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Great
Horned Owls have fringed flight feathers which make them able to fly
completely silent.
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Feathered Friend at
Darke County Parks
Darke County Parks would like to recognize one of its most dedicated
volunteers, Pam Siegel. Pam works for a few hours each day, Monday
through Saturday, feeding Greta, the Great Horned Owl, cleaning her
enclosure, and spending time reading or talking to her. Pam has been
helping with Greta for three years and says she does it because she
loves owls, and Greta connects her with everything she loves in nature.
With Pam’s continued help socializing Greta, the owl is becoming more
and more comfortable around people. In the future Pam would like to
handle Greta on a glove at least once a week, to continue to build
their mutual trust.
Greta began life in the wild and entered into captivity after being
stuck by a truck. She spent some time in a wildlife rehab center before
becoming an educational wildlife ambassador. Because she has
significant vision issues and is missing a critical talon, she cannot
be released back into the wild. It is only through state and federal
permits that the park can keep her in captivity. The Darke County Park
District obtained Greta in 2012 from Butler County MetroParks, and she
is now thought to be twelve years old. In the wild the Great Horned
Owls’ life span is about thirteen years, but they live to be twenty on
average in captivity. The oldest recorded wild owl lived to be
twenty-eight, and the oldest captive Great Horned Owl lived to
thirty-five.
Great Horned Owls have fantastic eye sight and hearing which help them
catch their prey. They can even hear a mouse in the grass from a
football field away. Their eyes are also fixed in their heads. This
means that they have to turn their heads in order to see in different
directions, but they have 270 degrees of rotation and can move through
that rotation at extreme speed. If human eyes were proportioned like a
Great Horned Owl’s, they would be the size of softballs. This size
makes them highly adept at nocturnal hunting and gives them great
binocular vision.
Right now Greta works as a wildlife ambassador teaching children and
adults alike about birds of prey, also known as raptors. She has spent
time traveling to schools and other facilities, but the park staff
hopes to soon have a new enclosure built that will have her much more
open to the public. The new enclosure will let the public view Greta
anytime the park office is open. In the meantime, park staff is hoping
to host some open house visits to her current enclosure this fall. The
Darke County Park District would like to thank Pam Siegel for all the
time and effort she devotes to help Greta become the best animal
ambassador she can be.
For any questions about Great Horned Owls or any programs offered by
the Darke County Park District, please call the park office at (937)
548-0165 or email info@darkecountyparks.org.
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