OWL Rehabilitation Society - Week Three.

Meet Rob Hope, Rob is OWL's mainsupervisor when it comes to Bird Care! He's training this female Peregrine Falcon (Falco perigrinus) to hunt again. It's an intense proces of mutual respect between falcon and falconner. After the training is over, this bird will hopefully be released with succes.

A lot of International Volunteers join OWL to learn all about raptors. Liron (Germany), Pascal (Swiss) and I (Belgium) often do jobs or check-ups together. Field Flights contains 11 Bald Eagles in rehab, five of these big birds are ready for release. It's always exciting in this cage, we feed, we clean or we mow the fields! You need eyes on your back, that's for sure...These pictures are Liron's by the way, thanks mate!

 

I always enjoy doing the check-up in Interim Training Flights. This cage contains Owls and Hawks in rehab. Two Barred Owls (Strix varia) are definitely ready for release, the moment you throw the mice on the platform they come and get it superfast which is a wonderful scene to look at...enjoy!



And sometimes there's a collision...: )

Whenever there's a dead bird we can practice several injections on it in the Medical Room. We do subcutaneous and intramuscular injections and try eight-wraps around the wings. I all looks so easy...on a dead bird! Sonja and Liron try very hard to bring this Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) back alive ; ).

We handfeed several glovetrained birds on a daily base. These birds are all permanently injured or human imprint. Experienced volunteers take them to schools and events to teach people all about raptors. Sarah, a four year old Barn Owl (Tyto alba), raised by people, spends her days on a perch in the common room and gets her fly-training in the Inside Interim every day. It's very interesting to follow her training up close or to do it yourself.

The beard is gone...Not only Rob trains the young Peregrine, Barb and Martina take over when Rob's not around. The first step of the training is the jump to the glove. They place the bird on a perch and she has to jump a couple of feet to the food on the glove. At this point, the falcon is still leashed because she might take off and it's way to early for her.

Have you met Pygar in the header? Handsome juvenile Golden Boy!
MeetTheMooseCrew still standing and living the life.
Almost time to go home...

OneLove

Sideshow Deejay and Pervert.