Owl

The last few days at Turtle Island became super busy when a bunch of people came to live with me in the visitor center.  The coast guard commander went on leave (he's a nice guy, by the way) and was replaced by up to 8 people all living on the floor and couches.  A-Hong and the graduate student were there, along with some zoo coworker transients on vacation and two (2) separate camera crews.  This project must have a lot of people watching it.  With A-Hong there, we went on nightly walks and bat watches, each trip was sure to find something new that I would never see if I was living on the island alone.  I don't really go out at night alone.

One day, A-Hong and the graduate student picked up an owl.  It practically flew down to A-Hong.  It was a severely undernourished Brown Hawk-owl with a poorly healed broken wing.

We fed it crickets by hand, then 6-inch long centipedes and geckos.  It would sometimes refuse to eat, and we had to rip apart the larger food and slowly feed it in small portions.  Over several days, it grew stronger and could fly up to the ceiling, but it would never be able to be self-sustaining.  So we brought it back to the zoo with us.

Transporting birds is usually done by stuffing them in straight tubes so they can't move their wings or get out.  A-Hong wrapped the owl in his shirt and taped it up.  Man, did it look mad.

So now I'm back in Taipei, and the owl is at A-Hong's house.  I'm going back to Turtle Island on the 20th.