Ricardi can be reached at 41 for donations and raptor rehabilitation inquiries.FirstLight Power was delighted to partner with the Northfield Bird Club for an event January 14 that attracted 86 attendees–and raised more than $1,100 for rehabilitating sick and injured hawks and owls to return to the wild! There’s some lovely people in the area, that’s for sure.” In addition to a slew of grateful Christmas cards, Ricardi said he’s received around $2,000 in donations from locals following the initial Recorder story. Ricardi expressed gratitude for both the South Deerfield Veterinary Clinic’s voluntary assistance and the generosity of the community. He hopes to release the owl by March as initially planned. “It’s eating real good and it’s doing fine in its enclosure,” Ricardi said. Ricardi said the bird is still “favoring its right wing” as it heals from a potential tendon injury in its left wing. 24, the 1-year-old male that weighed under 1 pound upon capture is now nearly up to its ideal weight of 3 pounds. Ricardi hopes she will be well enough to release in spring.Īs for the owl found in Greenfield behind the Greenfield Recorder office on Nov. Now, the owl is eating seven to eight mice per day. “I would force-feed it egg yolk (mixed with sugar) … but within a half hour, she would throw it up,” he said. Ricardi said the owl, inhibited as a hunter due to a possible ligament tear in its wing, couldn’t hold any food at first. “I think if it went another day, it wouldn’t have survived.” “It was so weak, it couldn’t fit on a perch. The Hadley owl, a 1-year-old female that Ricardi captured at roughly one-third of its ideal 48-ounce weight, is currently recovering from its near-death condition. Ricardi said that, fortunately, the owl spotted in Pittsfield didn’t appear injured or unwell. How are the Hadley, Pittsfield and Greenfield owls doing? Since the owls are cast from their homes before they learn how to properly hunt, Ricardi said, they end up colliding with vehicles and buildings as they try to navigate. Ricardi said the high percentage of injuries among snowy owls he’s called in to check on is a result of combining youthful inexperience with urbanized terrain. He called this a “regular phenomenon,” having most recently observed such an invasion in the mid-2010s. Ricardi labeled the boom an “invasion,” a term used by experts when the population sees a sharp increase outside its usual reaches. “Sometimes, there’s so many young, the adults push them out,” Ricardi said, citing the fact that 90% of the snowy owls he’s captured over the years have been “first-year birds” to support his hypothesis. He believes a boom of lemmings and other rodent prey in the owls’ usual northernmost habitats has accounted for a boom in the owl population. Although Ricardi has heard from other experts that the owls likely came due to a lack of food in their usual reaches, he has observed differently. That raises the question of why they are here. “It seems like snowy owls are showing up everywhere.” “This year, it seems like I’m getting a call every week,” he said. While Ricardi, who said he captured around 145 birds in need of rehabilitation this year, downplayed the notion that these snowy owl sightings were unheard of, he said the number of owl calls he’s received in 2021 has been remarkably high. “It’s not unusual to have them this far inland,” Ricardi said, “but usually you see them along the coast.” Usually, Ricardi said, when owls travel as far south as Massachusetts, they come in search of prey and choose to stay close to the ocean. The snowy owl, a species listed as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, typically ranges from Canada up through the Arctic Circle, with primary breeding populations existing only in the northernmost reaches of its habitat. While Ricardi is no stranger to the species, western Massachusetts residents are typically less familiar. Ricardi currently has three snowy owls at his tucked-away North Poland Road sanctuary: the Greenfield owl, the Hadley owl and another that was hit by a car in Whately two years ago. Although Ricardi said sightings, while relatively uncommon in the area, are “not unusual,” such a high volume of owls likely indicates a local population boom that occurs once every handful of years. Less than a week later, on Tuesday, Ricardi responded to a call in Pittsfield when a resident reported seeing another snowy owl atop a tall building. Just last week, Ricardi, who runs Conway’s Birds of Prey Rehabilitation Center, was called in to capture a malnourished snowy owl at the Lowe’s home improvement store in Hadley. 24, leading him to believe a snowy owl “invasion” has begun. CONWAY - Two more snowy owls have been spotted in western Massachusetts since raptor rehabilitator Tom Ricardi captured an injured one in Greenfield on Nov.
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