- Well, it's one of our favorite
times of the entire week
when we can visit with our
friends from the Blank Park Zoo.
We have Megan Davies joining
us here at the Blank Park Zoo.
And you have a new member
here at the Blank Park Zoo.
- [Megan] Yeah, thanks
Lou, this is Archimedes.
- Archimedes! Now,
Archimedes is new to the zoo
and new to you viewers
here, because we've seen
Archimedes', what, cousin
on the show before, right?
- Yep, so, that was Pig,
he is a gray face eastern screen owl.
This one is a red face eastern screen owl,
so there's two different colors.
- Okay. And what about size difference,
because folks, seriously,
a lot smaller than you might imagine.
- Yeah, so he is full-grown.
So these guys are strictly cavity nesters.
There's two different colors because
when they are in a gray
phase, when they're gray,
there's just in more
vegetation that is gray
so they're less likely
to be caught and seen.
And then if they're more red,
that's just where
they're gonna be in woods
that are generally more
red in wood and bark
so they can blend in better.
'Cause they are not gonna be able
to defend themselves very
well, since he is full-grown,
they're gonna rely
on camouflage.
- I still can't get over
how small they are.
- Yep, he is full grown.
So the mom will lay two to
three eggs in the nest cavity,
and then they take
about a month to fledge,
which means they're growing their feathers
and learning how to fly,
so in a two month span they're growing
and then they're full
grown, they're ready to go.
- There you go.
And, we were talking about the
diet of an animal like this,
what do they consume?
- So they're gonna be eating lots of meat,
they can eat smaller
insects cause of their size,
baby snakes, invertebrates,
- Oh, really?
- and definitely mice, lots of mice.
- And these animals are available
and they are in the population
here in Iowa, correct?
- Yeah, they're not super common,
just 'cause of their size
they do like to stay in southern Iowa,
but they have been spotted here in Iowa.
- Okay. And can you see
if he'll eat anything, or?
- Yeah, we could try a
little bit, so these--
- Okay, so Archimedes is
gonna be fed what now,
what are you gonna try to give him?
- This is a baby mouse.
It's called a pinky.
And he might say,
- Oh, there he goes!
- There he goes,
he's not camera shy.
So he might just hold on to that
for a little bit which is okay,
he's just kinda hangin' out.
- And so how much does he eat every day?
- So he needs to eat about
a mouse a day, to survive.
- A little tiny mouse like that,
or a big, like a full grown mouse?
- It would be an adult mouse.
- An adult mouse.
- Yeah. So these guys don't hibernate,
so they're gonna be needing
to eat every single day.
- Alright, now let's talk about weather
that we're experiencing now
with all this snow that we had overnight.
This has to be very detrimental to them
trying to find some fast food
because they're not gonna be
able to find food very fast.
- Yeah, so eating every day is important
but if he skips a meal,
he's not gonna wither away.
He does have very thick down feathers,
you can't see it now,
but they have nice little
thick down feathers
that they keep, that
keeps them nice and warm
in this kind of weather.
So below freezing,
he's really gonna be just
fine out in the wild.
- Alright, now so in a situation like this
say, around here, he
would be living, what,
inside of a tree, in a barn?
- He would be living
right on the outskirts,
they don't generally do barns
they're pretty strictly cavity nesters,
which is an issue because a lot of people,
you know, we take down
trees here now and again,
which happened to Archimedes
here when he was a fledgling.
- Oh no!
- Yeah, so somebody took
down his home, in his cavity,
in a nest that he was in,
and injured his right wing.
So they unfortunately
they tried to rehab him,
but the wing was too injured,
so they had to remove it.
So that's why he's here with us,
he can't fly, so that is
something very important for owls,
they're top tier predators,
they need to be able to fly to get away.
And that silent flight they need to do
to catch their prey and sneak up on it,
so 'cause of that.
- So you said his right wing?
- Mm-hmm.
- Can we turn him,
'cause you're as curious--
- I might try doing it
this way and see what he does.
- Okay, you're
as curious as I am.
So you can see so his
right wing is missing.
- Yep. So once I turn him back around
you'll see much more of the red
that's gonna help him blend in.
Where over there,
mostly in the wild--
- Look how still
his head is keeping, too.
And boy, he's focused in on you.
And that's one of the
things that you mentioned,
is that he's a very one-on-one
type animal, too, right?
- Yeah, owls take a really long
time to get used to people,
they're very difficult to train.
Most of the time they prefer to
just not take food from people.
Archimedes, we got him at such a young age
that we were able to hand-feed him
and get him interacting
with people on an early age.
Otherwise they are very,
very difficult to handle.
- Well, I'm just impressed
that he ate something
that we gave him here
with the lights and
everything on here too.
But he looks very healthy,
he has very shiny eyes
and they're very attentive too.
- Yeah, he's got full field of vision.
So he can definitely see everything,
and he's just looking around
and his ear tufts are up,
so that's a calm owl.
Those tufts, those are not his ears,
his ears are just holes
on the side of his head.
- So those are just feathers that are up?
- Yep. Those are to help
travel the sound to his ears,
but it also just shows
that he's a nice and calm
and he's generally relaxed.
- I didn't realize that,
so when they get nervous,
then would those fold
down a little bit more?
- Exactly,
- Really?
- they would fold down, and
he would puff up his body,
and he would puff up his wings.
- I had no idea!
We're learning more about the screech owl
than I ever thought we ever would.
Archimedes, what a fascinating creature!
Now, for more information
about everything happening
at the Blank Park Zoo,
where can people go?
- Of course you can go
to blankparkzoo.com.
- That works.
Archimedes, you did a good job, buddy!
Can you turn at the camera
and say thank you very much?
(laughs) There you go folks,
everything happening
at the Blank Park Zoo,
Iowa's wildest adventure.
