A special egg for Christmas!

Since 2000 when I started working at the nature center, our female Great Horned Owl has always laid an infertile egg around Christmas time. 

Great Horned Owls are the first to lay a clutch in the wild around this time of year. The last two years, she has not laid an egg and I figured she is getting to be an old girl and that time had caught with her egg producing years. Well, this Saturday she proved me wrong! 

She laid her holiday egg. We’ll let her keep this egg for 2-4 weeks and then remove it. 

Sometimes, she will respond by laying again! I’ll keep you posted on her progress!

Rats for food

Some people ask us where we get our rats and mice to feed our animals. 

Jeremy Hooper,
wildlife assistant and naturalist

I usually travel to a lab 2 times per year and pick up a load of frozen rats and mice, but we have another bi-annual source. 

Taylor Berry,
naturalist and wildlife assistant  

Covenant College uses rats in their Psych department. At the end of each semester, we get the rats that don’t go home with students as pets. Don’t think of this as cruel and unfeeling, the cycle of life must go on and these rats are serving a purpose for the Covenant College students as well as a meal for our animal ambassadors. 

Every animal on our beautiful earth serves a purpose and we are thankful to have these rats as food. These pics show Jeremy and Taylor collecting rats before we dispatch them and freeze them.

The tale of a Barred Owl and the clever crow

We recently moved our American Crow to a mews next to our Barred Owl. 

While I was cleaning the Barred Owl enclosure, I heard the familiar Barred Owl call two times. Our Barred Owl is very quiet except at night when no one is working (we’ve heard him many times when here for late events). 

I looked in surprise at our Barred Owl but it was not him making the noise. I realized it was our crow imitating the Barred Owl! How smart is that!

Every day, working with friends

Another co-worker!

 

This is our male Red Tailed Hawk. 

What do your co-workers look like?

Opossums enjoy persimmon feast!

Our caretaker, Jeff Guenther, took this picture of these opossums eating in a persimmon tree in his yard. 

Caught persimmon handed!

Fresh treats!

It’s persimmon season! 

There are many persimmon trees here on our property and we always harvest persimmons for the animal ambassadors. 

This is a natural food item for our forest friends. To name a few, you may see opossums, raccoons, coyotes and deer eating persimmons in the wild. 

Turkey for everyone!!

This is what is left when you give the vultures a turkey wing for Thanksgiving!

Keeping our crow engaged and entertained!

This is how you might keep a busy crow content. 

It’s  plastic grass with grapes, nuts, and other fruit in it that he can tease out. Creative enrichment!

A day of history!

Re-enactor's celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Battle Above the Clouds at the Chattanooga Arboretum and Nature Center at Reflection Riding. 

It was a cold night, but a few fire pits helped cut through the chill!

Photo by Jeff Guenther

Eggs for breakfast!

Did you know that some of our animals love scrambled eggs? 

We use these as a treat item. Eggs are scrambled with the shell for added calcium and they LOVE them!

Rat snake recovers!

Our Midland Rat Snake, black phase, has been under the weather for awhile. 

A few days ago, she got to go back into her regular enclosure and this is how she celebrated! 

Doesn’t she look so happy?