Another set of pics from my visit. This time centered around two younger GHOs. They’re siblings, about 1 year old and were part of the flight show. But they are still learning.
As they’re not native to the park’s location (Germany) they were hand-reared and used to humans. They were almost always in motion.
Contrary to wild birds they were also quite vocal. Young birds are still vocal to beg their parents for food or as a way to contact call. Wild birds will have to learn that making noise will alert prey and they should stay quiet when they are starting to hunt on their own.
In German falconers use the term “lahnen” to describe this vocal begging/calling.
The falconer on my side was kind enough to place one of the siblings almost next to my seat. In German these GHOs are called Virginiauhu or Virginia-Uhu.
Wow, you got to see some great Bubos!
Though our most common owl here in the Americas, I still think it’s one of the best.
Our ambassador GHO is sadly with us as an accidental imprint, but that does allow us to point that residual “baby talk” out to guests that may be wondering why he isn’t making the hooting sound they are expecting. While he looks large and intimidating (and technically he is very much so) he gets very shy and nervous sometimes and will do much more of that young owl speak. His adult owl voice when he’s feeling confident, is just as tremendous as one would expect, and I’m always happy to hear it when I get there early enough and he’s in the right mood.
The two here acted like siblings - they were still looking for each other and also squabbling a little.
I’m not sure if it’s only age or if for owls imprinted on humans they still feel like their parents are around when familiar humans are interacting with them.
They can differentiate between people. I think Elliott is around 8, and they have different people do the things he doesn’t like, such as his talon trimming, rather than the people that handle him for when he meets the public so he stays in a slightly better mood. They should also remain fairly tolerant of each other as long as they have adequate space and food. That’s about all they’d really fight over in the wild, so they should be able to remain…well…as good as most siblings are to each other!
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