Barn Owls

This is the time of year that you might be lucky enough to see a barn owl.  They're around all year, but feeding their young puts pressure on them to hunt more in the spring and early summer.  They're beautiful:  ghostlike, with a heart-shaped face, thin body, and feathers that run from glacial white to the warmest bronze, with a few dark dots thrown in for whimsy.  Under those feathers, barn owls' bodies are pretty insubstantial, and since their bones are air-filled, pretty lightweight.  Birds don't have marrow, as it would weigh them down and require more energy expenditure in flight.  It also makes healing those bones, if broken, difficult. 
Barn owls are nocturnal and silent when they hunt on the wing.  A mouse has very acute hearing, so an owl must be a quiet hunter.  The feathers on the leading edge of their wings are constructed in such a way that their flight is totally silent.
The director at the wildlife center where I volunteered told me a wonderful story.  When we had an owl to rehab, or any other bird of prey, we would prepare them for freedom by allowing them free range in a big flight cage, or barn.  This would help them to regain strength and tone in their flight muscles.  A  necessary part of this was to release live mice in the "mouse arena" inside the barn, so that the owl could relearn or sharpen hunting skills prior to release.   No mice the next morning meant success. (The arena was constructed so that the mice could not escape by climbing or digging.)  Sorry, that's the way Nature operates.  As Temple Grandin says "Nature is cruel, but humans don't have to be."  It would be cruel to release a bird who hunts for a living if the bird couldn't hunt. Starvation is slow and heartless.
We had three adult barn owls in the big barn, readying for release.  The director walked up late each evening in order to leave the mice for that night's hunt.  One night she entered the barn and didn't turn on the lights.  Of course, the owls knew she was there and that she had dinner.  The three of them began to fly around her, coursing back and forth, drifting near then disappearing, never touching her.  She could feel the soft movement of air as they came near, and in the dim light, could just make out their shapes.  All in utter silence.  She said it was truly like standing amidst the flight of ghost birds. 

Baby barn owls are a completely different story.  The center  gets in two or three nestfuls every year.  Most commonly, the mother owl makes her nest in a barn loft amidst the hay bales.  If  the bales are moved, the nest falls apart and the babies end up on the barn floor.  Baby barn owls are covered in white down and have long, strong legs and feet.  And they hiss.  Their hiss is actually deafening.  After being exposed to five or six irate barn owl babies, I feel like I've been to a Kiss concert.  I learned to wear ear plugs.  Of course, they're terrified; what happened to the quiet nest in the barn with mother owl bringing mice for dinner?  Now there are these huge humans with grasping hands (fully gloved) reaching and pulling them away from their nest mates.   We cut up dead mice: guts, hair, bone and all.  That's the way they eat them.  The volunteer  gently grasps a hissing, weaving baby and wraps it in a washcloth, holding it sort of like an ice cream cone.  A succulent bit of mouse in forceps is nudged at the bill.  They eventually get the idea, then eat hungrily.  One thing we do that their mother never did: after each meal we wipe down their bill and breast in order to get the bloody bits off.  They hate it.
But we never, never want babies, or any other critters, to become pets at the wildlife center.  They must stay wild and keep a healthy respect for people.   You can understand why. We don't name any bird or animal that comes to the center, unless they become a resident for education. We have affection for them, of course, but we're there for them, not vice versa.
So when it comes time to release a barn owl, it's time for celebration.   The owl is taken in a carrier to the area where the nest was found.  At dusk, after a good feeding,  the carrier door is opened and the owl flies free.  Silent, otherworldly, he floats into the darkening sky.