidence that it will stay on. In fact this is not without its advantages. If we'd released Sophie in June we might have lost track of her well before the radio tag battery drained simply because the feather to which it was attached had moulted. If she goes out with it attached to a newly grown tail feather this is unlikely to happen. That would give the chance to track her over a far more critical period than the summer months. As the autumn progresses food will become harder to find and older, established owls will move her on if she is in their territory. The main problem with the new wood is that I don't know for sure if it is part of someone's territory already. I've was in the area several nights last year and didn't hear tawnies in the wood. The landowner says she has heard tawnies in the same directions I've heard them but also not in the wood. However her gardener says he thinks he has heard tawnies over in the wood. Obviously there's more checking to do, but tawnies are quiet at this time of year. Well, if nothing else, maybe that gives some idea how complicated it can get to rehabilitate a young owl! Update mid-August: Tail feathers are coming on ve-e-ery slowly, so looks as though she'll be staying with me until next May. It's a good option as she'll have the whole summer to settle in. The downside of course is that she's getting used to having life served up on a plate! But it will be interesting to see whether a tawny that's been kept for so long can make it out in the wild. (Latest updates are on Sophie's Main Page)
Owls are stupid? I just went up to Sophie, sitting on top of a door, and asked "How's your tail?" She immediately turned to look at it. My experience with her and Owly (our first owlet) is of birds that learn fast, and which are capable of learning words at a very early age -- earlier than, for example, pigeons, which I (and lab researchers around the world) regard as a very intelligent bird. What's involved in learning words is a realisation in the first place that information is being communicated, an act of intelligence in itself. But it goes beyond that. A pigeon I kept for some years was capable of making inferences! If I said I needed a coffee, or a break, or used any one of a number of indirect ways of saying that I was heading for the kitchen, he'd fly out of the room before I even got up. He'd do this with no visible sign from me that I was about to move. Sophie knows all about her tail and wing feathers because I've been talking to her quite often about them, pulling them and telling her she must grow new ones. She's actually showing signs of some embarrassment about it all! November 2007: Another example: Sophie and I normally live upstairs, kitchen's downstairs. For supper she either gets a warmed chick or cat food (cat food because supplements, cod liver oil, tasty ingredients etc can be mixed in). I bring her "cooked" food upstairs with my own supper. But when it's a chick she has to come downstairs. On these nights all that need be said is "chick", as in "I'm warming you a chick", and she'll fly down to the first floor to see how it's getting on. Then it's "Come and get your chick", and ... see below. There's a serious side to this. For months I've been training Sophie to come when she's called for food. It took just a couple of feeds for her to learn, but one has to keep it up. Whoever calls has to be out of view. She may take her time -- depending on how hungry she is! -- but she'll come from the upper floor to the kitchen, a route that involves negotiating a stairwell and several tight corners. This of course is to increase the likelihood that she'll come when called in the wild, especially in the first days when she may not find food for herself. January 2008: Even more impressive -- after a year without mice Sophie remembers the word! She usually has chicks as they're much cheaper and easier to get, but the other day I ordered her a pack of mice as it'll be good for her "prey image", as it's called. I've now given her two, each time calling her down from my upstairs room to the kitchen with "Come and get your mouse" and similar phrases. No problem -- she came almost immediately. It is true that she's had reminders during the intervening period: the main example is in the Owl Cam video, where at one point a mouse is seen in the snow. I say "mouse" when it appears (we've watched the film several times), and once she swept in to pounce on the screen image. Pretty impressive memory for a little owl brain.
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