There’s a back office inside the American Bald Eagle Foundation where visitors are not allowed.
On the floor there is an artificial grass rug and a small tree stump littered with a mixture of off-white plumicorns, contour, and down feathers. Behind the stump, opposite of a water bowl, a curious western Siberian eagle owl was the center of attention on a recent Wednesday.
You might be forgiven if you’ve never heard of a Western Siberian eagle owl. Foundation summer intern Gabriel Hallmark explains: “It’s a subspecies of another species of owl, called a Eurasian eagle owl, which they’re really not native to here,” he said.
Hallmark, who is a student at Auburn University, said that the closest thing to western Siberian eagle owls would be a great horned owl, though they’re a lot bigger.
“She’s about six-ish pounds right now. She probably won’t get much bigger than that. And if she does, she’s gonna stay in that six to seven pound range,” Hallmark said.
The owl’s plumage is barred – think striped – and blended in gold, white, gray and black. These distinct markings, and the slow, deliberate way she moves make this nocturnal bird of prey so majestic. But under fluorescent lights the owl sits hunched over, legs forward, feathered feet exposed, looking more like a muppet.
“She’s a really dense bird. Looking at her now you can see all the little fluffy feathers,” Hallmark said. They are down feathers. “That’s going to insulate her, and then she’s going to have those bigger feathers on the outside. That’s going to help seal those in.”
Her feathers make her well insulated for her natural environment.
“These birds are made for very cold climates – like Siberia. The combination of being very dense, as well as having those down feathers on there, keep her warm,” Hallmark said.
The 10-week-old owl, however, did not come from Siberia. She came from a breeder in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“She was bred for education. So our goal with her is to train her to come to our glove, be able to fly [and demonstrate] what these birds really are capable of,” Hallmark said.
The owl wore jesses – or thin straps – and cuffs.
“That’s just a band of leather that goes around her ankle, so whenever we would have her up on the glove, we have control of her, so she can’t fly off,” Hallmark said.“It keeps her contained.”
Hallmark said they didn’t know what the owl’s temperament was going to be like, so the jesses and cuffs helped keep her contained and keep everyone safe.
There are a lot of misconceptions about raptors, said Hallmark.
“There’s a lot that people just don’t know about them. And so hopefully, she can be one thing to draw people in so we can be able to educate them. So when they leave they know a little more,” Hallmark said.
Ahsoka is her name. In sanskrit it means without sorrow, but that’s not why they named her that.
Hallmark said the first few days of socializing her were challenging.
“She was hiding in her kennel…doing her own thing. I [started to] watch Star Wars, and she came out behind me and watched the entire movie,” he said. “The very next day, we could not get her to come out. I turned [Star Wars] again and she ran out to watch it again.”
For the uninitiated, Ahsoka was a former Jedi Knight who served as a Padawan learner to the Jedi Anakin Skywalker during the Clone Wars.
When she’s not watching Star Wars, Ahsoka loves to eat quail.
“We cut up some pieces of quail for her every day, but hopefully whenever she gets a little bit older, she’ll get on the same diet as everyone else and have a little bit of quail, rats, mice, things like that, mixed in with it,” Hallmark said.
Ahsoka isn’t nocturnal like her wild peers. She maintains bankers hours.
“Wild owls are active anywhere from dusk til dawn…because she’s what we call a human imprint, because she was bred, she’s actually more on our schedule. So that’s why you see her awake and alert right when other members of her species would probably be asleep right now,” Hallmark said.
Ahsoka also lives in the back office for now.
“She’ll be in here for another couple of months until she gets very well trained, and then she will go into one of our larger aviaries outside,” Hallmark said.
Some other things to know about Ahsoka – her ears aren’t evenly spaced. Owls have very good hearing, all birds do. But owls have asymmetrical ears.
“One ear is higher up than the other, so they can make a 3D picture of sound,” Hallmark said. “It helps them find things even in a pitch black room with no light whatsoever, to accurately find their prey.”
She’s also got enormous eyes. That helps her catch prey. Hallmark said the front of an owl’s eyes, what people can see, is the smallest part of their eye.
“[Their eye] is in the shape of a light bulb, but the big part of the light bulb is inside their skull,” he said. As a result they have a lot more cones and rods that allows them to pick up more light. So they’ll be able to see very well and their flight is also silent. So they can actually sneak up on prey easily. And then of course [she’s] gonna be grabbing them with those large talons of hers.”
Ahsoka’s owl’s body shape and feathers also keep her quiet when flying. Hallmark said that the serrated feathers help break up the air currents while they’re flying to keep them silent.
Owls are apex predators so if Ahsoka was wild, unlike her Jedi counterpart, she wouldn’t have many enemies.
“Even the eagles probably wouldn’t mess with them too much. Especially because one’s active during the day and one’s active at night. So she doesn’t have to worry about anything unless one gets injured or is on the ground,” he said.
Western Siberian eagle owls begin breeding around 1-3 years of age and usually have about two to three chicks per nest, and Hallmark said one or two of them may survive. It depends on food and the individual.
“If there’s not enough food, only one of them may survive it. If there’s plenty of food, all three of them may,” he said.
Hallmark said once they are around Ahsoka’s age they will leave the nest.
“They still may follow the parents around and learn how to hunt. But after that they go on their own. And from then on, they’re pretty solitary,” he said.“The only time they’re really around other members of their species is during breeding season.”
Owls’ breeding season is from December to February.
“Owls usually nest earlier than all other birds because they actually use nests from other birds, he said. “They usually steal nests. So … they have to do it a little bit earlier before those birds are ready to breed.”
But, that likely won’t happen for Ahsoka. That’s because due to the human imprinting, Hallmark said Ahsoka does not know that she’s an owl.
So, she will not be released into the wild.
“That’s why you see a lot of human imprints in education facilities,” he said. “They don’t really identify with their species. So they are technically sterile, in that way, because they wouldn’t breed. So that’s why a lot of them have to be in human care.”
