We did a behind the scenes tour today and got to get up close to a few residents. The owls were not ones where we got to go into their exhibits, but they were mostly very visible.

They had a male and female together, though the female seemed annoyed by the male moving about. She kept glaring at him and shooting him nasty looks. Adorable expressions on both though.

It was pretty hot and I was surprised they were out and about, but they have AC available, should they desire.

They also had a pair of Great Horned and a pair of Barred Owls.

The one Barred here was very interesting. This one is from the olden days, so it is missing an entire wing. It was amputated after injury. Nowadays, only up to the elbow can be removed. Removing the entire wing causes a lot of balance issues and makes it hard to have his quality of life. This one has been around since 1982, I believe the guide told us, so this old timer has beaten the odds.

The other Barred and the GHO were hard to get a decent photo of due to where they were.