Shulian-4.10.09-Screech Owl Research (Guide Interview)

In the afternoon (the same day we went to Volunteers for Wildlife) we traveled 30 minutes down the road to the Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary & Audubon Center.  (Below is a picture of the entrance.)  Here we met up with a guide (I don’t have his name) who showed us around the building.  There is a very big room, with little exhibits on different animals.  In one tank there was a huge fish and a turtle swimming side by side.  While we looked around this room our guide was getting chairs set up for the interview and getting the screech owl to show us up close.  As we did at the other interviews, we asked him a set of questions. We asked him what he thought of the bird-calling machines.  His response was much different than the answers from our other interviews.  The guide felt that bird calling was helpful for awareness about the owls and there was no scientific research that said this was harmful for the owls.  He basically compared it to a car horn honking.  It may be annoying, but it won’t kill us, same thing goes for the owls. He also brought up the topic of owls’ form of camouflage.  It was cool to learn, that eastern screech owls have more reddish fur, because there are more cedar trees in this part of the country.  Meanwhile, the northern screech owl has more of a grayish color to match the trees where it lives.  We even got to see a demonstration of this, and the screech owl’s back really did look like red tree bark.  (The owl living at the Volunteers for Wildlife had grayish coloring.)  Also the ear tufts of the owl are supposed to look like broken branches when the owl is resting on a tree.  When the owl feels threatened, it will puff itself out to look more intimidating.  If the owl is frightened it will make itself really skinny and the feather tufts will go straight up.The guide thought that the project of re-releasing the screech owls would finally be successful if the owls are living on their own, breeding and really getting comfortable and adapting to the park.  “What more could you ask for,” he replied. After the interview and seeing the Audubon Center’s screech owl we had a tour of the display room, where they keep historical objects and some reptiles.  And after thanking the guide we were on our way back to the city after a very long day.  (Note: after leaving the Audubon Center we made our way to the cemetery a few yards in front of the building and saw Theodore Roosevelt’s grave.)