My area has been having an oddly high number of melanistic squirrels. It’s starting to feel like an omen!

I just hope they take care of themselves too! It’s admirable having long hours or 24/7, but there is a huge potential for burnout if they never get time away from the clinic. Our owner lives on the property, but we keep pretty strict public hours of 10a-8p, I do believe, for reasons of sanity! 😅

That was breakfast. The pear was reserved for lunch.

I’ve only “seen” one once. I walked past the enclosure that said “Saw Whet” about 3 times thinking it must have been released. On the last try to spot it, I finally spotted 2 tiny eyes staring at me from the ceiling at the furthest corner. I’ll claim to have a Saw Whet that’s seen me, but I don’t really count that as me having seen him. 😜

It’s an onomatopoeia, but the weird colonial one.

Its native name is Ruru, which feels a bit more spot on.

Clip

I enjoy seeing them, but they do often have problems in life. Many seem to have bad eyesight, and they lose their natural camo, which is a pretty tough combo for a wild animal.

The rescue I’m at, and one of our nearby ones both took in leucistic birds that are unreleasable due to vision issues.

On the other hand, some can be fine. I know of one Great Horned Owl in particular that has been surviving a few years on its own. I posted about it here and we actually had folks working with the owl reach out to have the post removed, as they were trying to scrub the web of info on its location to protect it.

I’m glad that was helpful!

That kestrel got in a real bad position with those owls and she was lucky to get out of there. That one bite looked like it could have been nasty!

Not me! Just sharing one of Misty’s stories. 😇

Now that is one lucky soul!

But it’s nearing time for a brand new Owl of the Year!

/foreboding sound effect

Hey, you don’t know what kind of guy I am when I’m not talking owls. My fav animals are vicious murder machines, after all! 😈

Or what if God is a mouse or vole or chipmunk?

There’s a lot of variables at play!

“I left my tree for five minutes and you come along and do this to it?!”

I’m trying to be extra grumpy now in hopes of owl coming up in reincarnation roulette.

I haven’t seen it, but that scene was ridiculous! 😆

Barn owls (at least the ones most of us think of) are medium sized owls. This is a Tyto alba, a Western barn owl, which averages 13-14 inches / 33-35cm and a weight from 400-700 grams. The Tasmania masked owl is the largest barn owl, and is maybe 25-50% larger.

Kestrels are about the same size in length and wingspan, but are 150-250 grams, so in that regard, they are much smaller than a barn owl.

Here is a thumbnail for a nest cam video of a female kestrel attempting a raid on a barn owl nest. This is a female kestrel fighting the male barn owl. With raptors, the females are around 25-30% larger than males on average, so this is a larger kestrel vs a smaller barn owl and I think the width of the barnie is pretty visible here.

If you watch the clip, the owl doesn’t have too much difficulty maintaining physical control over the kesterl. There’s no visible gore in the video, though the description notes the kestrel was injured. It goes choppy when the owl really tries to put the hurt on the kestrel, so you can mainly just see them wrestling.

With a snatch and grab like in the original post photo, the kestrel should be at an advantage with its speed and agility advantage over the owl.

Mr. Tyto has been kind enough to bring us a snack. Be my guest. Help yourselves. Get a good one.

Oops, I been wooshed!

I wasnt sure what that thing was.

Me too! I never would have guessed that existed. 🤣

OMG, I was thinking Liam could play a good owl, but I found a clip of him teaming up with an owl to get revenge already!