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New home for evicted tawny owls |
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Sunday, 11 June 2006 |
New home for evicted tawny owls
A pair of tawny owl chicks who fell out of their nest at the age of two weeks have been given foster parents.
The birds were found in the grounds of a church in Newport and named Bluebell and Blossom.
Dave Cooksey, who runs The Welsh Owl and Wildlife Sanctuary, was called to the church to care for the birds.
But he decided the best chance the chicks had was to be reared by other
tawny owls, so nesting boxes across the area were checked for new
parents.
"They were found in the churchyard but when we went down to look we
couldn't see any typical tawny owl nests, so we think they probably
nested in a magpie nest which probably collapsed," he said.
"If it had been in the country, we would have probably left the birds
there for their parents to continue feeding them, but as it was Newport
we thought we had better take them."
He said hand-feeding the birds was a last resort because they adapt
quickly and would grow up thinking humans were their parents, so
decided finding foster parents was the best option.
"We've got a series of nesting boxes across the area, so I raced around looking to see which ones had tawny owls in," he said.
"It is better for us to foster to owls which only have one chick in the nest.
"For some reason the parent can't resist the food calls the chick makes and will feed it.
"I went to check on them and they both seem to have settled in well - I
could see one of them sitting on a branch with its new family.
"It's a happy ending for these chicks," he said. |
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