In this issue...
• The Sensory
World of Birds
• 20th
Anniversary Wine & Summer Hours
• SPRING is in
the air!
• Survival in
the Wild
|
The
Sensory World of Birds
|
 20th
Anniversary Wine & Summer Hours
Our Christmas Syrah was such a hit, that we have
now bottled a 2008 RainSong Vineyard Estate Chardonnay - in honor of
Toto and in celebration of our 20th anniversary. We'll be
providing tastes at our Earth Day members-only event ... but you are
welcome to come buy some at any time! $15/bottle or
$150/case. Help support your local raptor center in its 20th year
serving our natural and human community. Our sincere thanks to
Barbara Gleason for the designing and printing of the labels and to the
staff, volunteers, and supporters who did the bottling!
Summer Hours Coming Soon
Just a reminder that in two short weeks, we will be
going back to expanded summer hours. From April 1st through
October 31st, we will be open from 10:00 am through 6:00 pm, the same
six days a week (Tuesday-Sunday, plus Monday holidays). Summer
admission fees also increase to $7 for adults, $6 for seniors (over 65)
and teens, and $4 for children under 12. Babies under 2 and
members are always free. Hope to see you sometime soon to share
all our changes and additions!
|
 SPRING
is in the air!
It's mid-March and the thoughts (and hormones) of
our avian residents are definitely turning amorous. Our Northern
spotted owl laid her first egg of the year on Saturday, the 13th; the
bald eagles started sitting on what we assume is their first egg last
week also; and the red-tailed hawks are bringing sticks up to their
nesting platform, rearranging them, nestling down to check the fit,
rearranging, getting more ... Unfortunately we cannot see into the
eagles' nest and don't want to bother them by sticking a mirror up
there, but they usually lay two eggs. It is really endearing to watch
the careful changing of the guard, as the male spends almost as much
time on the nest as does the female.
The spotted owl nest is on camera and can be seen on a
screen in the visitor center - so we know that as of last night, at
least, she still had only one egg. Although the eagles and owls have
laid eggs for years, they are never fertile. The red-tailed hawks
(both females, mind you) usually lay about four eggs but attrition takes
its toll as they sometimes jockey to see who gets to incubate them and
sometimes the eggs fall out. Tomahawk, one of these nesting
red-tails, was our first education bird and will be 24 years old next
month! Even though these eggs won't hatch, it does provide an
enriching part of the life cycle that is usually missing in captivity,
and does prepare the birds for possible foster-parenting if we get any
orphans in that can't be renested in their own nests.
Our neighborhood barred owls seem to have returned, as
we hear the male, at least, almost every night. It always starts
up a chorus of responses from our spotted and barred owls, making early
evening a great time to be here. Our female goshawk is calling
almost non-stop, the songbirds' calls have changed, things are
blooming! We're starting to get calls about birds that have come
down chimneys or through ventilation pipes, even dryer vents looking for
nest sites. And so the cycle continues.
Now is a good time to cap chimneys with wire if you do
not want visitors - after a mild winter when fireplaces are not likely
to be used, raccoons, squirrels, even possums, wood ducks, flickers, and
owls are often found investigating what from the top looks like a
possible cavity. Woodpeckers are strumming on anything metal to declare
their territory - an amazing sound to wake up to. It's also a good
time for a long walk to your favorite woodland to check out hawk nests
(often taken over by great horned owls at this time of the year) that
you cannot see once the trees fully leaf out. Enjoy this
transition time as new birds arrive from their wintering grounds, as the
trillium and fawn lily bloom, and Father Sun toys with us, making
promises the clouds don't let him keep.
We hope you can join us at Dan's talk and gain more of
a bird's eye view! Please RSVP, as seating is limited.
|
 Survival
in the Wild
In May 1998, we received an orphaned great horned
owl brancher (these birds leave the nest before they can fly and move
around in the branches, where their parents feed them) - our log number
98-60. He was found thin, on the ground, and by himself at a logging
site near Seaside.
At that time, we had a resident great horned owl,
Burwell, who was a phenomenal foster mom. Burwell laid eggs every spring
(even though housed with another female owl) and was then primed and
ready for any orphans we might be unable to renest. She would feed
them and protect them (usually from us: Ouch!); if they were very
young, she would brood them and keep them warm. When the youngsters were
able to fly, we would simply release them here, on our property, and
put a feeding platform up on the outside of "mama's" cage. They
would call to her and come to the platform for food for months
afterwards! We are in good habitat here and there is good habitat in
almost every direction they might choose to disperse, as they do well at
the rural/urban interface.
Earlier that spring, Burwell had fostered two younger
nestlings, who were released here just a few days after 98-60 arrived,
so he had "mama" to himself for another month or so. We released
him here on July 8th. As the birds become independent, finding
their own food, they come back less and less frequently to the feeding
platform - usually sometime around October. The same thing happens
in the wild, of course, since great horned owls have one of the longest
post fledging dependency periods of all the raptors. They have so
much to learn!
We band many of our releases - and though getting a
'band return' usually means that bird has died, it is always interesting
to see how long they've lived and how far they've traveled. Our
98-60 was found dead in January 2010 - nearly 12 years after his
release; and just across Fox Hollow and up Christensen Road! He
didn't go far and he lived a respectable length of time for a wild
bird. I like to imagine that he was one of the great horned owls
we hear and see from time to time on our property.
|
Subscribe | Unsubscribe | Send this to a friend
This email was created
and delivered using MyMailout
"create, send and manage email
newsletters"
|
|
|
