From South Essex Wildlife Hospital
Someone’s growing up quickly! 🥰
Remember the TINY barn owl chick that arrived in our care at the end of July? Look how grown up he looks now! ♥️
He had only just hatched from the egg when he arrived in our care and it’s taken a LOT of work to raise him into the fluffy ball of white fuzz who now resides in one of our wards. Whilst raising him is one thing, there’s something else that’s MUCH better news…
He hates us.
That may sound like a mad thing to be proud of but, when working with orphaned wildlife (especially raptors), the risk of taming or imprinting is something we really have to avoid. Although it may look ‘cute’ to see young animals interacting with a human, their chances back in the wild depend on their instincts and fear. They need to know that humans often mean bad news and, as a result, we need to make sure they never lose that natural fear of Mankind.
May your disdain towards us only grow, little one! 😂
May your disdain towards us only grow, little one!
I am stealing this line and using it in a story at some point. Idk what context I will be using it in yet, but that’s part of the joys of writing
Wow - go li’l barnie!
They’re doing a great job, hopefully he gets sick of their BS and goes and does what HE wants to do! we’re not the boss of him!
I wish all the wild babies grow up to be the toughest whatever they are in their neck of the woods!
Has there been studies done on using puppets for feeding teaching life skills whilst in captivity in order to avoid them imprinting on humans?
I’ve never seen puppets used for life skills.
I tried searching for some examples of more lively puppets. Florida’s Audubon Center for Birds of Prey uses preserved specimens for their puppets.
“They’re real birds. They’re real specimens that we’ve turned into puppets, so they really are mimicking the adult of that bird,” Katie Warner, the center’s director, said. (Link)
They will develop skills naturally. We try to keep babies together with their own kind, because it’s still the type of socialization they’d get, and they can learn from each other, but we’ve had single babies that seem to grow up fine. Last year we only had one GHO, and I felt a bit bad for it, but it grew up strong and fierce. This year we had 3 at once, and, well, they still seemed just as cranky and miserable, but they are owls. 😄. The trio did seem to move about a bit more. While they can’t be with our resident GHO, Elliot, they could still hear his hoots, and those of the other neighborhood GHOs.
We use different degrees of disguise for different birds. Some seem to imprint more easily than others. I’ve seen our owl mask but I’ve never had to use it. They seem to get past the imprint stage fairly quickly from what I’ve gathered. The rehabbers will use that to feed the real tiny ones. By the time they come to me, they’re still babies, but I’ve never had to hide from the owls once they’re well off enough they entrust them to us volunteers.
We did have 2 baby turkey vultures this year, and I didhave to go undercover to feed them. I was informed they are a species that does bond very quickly, so we needed to be carefully around thenI was informed they are a species that does bond very quickly, so we needed to be careful around them. It was not as fancy as a puppet. It was essentially a cut up T-shirt with eye holes to throw over one’s head, and a little leafy dollar store quality sniper vest type thing to obscure our human shapes.
I thought it was a pain in the butt. It was hot and I assumed we were all sweating in it. It blocked my peripheral vision as I’m trying to carry a test of chopped up rats, while unlocking and removing the aviary door with my other hand, while also trying to see where 2 birds were. And they just hid whenever I was around anyway, which I guess means it worked?
So all us rescues do kinda the same things to various degrees. Our animals grow up in a matter of weeks instead of years like humans, so our danger zone for imprinting isn’t all that big, but it’s a lot more critical during that time.
I hope that made sense and I’m sure I rambled a lot. I’m watching Project Hail Mary and it’s very distracting. 😁
