THE YEAR OF THE OWL

It felt great to be able to sponsor Silo.

It really has been the "year of the owl" for us. We saw our first wild owls while birding earlier this year. First a Snowy Owl in February at Sam Smith park, and then a couple months later a Great Horned Owl at Thickson Woods. Seeing these majestic creatures for the first time in the wild was thrilling for us.

We recently did the new "Raptor Encounter" at Mountsberg Conservation Area, where we got to get up close with a couple Eastern Screech Owls and a Barred Owl, and also get a behind the scenes look at the Raptor Centre. We thoroughly enjoyed this and plan on doing it again. There is no explaining the feeling of holding an owl on your hand.

For Rob's birthday on September 15th we decided to take a trip up to Gravenhurst and visit the "Muskoka Wildlife Centre". After reading all about the centre online, we also decided to "sponsor" one of the animals there, and of course we chose an owl.

It's really important to us to help in any way we can these wonderful organizations who do so much for the animals. We have memberships to our favourite parks, spread the word about these places, and of course sponsoring Silo was our biggest contribution to date, but it felt great to be able to do it. We're also thinking of volunteering at the Toronto Wildlife Centre in the new year.

If you haven't visited the Muskoka Wildlife Centre I highly recommend you do, they have so many animals who will live out their life there due to injuries or human imprinting. It's a great way to get up close with and learn about our wildlife and what you can do to help.


Silo, a female Barn Owl, who's had 14 chicks who are used as teaching owls at other centres all over Canada, including Jazz who lives at Mountsberg Conservation Area!

Becky brought out lots of animals to show us, including Clover the groundhog who has been part of their out-reach program for many years and as you can see is very comfortable with humans.

Luna, a full grown Saw-Whet Owl. Isn't she precious?

I couldn't take my eyes of off Luna!