Whisper

For the past several years I have had the pleasure of putting together the calendar for The Raptor Center. Each year it has been a struggle trying to figure out how to photograph the birds, after all most of my experience has been with birds that do not sit still let alone pose. This picture is my favorite so far. This was the October photo in the 2013 calendar. The photo was taken in a small pumpkin field at the University of Minnesota St Paul Campus, where The Raptor Center is located. The UofM St Paul Campus houses the School of Agricultural and the School of Veterinary Medicine, which is why it is one of the few places in Minnesota where you can find a barn owl and a pumpkin patch. Whisper is one of our education birds. She came to TRC from the World Bird Sanctuary. The World Bird Sanctuary raises barn owls as part of a release program in Missouri but Whisper was slated to become an education bird.  

Masters of the Sky

I spent most of this weekend helping out at Carpenter Nature Center. For the past 4 or 5 years CNC has hosted the World Bird Sanctuary's Masters of the Sky program the first weekend in March. The World Bird Sanctuary is located in St Louis, MO. Like The Raptor Center they began as a rehab organization for injured raptors. They still do raptor rehab but they also do raptor breeding and education program. Part of the purpose of their breeding program is releasing endangered species back to the wild while other birds are raised to help with the education.

The program is always fun and interesting. It is really cool to get to see some of their captive raptors that are not native to North America. This years foreign exchange birds included a hooded vulture, Eurasian eagle owl, tawny owl, long-crested eagle, white-necked raven and the bateleur eagle pictured above. There were also several species that are native to North America including a Harris hawk, eastern screech owl and barn owl. Three of the birds were used to demonstrate flight, the Harris hawk, hooded vulture and the barn owl, see top photo. The program helps teach CNC members and visitors about raptors and how we can help them survive, while it is also an effective fund raiser. 

TRC 2013 Calendar

This year I have worked to put together a calendar for The Raptor Center, as I have for the past few years. The calendar features many of our education birds, such as Whisper who was the featured bird for October 2013. The calendar also has pictures of birds being exercised with our flight crews, and birds being released back to the wild. I also intersperse the calendar with some of my wild raptor photos so that people can see some of the birds in their natural habitat. We also add a lot of information about the birds as well as the different species of raptors. The calendar is a bit more expensive then the cheap calendars that you can find at stores but all the proceeds go to help The Raptor Center treat and rehabilitate between 600 to 800 raptors each year. If you are interested you can purchase a calendar online here. 

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Answer Number 2: Barn Owl

Eye number (2) in the second Eyes of March Quiz belongs to bird (C) the barn owl.
The barn owl can be found in many places around the world. It has the most widely distributed range out of any of the owls. It can be found across the US, except for the northern portions and Alaska, all of Central and South America, most of Europe, except some northern parts, Australia and some southern parts of Asia.Because it is so widely distributed there are numerous subspecies of barn owls that are differ in size, color and geographic region. Barn owls get their name because they are cavity nesters that are often found nesting in old barns. This is usually good for farmers because their keen sense of hearing, probably the best in the animal kingdom, make them prolific mouse hunters and since they hunt at night, nocturnal, they are seldom seen during the day.

In North America the subspecies of barn owls is Tyto alba prantincola. They are the largest of all of the barn owls, with a buff colored breast which is covered with speckles, females typically have more speckles then the males. Whisper, one of the education birds from The Raptor Center, is a good example of the North American variety.

The owl who posed for the eye photo is actually an Eurasian barn owl from the World Bird Sanctuary who was a part of the Owl program at Carpenter Nature Center last weekend. Since they classified it as Eurasian I am not sure what subspecies that this bird was, but since it was quite a bit smaller then Whisper and had a white breast with no spots, I would guess that it may be from the subspecies Tyto alba alba which are found in western Europe and the Middle East.

As part of the program they flew this owl over the audiences head from one trainer to another.

At one point they asked the audience to close their eyes and listen as the bird flew overhead to demonstrate the owls ability of silent flight. This is necessary for owls that hunt at night, since their prey uses sound to sense approaching danger.

A Whisper in the Dark

Last Wednesday evening I finished my formal training at The Raptor Center. When I first began volunteering at The Raptor Center I joined the transport crew. The transport crew is a group of on call volunteers who are sent out to pick up injured raptors that people find but can not bring in themselves. I really wanted to do education but I was not sure if I could fit it into my work schedule. Since I had already rescued an immature bald eagle on my own, I decided that transport would be a good place to start as a volunteer. However I was not satisfied with just doing transport. I wanted to be more involved then just being an on call volunteer waiting for a phone call so that I could help out, so I asked if I could come in during my on call hours and help out. So I ended up as the lobby assistant on Wednesday afternoons greeting people and helping out. However I still wanted to do more. I really enjoy working with the public to educate them about raptors so I asked about moving to the education crew. It took a while but they finally set up an official volunteer training.

The training made for a couple of really long days, work 8 hours, then off to volunteer for about 4 hours, grab a quick bite to eat and then back for about 3 hours of training. It was long but fun and I am very excited to be starting on the education crew. Since Emily had taken over the lobby assistant duties I asked to shadow a tour that Adam was giving. Adam is one of the staff so it was really interesting and informative tagging along on the tour. His back ground is in environmental education and it really showed. This particular tour was for a donor who was adopting our educational barn owl named Whisper. So after the tour Adam gave the donor the special treatment and brought Whisper out so that the group could get a closer look. This gave me the opportunity to get some nice pics.
We don't really have barn owls in Minnesota except for occasional sightings. The winters here are just typically too cold for their liking and there is a lack of old barns to roost in.
Although they are not commonly found in Minnesota the barn owl is found on every continent around the world except Antarctica. There are up to 46 different varieties with the North American version being the largest.
Barn owls are rare in the bird world because the female is actually more colorful then the male. Females typically have more red in the chest area and are more heavily spotted. It is believed that the number of spots indicate the quality of the female to a potential mate.

Barn owls have superb hearing. They have the ability to find their prey better in complete darkness then any other animal tested.Barn owls have a high metabolism and are very efficient at controlling the populations of mice and other rodents. It has been calculated that an average barn owl living 10 years could catch and eat as many as 11,000 mice in its lifetime.