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February 10, 2007
A quick call from Kathy and a few hours notice and this technofile was out in the wild again helping the great cause that is Utopia. Kathy calls me her 'Rock 'n Roll Roadie' which about sums it up. This time we were off to the Greensburg Public Library to do a wildlife program.
Kathy had handed out lottery tickets to all the inhabitants of the Hershey Zoo and the lucky winners today, who won a first prize of a trip in the van, were Hootie the Eastern Screech Owl, Obie a newly acquired Barred Owl, a skunk called Rascal and Nibbles the Opossum.
On this occasion we were also joined by Terri Warne from Batworld who brought along a couple of Big Brown Bats, Zorro and Radar (what a great name for a bat!), to wow the audience. Kathy and Terri work well together even though their charges would probably eat each other if they were not brought out one at a time.
An interesting fact I did not know about Bats is that they can take 15 minutes to wake up, much like me. And as these two Big Browns had been sleeping in their carrier they were fairly subdued when Terri brought them out probably preferring to be left where they were.
The human section of the room was, by contrast, very animated. Despite the cold day around 70 people turned out for this event which proved interesting as the room wasn't that large. Some duck tape was used to draw a line on the floor so their wasn't any accidents with a curious child losing a finger due to getting too close.
There were plenty of “oooh's” and “aaahhh's”as each of the critters took their turn in the limelight. All the animals were well behaved. Hootie takes the whole thing in his stride, well used to all the attention. The skunk, Rascal, was having a good time probably thinking that after being de-scented and neutered that there wasn't much more these crazy humans could do to him.
This was Obie's first time out at one of these events. Now I've seen plenty of dogs' hair stand up on the back of their necks when they feel threatened but to see an Owl do it was something else. He puffed his feathers up and spent the whole time looking like a weightlifter on steroids. But as Kathy demonstrated, it was all feathers as she stuck her finger past the outer layers a good few inches until it hit bird.
All in all another good day for Wildlife education in Indiana.
Richard