Sorry about the delay to this. I had gotten a follow up eventually with the answer, and I responded with some more questions, but never heard back the second time, so I’ll share with you what I got before I forget!

Hi xxxxxxxxxx, thank you for your email - it’s a great question!

I believe the video that you are referring to, the owl was in what we call our “flight hallway”. This is a normal hallway in our building, but it has soft vinyl curtains that can be drawn on each end, as well as doors that can be closed as a secondary containment method. This space is sometimes used to exercise or flight test small birds such as the saw-whet owls.

It makes sense that your mind would first go to food, as this is one of the ways we reward the education ambassador owls who are in our care. They are trained for months, or even years, to do certain behaviors for food rewards. The owl that you saw in the video was instead one that was in our rehabilitation care, and the goal was to release this patient back to the wild as soon as it was medically ready. We aim to keep their behavior as wild as possible, and so we generally don’t train these patients on new behaviors for their care.

We tend to use light and dark to our advantage. By turning off the lights in the hall or room, and moving around very quietly and methodically, we can typically get a hold of the patient in a safe manner. It can be difficult to get our bearings as to where the bird is, so we will use a very quick flash of a tiny flashlight to give us just enough time to see where they are, then move in complete darkness again. It can be a little more challenging with owls, as they have such excellent hearing and sight, so occasionally, if they have flown to the floor, we have to use a towel or some other method to carefully and very briefly hold them down on the ground while we get them into a safe hand hold. These grabs are a skill that takes time to perfect, and even then, these are wild birds and their behavior can be unpredictable. Our goal is always to grab them up as quickly and safely (for everyone involved) as possible, then return them to their normal enclosure where they are hopefully a little bit less stressed.

I love it! Not too far off from my grandparents’ house, it just would have been baseball instead.

It was as you said, brown carpet, dark wood paneling, giant console, floral print soda for guests, lazy boys for the grandparents, swinging slatted wood doors, cut glass hanging lamps. And you can’t forget the knick knack cabinet we better not horse around anywhere near!

Lol are you sure you didn’t step through a time warp? 🤣

Console television or a “modern” CRT? When my ex and I bought her grandparents’ house 8 years ago is the last time I saw a console in the wild. What an age, back when TV’s were furniture!

I know what you’re talking about! I’m in that age and geographic range. There were a lot of chickens and turkeys.

Tigers would have been interesting, and the matching decor would be interesting, like if the living room set was all tiger print! 😆

My mom has a lot of cat stuff at this point herself.

I’m still not sold on them being for camouflage due to the proportions, but they are great for non-vocal communication. While they aren’t the ears, they get used to signal things like dog or cat ears do.

I wonder why our ears just sit there and don’t do anything…

I can definitely see some people being unsettled by it! 😆

It is an awesome word, so I try to popularize it.

Tufts is ok. Horns are not as charming, though some of the more metal looking owls can make it work. But plumicorns sounds elegant and exotic.

Plus it is the technically correct word, which as we know, is the best kind of correct!

Some bonus glass owls from the glasswork section of the museum.

Handmade vestments. Fred Rogers was also a Presbyterian minister.

My bad.

Here are a red panda, a fish, and a plant I saw instead.