Mum’s the word
Last Sunday we had an important day here at the Suffolk Owl Sanctuary. It was of course Mother’s Day and all of our visiting mums had the opportunity to have a photograph taken with one for the owls. Fortunately, the sun managed to put its hat on for at least some of the day and we had lots of lovely smiles for the camera.
“Four Weddings” Outing
Three of our birds also had an unexpected outing this week, after Andrew received a phone call from the producers of the ‘Four Weddings’ programme, which appears on the Living TV channel.
As part of the series, they were going to film a couple getting married in Robin Hood & Maid Marion costumes - the theme of the wedding was ‘Robin Hood In Tights’. As well as having some rather beautiful horses on hand, the plan was to also have some birds of prey in the scene too. However, the company they had employed to provide the raptors had let them down, so we were asked to fill in at short notice..
Normally we don’t get involved in this sort of thing but they were nice people and offered to make a donation to our Charity, so head falconer Matt and chief fundraiser Maz duly set off for the Park Hill Hotel in Woodbridge with Ash the Common Buzzard, Comet the Peregrine and Baloo the Indian Eagle Owl in tow.
Though in strange surroundings It has to be said that our ‘crew’ played their roles impeccably and proved a great success. We think the programme will be shown on TV sometime in May or June this year, so watch this space for further details.
A little owl mythology - Wise Owl Theory pooh-pooh’d
As everyone knows, the wisest bird in the world is the owl. Not only do owls look wise with their wide intelligent eyes and seemingly benevolent faces, but also there are many myths & stories that give the lie to our beliefs, not least that Athene the Goddess of wisdom had a Little Owl as her constant companion. There is even a sneaking suspicion that Owl of Winnie the Pooh fame, who can proudly spell his own name ‘Wol’, was only feigning ignorance to his less intellectual friends!
The sad fact is, however, Wol is about as bright as owls get. Although they have nice, big brainy-looking heads, an awful lot of what you see is actually feathers. Once you get inside an owl’s head, you then find that most of the skull space is taken up by the cone shaped protuberances that form the vast part of its eyes. Which doesn’t leave much room for a brain! In fact, an owl’s brain is about the same size as a peanut and just about allows the owl to live its owly life to the best of its ability. So sorry to spoil the illusion but ‘wise old owl’ should definitely be filed in the ‘old wives tale’ department!