Special Visitors for Rainbows and Nursery
Little Cypress were extremely lucky to have some spectacular visitors today! Erin from Kent Owl Academy came to see us and brought two very special friends. She brought a barn owl called Harvest and a tawny owl called Lancel. Harvest is a girl and is seven years old. She was rescued from Germany where someone was keeping her as a pet. The Owl Academy taught her to fly because she had been in captivity in a small cage all her life, so her wing muscles were not strong enough to allow her to fly.
Fun Facts about Owls
Erin told us that despite the myth that owls are wise, they are actually not very clever and have tiny little brains that only think about food and sleep! They also do not have great eyesight or sense of smell. What they do have, however, is incredible hearing and they can hear and identify separate heartbeats of up to 200 people or animals in a crowd. That is impressive! They like to eat chicks and eat them whole, swallowing them in one gulp! Owls can turn their heads almost the whole way around, but not completely!
Famous Friends!
The second owl we saw today was a tawny owl called Lancel, who is six years old. He was very noisy and was keen to get out of his box to come and say ‘hello’ to us. Erin told us that Lancel was very famous as he had been in lots of films, including ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘House of the Dragon’. He was chosen not only because he is so handsome, but because he is a fantastic flyer. Some of the children even got to hold Lancel and were very brave doing so!
We loved learning all about owls and had such a fun-filled afternoon seeing them in real life! At the Owl Academy, the oldest owl is twenty-four! In the wild, most owls only live until they are about two, as they often get poisoned, inadvertently.
Miss Chapman and the Little Cypress Team
