spring is a'coming

Happy Spring.

Our newest news here at Wings of Wonder concerns our young Great Horned Owl Eoin. Eoin who was hatched in March of 2009, had been orphaned and brought to Wings of Wonder. We immediately "handed" him over to Sage and Eddie, our adult Great Horned Owl foster parents. All went smoothly until about 7 days later when 2 additional horned owl orphans were transferred here from other raptor centers in this state. Both of these newest babies were quite a bit older, bigger, and consequently stronger, than the first youngster. All 3 babies still needed round-the-clock care by the foster parents. Early March is still very cold here in northern Michigan and all 3 of these babies needed to be brooded and kept warm by the foster parents. Within about 5 days of this happy family all being together, the smallest baby ended up with a broken bone in his leg, probably from being crushed or stepped on by the bigger owlets. To make a long story short, medical intervention was necessary, there were a variety of complications that arose, the leg was saved but the owlet was left with a permanent disability. We named the owlet Eoin and once he was old enough his training began and he was included into the Wings of Wonder ambassador bird family. Now, a quick time travel to the

present and to our newest news.....Eoin laid an egg on March 6! And all this time I thought Eoin was a rather large male Great Horned Owl! Of course this egg won't hatch because it is not fertile, but Eoin does not know that. We are allowing "her" to incubate this egg for awhile, just to keep her happy and healthy. Normally a fertile great horned owl egg hatches after 28-30 days of incubation. We will try to remove Eoin's egg after a week or so. If it is removed too early she will probably just lay another egg or two, which we would truly like to avoid.

Now, the dilemma, should we change Eoin's name to reflect a female or should we just keep this name? We would love to hear from you all....submit a name if you want.