The baby owls who are under the care of Weltevreden Park Primary School, are slowly settling into their new surroundings.
Unfortunately, about a week after the owls had been placed at the school, a company of integrated pest management specialists, Ecosolutions, cleaned the cage and found one of the owls not well. X-rays confirmed the owl, Twiglet, had a broken wing. Ecosolutions took him away for rehabilitation and brought the owl left behind, Aviary, a friend to keep her company while Twiglet recovers. The new owl has been named Winter.
Josephine Baxter, who won the opportunity to temporary look after the owls before they are released into the wild, said so far it has been difficult to get into the owls’ feeding pattern. Baxter and her helpers have to carefully monitor when they do and do not eat so they do not over or under-feed them.
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A junior science kit from EcoSolutions allowed Josephine to dissect pellets of owl food. Photographs of the dissection experiment could be submitted to EcoSolutions as part of their Owl Project, which won the release pen and owls for the school.
The owls are fed twice a day, around 7am and 5pm. Josephine and her friends/helpers, Kaira van der Schyff and Juliana Coelho, take it in turns to feed them.
Josephine added Aviary is settling in well but they were quite disturbed after their release pen was cleaned for the first time. It is only a matter of time before the noises of the school and cleaning of their pen will be common place.
