Today, I went to Baytree Owl Centre for a day with the Owls and the Raptors! There were only about 10 kids there, so it wasn't too busy and we got really close to the birds.
First, we saw the Owls. A guy flew some of them for us; they got so close I could feel the air rushing in my face as the owl raced past me!
We were shown 3 different types of owl. A Hawk Owl, called Luna the smallest owl in Britain, was the first one we saw. It was very noisy. The owls that are hand-raised screech when they're hungry because they always expect their handler to feed them. That's called "Imprinting". Imprinted birds see their handlers as their parents because they were raised by them. This means they can not survive in the wild. Wild birds stay silent so they don't scare away any prey while they are hunting!
The next owl was a very special one. He was a Great Grey Owl and his name was Kevin. His parents never taught him how to fly, so his handlers had to. They taught him to glide near the floor to save energy, how to land on the perches and most importantly, land on the glove. It took months of flying from perch to perch until, one day, Kevin finally landed on his keeper's glove and he's been doing so ever since!
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| Kevin! |
The third and final owl was massive. She was a European Eagle Owl, called Minerva, one of the biggest owls in England. It's scientific name is "Bubo bubo"! How cool is that? Because she was so big, she couldn't land on a glove, so she had to keep flying from perch to perch. It was quite easy to get a picture of her while she was flying because she was a lot slower than the others.
We had a short break, so we explored the rest of the birds and the other animals.
Recently, the Owl Centre has adopted a fox. Her name's Ruby, and even though she's tame, she's quite shy. She was very cute though!
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| Ruby |
They have lots of pairs of birds so they can breed them. They are also breeding Red Squirrels because their numbers in the wild are so low as the Grey Squirrels are taking over!
There was also a very weird type of bird there, a Secretary Bird. He was very odd looking, but he just would not pose for a photo! He kept hiding in the darkest parts of his enclosure, so I didn't get a very good picture of him. I found one online though!
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| Secretary Bird! |
After seeing the Fox, Secretary Bird and a few others, it was time to go back to the flying room to see the Raptor Display!
There were lots of cool birds that were flying, but the most exciting part was when we got to try a bit of flying ourselves! The birds are much better at flying than the owls.
Each of us had a quick turn at flying a little bird of prey from a perch to our arm and back again! It was really fun, but a bit scary. The bird was so fast I got a bit of a shock when it flung itself on to my hand! Of course, I had a glove on because their claws are very sharp.
After I had my turn at flying the bird I sat back down to watch everyone else. It was coming to the end of the little session when the bird flew right on to Jules' phone! She got such a fright that she threw her phone into the air. The bird must've got a fright as well, because it beat its wings in Jules' face!
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| Kevin again! |
Lastly, I saw a Polar Bear!! Not a real on though. It was part of the Christmas Display in the Garden Centre!
Anyway, even if I didn't see all of the animals that were at the Owl Centre ( I missed the giant tortoise!!) I still really enjoyed it!
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