From A Place Called Hope
Just because…
Meet Orion, our elderly Northern Saw Whet Owl resident Ambassador at A Place Called Hope.
Orion came to us many years ago after having been struck by a vehicle which affected his vision. He is at the tail end of his life expectancy and we consider each day to be a gift. These little owls can live to be 10-15 years on average in captive environments. They’d be lucky to live 4 or 5 years in the wild. In ideal wild settings, they have the potential to live 7-10 years but that is unlikely with all the human related conflicts and larger scale predators they must avoid. Add the fact that the northern owls will migrate great distances in the Winter to find a better environment for hunting.
Orion is around 16… and our special and cherished treasure.
❤️ Go, Baby, Go!
S M O L
Hi Orion!
He says:
“Poot poot poot poot poot poot poot” and so forth.
OMG. Never imagined this.
Freaked out my ten pound dog a bit.
They have a great voice!
They are named “saw whet” from lumberjacks thinking their call sounded like someone sharpening their saw. Whet means to sharpen on a stone, hence a whetstone is a stone one sharpens things on.
They are also super tiny and adorable. I watched a bird banding video where the guy was using tomato paste cans to stuff them in to transport them from the nets to the banding station and they popped right in and out!
