Those of you that regularly read these diary pages will know that we like to bring you regular up-dates of the new arrivals at S.O.S. So far this year’s breeding programme has been quite successful and our proudest achievement to date was the arrival of our first parent-reared Boobook Owlet. (For more information, click here to read our Boobook Baby story.)
But every now and then we sometimes wish to add birds to the collection which we are unable to breed ourselves, simply because we have no parent birds of the relevant species. So, if you like puzzles, try to guess which terrifying new species of raptor had come to join us at Stonham!
Here are some clues. Firstly, this type of owl quite literally couldn’t get any smaller - for which reason we are calling the new arrivals Titch & Tiny. Secondly, they’re members of the Little Owl family. And thirdly - the best clue I can give you - is that these little fella’s are the only species of owl known to nest underground.
The answer we’re looking for is that our new arrivals - aptly named Titch & Tiny - are Burrowing Owls, or Athene Cunicularia for the Latin scholars amongst you. (For non-Latin scholars, you can always tell a Burrowing Owl because they carry little shovels around with them! Boom boom!)
To be accurate, only five-week-old Titch has arrived at S.O.S. so far: Tiny will be joining us shortly. For the record meanwhile, Titch currently stands approximately 5 inches tall and as a full grown adult could potentially reach the dizzying heights of, oh, 8.5 inches or more (which is where the ‘vertically challenged’ bit comes in).