The three baby owls don’t have feathers yet. They are currently unable to fly. Even less to eat. It is the dad owl who takes care of it: “We put all the food for him at the entrance to the aviary and then he takes the food to the nest”, explains Patrick Mercier, the falconer of the Château des Milandes. “
Then it’s the mother who takes over to make them eat. Although the captive-born pair don’t hunt, they have kept their instincts to raise their young. “Lhe dad is watching us out of the corner of his eye and if we approach the babies he will attack as he would in the wild“, says Patrick Mercier who hopes that the little ones will integrate these reflexes.
Only a few weeks to learn how to feed
After taking a little more strength with their parents, the three little ones will leave in a month for the German forests. The baby owls will then have a few weeks to learn how to feed themselves. Something parents don’t know how to do. “They will first be in pre-release aviaries in their future environment and normally this will greatly help them get by in the wild.“, specifies the falconer.
Even if the big jump in the wild life promises to be delicate, Patrick Mercier hopes they will help create a viable population. Since the start of the program in 2017, around thirty owls from several parks in Europe have joined the mountain forests of northeastern Bavaria and Western Bohemia. This is still too little to create a viable population.