With our Raptor Hospital busier than ever, we’ve been struggling to find safe locations to build our hack pens.
Hack pens are used to release many of our patients, particularly those who have stayed with us for some time. They allow the birds to acclimatise back into the wild by being sited in remote locations where human disturbance is limited. We visit every few days to drop off food, but the pens are designed to allow small rodents from the local population to enter, encouraging the bird/s in residence to hunt.
This allows the birds to build up fitness, and we can remotely monitor these pens using trail cameras to assess when the birds are ready for release.
Following a conversation with the owners of Kenton Hall, we were delighted to be invited to build our largest hack pen to date in a secluded area of their woodland.
This pen will provide a home to the remaining Tawny Owlets that we’ve had in our Hospital over the last few months. These six Owlets were all found abandoned or in unusual locations and needed some help from us. To avoid imprinting, we placed them all together in one of our Hospital aviaries, where they bonded and have formed a giant owlet family!
In order for us to see if our releases are successful, these Owlets have all been ringed, in the hope that they will be found breeding nearby in the future.
One of the Owlets being ringed by Jess, under supervision from BTO ringer Dr Hugh Hanmer
The Owlets were moved to the hack pen last week and are now settling in and taking in the sights and sounds of their new home. In the next few weeks the pen will be opened and monitored for signs of Owlets returning for food.
We are very grateful to Kenton Hall for this partnership, and to the Lord Belstead Charitable Trust, Geofffrey Burton Charitable Trust and Mrs L D Rope Charitable Trust for their funding and support which has allowed us to build yet another hack pen for our Hospital.