Have any parents out there woken up one morning and realized your “baby” is taller then you are?
That must be how our foster owl has been feeling lately. Now that adulthood is creeping in, our fledgling eastern screech owl has grown in almost all her adult feathers and now weighs 193 grams! (That’s 0.4 pounds, for those, like me, to whom grams make no sense). Overall, baby is flying well, has a very healthy appetite and is now 20 grams heavier than our adult.
Foster mom has stepped up big time, too. She is now very protective of her adopted youngster and puffs all up and makes a “scary owl” clicking noise with her beak to ward us off every time we go in their enclosure.
Working with injured wildlife we experience our share of hardships, but this little owlet has been one of the fun, incredibly rewarding projects that keeps us all coming back for more. Soon we will say goodbye to our little one and watch her swoop off on her own into the Vermont night.