From Raptors Rise Rehab Center
Meet Peanut, a nestling Eastern Screech Owl. His nest tree was cut down today with him still in it! The tree trimmer didn’t see the nest. But he did do the right thing and called for help. Animal Control officer Stuery retrieved the little guy and then met us with him.
Poor little Peanut was a bit shook up, as expected!
But now, Peanut is a monster! He doesn’t want to eat ! When you attempt to give him food with tweezers he grabs you with his talons. It’s funny, because he could fit into a coffee cup. Little bird, big attitude. He was very docile when we got him. We hydrated him with some diluted Gatorade and it really perked him up!
I’ve posted a couple pictures of his stance when I’m trying to get some food in him. I can almost hear him saying, “You’re not my mom!”
Thank you Officers Stuery and Kat for saving him and getting him to us! We appreciate you, even if he is a monster! Lol
I am the night. I am this tiny knitted cup. I am justice.
These bird nest things come in handy for so many things around the clinic!
Does he grab the tweezers? Grab your glove?
I’ve had them grab the tweezers since they didn’t want me shoving things in their face, even if it was food. We usually leave them to stand on their own unless they haven’t eaten in a while due to stress and we have to make them eat.
Haha! I can’t imagine something that small with those murder feet.
Most photos do not capture well how big the foot:owl ratio actually is! I still get surprised when I get a really good angle in photos or in person.
Tweezers, the only natural enemy of the murder peanut.
We want them to be prepared for the wild, so the angrier the bird, the better their recovery is going!
I’m unclear on if it was the owl or the tree trimmer that called (screeched?) for help… but it was the right thing for either of them to do so it still holds up!
I just recently made me life sized and weighted Screech plushie, and my phone weighs more than the adult female Screech, so it was probably the guy! 😜
(Without the case, my Pixel 7 should be 197g, which is just above the mean weight of an adult female Eastern Screech, at 185g)
Ooh, you should post it! And maybe crosspost to any crafting communities here.
(If you did already I’m sorry I missed it.)
I’ve shared peaks once or twice, but I’ve been saving all my open house stuff to share at once.
I didn’t make the plushies due to time and skill constraints. I think it the International Owl Center that shared once how they acquired a one-of-a-kind Blakistons Fish Owl plush in Japan to add to their collection of realistic plushies they had weighted to be an overall accurate owl, and I thought that was a great idea, since people can’t touch our real owls.
Here are the Great Horn and Screech next to their more accurate life sized cutouts. My wife opened them up and we added beans to bump them to proper weight. Screech is right at 7 ounces, making her a female, and the GHO needed almost 2 pounds of beans to get him up to weight. It was hard to fit that many inside since the plush has a metal frame to keep its shape. It would have needed another full pound to be an average female.
I made cut outs of wood for each of the 8 owls of Pennsylvania, so people could see them all right next to each other.
I got magnets to snap them onto wood blocks so they can all stand up next to each other and I can rearrange them to compare and contrast at my owl info booth.
They said they had a young man that could paint them and he sent this sneak peak of his work.
They are a million times better than I would have been able to do. I said as long as they looked like decent clip art images I’d be happy! 😅
I think he well exceeded that. I can’t wait to see all 8 in person. I’ve made fact sheets to go with them all also, and I will be there to talk everyone’s ears off about anything else owl related.
That’s so cool. And yeah, those paint-jobs look awesome!
I really think people will love them!
The Great Horn is about the size of a house cat, and it feels substantial for a bird, but still extremely light when compared with an equal sized cat.
A small cat is kinda the size I see when I picture “owl”, but I’m slowly correcting it to “between a big fist and a small cat”.
What will happen to him? Will he be put back in another tree for his mom to find?
I couldn’t find too many more details on this particular owl’s situation. No word on if there were other babies or parents around. I’m thinking not, since they didn’t mention it or being able to relocate/replace the nest and renesting any siblings.
They have at least one other baby Screech, named Mittens, whom I have a queued post on, and once Peanut is a little bigger, they will be put together.
Since Peanut is so small, there’s a few potential outcomes for him. An adult Screech could come into the center and possibly adopt him. An established Screech nest could be found, and they could sneak Peanut into that nest. Or Peanut will grow up in the clinic and be released to an area that has what an adult Screech will need. The first 2 options can boost his chance for success after release, as he’d learn from an actual adult owl that was surviving on its own. The parent(s) will still look out for it to try to prepare it for winter. If it is released on its own, then it is responsible for itself, but the upside is that it can potentially be released in a better location, away from people, roads, etc.
Rehabbers will always try to have an animal raised by its own kind so it learns everything it needs, but it isn’t always possible, hence why we limit human contact and make sure it’s at peak health at release. That’s all we can really do as humans. We keep them fed, hydrated, and with as much unaltered instincts as possible. Owl life is tough, especially the first year, but we prepare them the best we can!
I hope he gets an owl family. He looks too young to be on his own
Mitten looks like a good companion. I will try and remember to share her tomorrow. And owls are solitary, so being alone probably isn’t as bad as it would be for us. Our adult GHO is with us because he’s too used to humans to be safe, but he still makes it clear he unmistakably wants to be alone. 😄
