A gorgeous quiet walk with Kipling with Southern ground hornbill in a warm December day. Kipling is 11 years old and ground hornbills can live up to 70 years! Did you know that your support of Avian Behavior International has helped us not only do work with conservation groups in South Africa they reintroduce this incredible species back into their historic range, but continue to gather important behavioral data that makes these projects successful. You can sign up for a walk with our little maker of mayhem, and as everyone who has visited the ranch knows, Kipling makes every visit the Kipling Show and will insist on stealing the spotlight.
The gentle whinny of an actual screech owl! The banshee like screeching sound that we think comes from screech owls is actually from the barn owl. Both Western screech owls and Eastern screech owls can have a variety of calls like Nigel is making here.
Nigel is a rufous phase Eastern screech owl, and arguably the most handsome. Screech owls can eat a varied diet of small mammals and invertebrates. Nigel weighs a little bit more than a stick of butter and his round little body flies like a grenade 😂 look out come springtime! Males and females can defend their nests fiercely by flying at unwitting passersby
Oakley the harris's hawk coming in with a Santa Ana fueled tail wind on one of this past week's Hawk Walks. While the dry windy weather can make us edgy about fire dangers, it has a silver lining in making for some very dynamic bird flights. With lots of air time, Oakley is a confident flyer and knows how to work with the wind. She uses this kind of weather to circle over our heads as our falconry classes wind through the trails and looks for good spots to call her to the glove. Harris's hawks are fun to watch fly and crafty, versatile predators.
Our holiday schedule is starting to fill up. Join us with your families! https://avian-behavior.org/events and meet our awesome team of free flyers.
A lovely Halloween afternoon was spent with an Animal Behavior undergraduate class talking about behavior, ecology, and conservation. Here’s Larue the crested caracara soaking up the attention.
If you have met Ripley the spectacled owl at one of our Owl Prowls, you know she is rarely in a hurry. Like most owls, she’s an ambush predator, so they will sit and wait for prey to come to them and glide down and pounce. Spectacled owls are found in rainforests from Central America down to South America. Ripley really has the “wait” part down pat, and we call it being on Owl Time.
This video shows how owls protect their number one adaptation when they are eating. They can’t see close up anyway, so they close their eyes. Those rictal bristles, the whisker-like feathers, are believed to help the feel their food close up.
Nigel the screech owl is getting a training session with one of his handlers. It’s spooky season officially and our owls are ready for lots of education programs to meet San Diego County residents. With days getting longer, lots of weather pattern changes, and migratory species changing foraging patterns, you might be hearing more owls. Nigel looks on as migrating turkey vultures become more present in our Southern California skies. Even though they are no threat to him, he keeps an eye on their activity nonetheless!
If you are a fall person, we have a special for you! 50% off your second ticket for one of our interactive avian classes. Sale ends 9/23 code is halfoff
The weather is definitely getting chilly and more of that awesome fall crisp, and our owls have something to say! The molting season is finishing up, migration is in full swing, and many birds are putting on weight for the winter. This feather is clinging on for dear life as Aldo the great horned owl wraps up the end stages of his molt.
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You might be hearing some if you live in great horned territory as first year fledglings start to move out more on their own and leave their parents.
Research shows that parental involvement in great horned owls is much higher than originally thought, making it so important for fledglings to stay with their parents rather than be “rescued” by humans every time they end up on the ground.
Find the class of your dreams at https://avian-behavior.org/events or contact us to set something up
How do burrowing owls make you think of butter? Because Tina the burrowing owl weighs about as much as a stick of butter! Burrowing owls have what is called high extrinsic mortality: there are a lot of environmental factors out there that are dangerous. They are very small, which means they are bite sized for many other animals. In our classes we talk about how this impacts burrowing owl hunting strategies in grasslands in North and South America!
Our favorite blueberry, Leo the hyacinth macaw, chatting with his trainer while sitting for voluntary nail trims. Our interns get to learn this husbandry procedure to keep Leo’s nails in good shape to sit on guests’ hands for his self-appointed PR role
Indy the military macaw bids everyone a happy World Parrot Day from the top of Macaw Rock. Indy is one of our fastest flyers and even has been caught flying in barrel rolls upside down that you have to see to believe. She is the smallest of our macaw team and can flush her face pink when she is excited. Which is pretty much always.
Military macaws, like many of the 400 or so species of parrots, are threatened in the wild, with ranges in Mexico and South America.
