IMPORTANT; THIS OWL IS CAPTIVE BRED, AND IS IN A CENTRE THAT FLIES THEIR BIRDS OF PREY DAILY. THEY ARE NOT PETS, AND SHOULD NEVER BE SEEN AS PETS! (Doesn’t mean they can’t be cute, tho!)
Anyway, I’ve never truly posted about the birds I work with (for reasons I’ll state in text under the video), but I caved and wanted to share this video of Chudley the Chaco owl I got today. I think he wants me to get a haircut lol.
I love him, he’s amazing. In this video, he is showing some preening behaviours, but he’s also being playful. That grabby motions is exactly what he was doing to the rocks a bit earlier. (And it’ll be explained a little later, but he showed no signs of distress when doing this, so I knew he was just playing around)
But please know it’s really hard for me to actually share this video. Not because of personal reasons or anything, but because it is so easy to give the wrong idea on social media. And the fear of spreading misinformation keeps me up at night.
And so, for the next few paragraphs I’m going to explain somethings, to give context and educate people who may not be aware. Just like I would with the public normally.
It’ll be rambly, like always, and I honestly don’t expect people to read all of it. But it would mean the world to me if you stayed and listened to my animal facts.
Owls are blind close up! Their eyes are fixed in their sockets, and they’re long and oval. Meaning they cannot move in their head, and therefore cannot focus on anything right infront of their beak. You can actually try this yourself by focusing on something in the distance, but then putting your finger infront of you. Owls cannot go cross eyed to focus on the object infront of them, and therefore it remains extremely blurry to them.
This is why they nibble at people hands to see if they have food. It’s not aggression, and they’re much gentler than any budgie I’ve been bitten by, lol.
Because owl’s eyes are fixed in their sockets, they bob their head to find depth. This is why you might see owls doing that little dance-thing where they’re moving their head in a circular motion. It does look very funny, I can’t deny. But ultimately it’s because they’re trying to look at something specific.
This is why I knew EXACTLY what Chudley was about to do when he started bobbing his head at my ear lmao.
That growling sound you hear from Chudley is a “FEED ME!” Call! (But do not be deceived, I had literally just fed him before I took the video) And you may be able to hear other ‘feed me’ calls too! I’ll try to list a few, so you can pick out a few from the audio.
Low growling screech; Chudley! The Chaco owl.
High pitched screech; any of the barn owls!
The boisterous squawk; The European eagle owls.
The whisspy “fwu -fwu” (I am trying my hardest, I am so sorry); the Great Grey owl.
The Beep-Beep; was a vehicle reversing, lmao.
And at some point there was a squark of a pheasant?? I can promise you now, he’s not part of our facility -just a VERY overconfident wanderer.
There might be a few others about, but the owls mentioned are the closest to where I shot the vid.
ANYWAY! That’s their ‘feed me’ calls, like I mentioned. Captive birds of prey tend to keep their baby calls because they’ve never hunted food themselves, and therefore have never grown out of calling for food.
But that’s not the only sounds they produce, and it’s important for a handler to recognise some of the most pressing vocalisations. It’s harder to tell with other birds, but with owls, they have a loud, distinctive click as a threat. And also a very distinctive hiss to show displeasure and uncertainty.
If they are worried about something (whether that’s a possible predator in the sky (the dreaded hand-gliders), or something as simple as a new perch they’ve never seen), they might hiss and click at it. It’s very clear and easy to catch, and it’s important to figure out whether it would be better to put the bird back into its aviary, or if it’s better to let the owl sit and watch the threat until it realises it’s not in danger.
However, it’s not as serious if the bird JUST hisses (once). I say this, because I’ve had it before where we were at an education talk inside, and I was flying the birds over the audience while my boss talked on stage. And at one point I had the African Spotted Eagle-owl on one of the perches, and a little kid ran up under the perch. Now I’m very good at asking the public to not stand under the perches (for kids I use the excuse “it’s the poop area, and you don’t want to get covered in that”, but for adults I tell them the truth; that it makes the bird uncomfortable if you’re directly under them), but this child ran up out of no where, right under the bird. Ozzy (the African spotted), looked down for a second and gave one distinctive hiss. And that was enough to get me to know all I needed. So I put my glove up, he hopped on immediately (he’d take any excuse not to fly, I swear 😂), and I walked him to the other perch. Of course I did inform the kid that they shouldn’t stand under the perch, but they didn’t move, and so I just didn’t fly him to that perch.
All of that is to show, a hiss like that is your sign they’re worried about something. However, if he would’ve clicked at the kid, I would’ve grabbed him by the legs (safest way to grab a bird of prey, both for you and the bird), and whisked him off back to his blackout box to let him calm down. Of course it’s about the safety of the public, but also the longer a bird is in a situation where they feel like they’re in danger, the more likely they’ll end up traumatised.
Luckily, the team we have for educational talks are an absolutely amazing bunch. That’s the only time I’ve heard Ozzy hiss at an event, but even after it had happened, he continued flying to the other perch without a problem.
A very important fact -actually the reason I was so wary uploading a video like this;
BIRDS OF PREY DON’T NORMALLY LIKE BEING TOUCHED! It’s a shocker, I know. We all want to believe that every animal on earth wants to be pet, but the harsh truth is that that’s not the case. Especially when it comes to wild animals.
See, birds of prey aren’t normally social animals (there are a few exceptions), and so they are not very tactile. Any touch tends to be intrusive, and uncomfortable.
However, there are some important exceptions that can make all the difference. 1) most bird of prey owners actually have to desensitise their birds to touch. This is extremely important to make sure they’re not stressed when handling them for putting on equipment/handling them if they’re injured etc. it’s to make sure that the bird knows for a fact that you’re not going to kill them when you restrain them. It makes their life a lot easier in the long run. However, that doesn’t mean they like being touched, just that they know they’re safe if they are touched.
And 2) you will find a one in a million bird who actually does like being touched. But I cannot stress enough how rare that is. Of course you can try and nurture that temperament with every bird, but it’s never a guarantee. For example, the only bird we have that likes being pet by anyone -even strangers- is a barn owl called Pip. We have no idea if his previous owner trained him like this, all we know is that he’d rather sit on the glove and have pets, rather than fly and exercise 😂
Another thing to note, is that it’s much more likely that a bird is okay with their main handler touching them, compared to a random person from the public. It’s understandable, especially considering how they aren’t naturally tactile. This is why you may see handlers able to touch and mess with birds, but then the public can’t. It’s not personal. It’s just boundaries.
Connecting this fact with the video, Chudley is still young (coming up on about two months, I think?), so our training is a lot of desensitising, along with many many many treats. He’s doing great so far! And I hope he turns out like Pip, because it’s such a rare experience to feel the softness which is owl feathers. But ultimately, he might not, and that’s completely fine.
So, saying all of this, when it comes to the falconry I work at we have a rule about touching birds, that we tell the public. Because the birds fly free, back and forth from glove to perch, they’re not tethered at ALL. And so we say “you can try and stroke the birds, but they might just hop off the glove and fly to the other perch.” And you know what? Nine times out of ten the bird hops off the glove. The birds have the freedom to choose, and so I’ve NEVER seen the bird display an aggressive behaviour towards the public touching them. Because instead lashing out with their talons, or clicking and hissing -they simply remove themselves from the situation, and carry on with the flying like there’s no problem. It’s also a great way for the public to understand the self-imposed boundaries of these birds, and why it’s important to let the bird have the choice.
(But of course there’s Pip, who just sits there and wants to be cuddled, rather than flying. Everyone wants to take him home at the end of the day, and I can’t blame them 😭)
So why does this fact scare me the most when it comes to posting videos?
Because almost every single owl post I see, they are tethered, and being stroked into submission for a cutesy lil video or montage. It’s honestly some of the most depressing videos I have seen. Of course this isn’t anything new, when Harry Potter released, there was a serious problem with people buying owls as “pets” -and even now in the falconry world there are still many rescue owls that are too aggressive and unable to be handled because of this phenomenon.
But of course I never blame the public for not knowing. How are you meant to know that birds of prey don’t like being touched? How are you meant to know that these outfits never fly their birds, and pass them around from glove to glove to only be stroked? You’re not born with that knowledge, and if you’re never told; there is no way of you knowing.
Every single person who comes to the falconry I work at is informed about this problem, and that’s honestly the best we can do in the position we’re in.
But what if my video is taken out of context? What if someone didn’t read all this intimidating text, and just got the idea that “owl = cute”? I put up an obvious note saying owls aren’t pets, and I even felt so obligated to mention it in the actual video. But even then, I am not in control of the way it’s perceived.
So what can I do then? It’s simple. I just don’t post the video.
I have so much love for these animals, and all I want is to scream at the top of my lungs every single thing that makes them great. But I am constantly second guessing myself with whether I should post the videos or not. Because I am so frightened of it being misinterpreted, and therefore reinforcing the already terrible understanding of birds of prey. I have hundreds of photos and videos, just of the animals I love. But this is the first time I’m properly posting one.
And simply the reason is; I wanted to write this to go with the video. Because maybe I’m too pessimistic when it comes to this -and actually people would benefit more if there were more videos actually explaining what these animals are like.
Of course I’m still scared. But if you’re reading this, then you’ve proven the fact that you care enough to consider what was happening in the video, and not just taking it out of context. And that’s all I ask.
ANYWAY! If you did manage to make it through that, I cannot express just how much I’m grateful for your time. I hope you’ve learned a bit more than you had known a few minutes ago, and I hope you continue learning! I know I have so far to go, too!
