Zoo Presentation Part 3: The Spectacled Owl

If you're still with me, thanks for hanging in there! On Tuesday I posted my presentation on the black-tailed prairie dog. Yesterday we looked at the giant Pacific octopus. In today's concluding segment, the animal at hand is the spectacled owl.

Juvenile spectacled owl in flight

Have you ever tried to sneak up on someone without them hearing you? Did it work? Have you ever tried to do it going as fast as you can? Not so easy, right? It would be much easier if you were an owl!

These are spectacled owls, mainly found in Central and South America, most often in rainforests. They have very broad wings and soft plumage which enables them to fly virtually soundlessly through the air. Their flight feathers have comb-like “fingers” which help to deaden the sound of their flight. This is very important to the owl in two ways: the first way is so that their prey will not hear them coming. Can anyone think of a second reason? It’s so the owl can hear their prey moving about even while they are flying so they can pinpoint its exact location.

Zoo Presentation Part 2: The Giant Pacific Octopus

Yesterday I posted about the black-tailed prairie dog, the first of three animals I have been assigned for a "mock tour" this coming Friday. The second animal, the giant Pacific octopus, is the subject of today's piece. Hope you like it!

Giant Pacific octopus

Has anyone ever heard of Harry Houdini? Why was he famous? Harry Houdini was a man who lived about 100 years ago and he was an “Escape Artist”. People used to pay to see him get out of very tight spots seemingly like magic. But if Harry Houdini had been an octopus, it might not have seemed so magical!

This is a giant Pacific octopus. It is an invertebrate; does everyone know what that means? Because it has no bony skeleton or backbone it can squeeze its body through unbelievably small holes; here is something to look at we call an “Octopus Escape Route”—please pass it around. The octopus in this tank can fit through that hole in the plastic if it really needed to! Underneath the octopus where all 8 arms meet you will find its mouth. Inside that mouth is the octopus’ beak, shaped a bit like a parrot’s beak, which is made of keratin—the same substance your fingernails are made out of. That is the hardest part of the octopus’ whole body, so it can squeeze through any opening larger than its beak. Now, I mentioned the octopus’ arms: that’s what they are called, not legs or tentacles. Each arm has about 280 suckers in two rows and these contain chemical receptors which the octopus uses for touch and taste.

Zoo Presentation Part 1: The Black-Tailed Prairie Dog

Black-tailed prairie dog family

On Friday of this week each of the trainees has to make a second and final presentation to the rest of the class. This time we are treating it as one long guided tour of the Zoo, with a Grade Four class in tow, having already theoretically participated in a "Habitats and Human Influence" workshop. Each of us has been assigned three consecutive animals on this tour so we can show some sense of fluidity for when we have to do these tours solo. The theme we are working with is "Humans have both a positive and negative influence on animal habitats"; from there it is up to us to figure out what to say, how to tie it to the theme and how to move on to the next animal. I will be picking up our tour from immediately following the black-footed ferrets; my three creatures are the black-tailed prairie dog, the giant Pacific octopus and the spectacled owl; I will then hand it off to another trainee who will begin with the boa constrictor. Again, as in the first presentation, we are supposed to keep each animal's presentation to three minutes or under (ha!), use plenty of interaction such as questions and props, and stick as closely as possible to the broad subject of "Habitats and Adaptations (and Human Interaction)". Today I'm going to post my prairie dog presentation; tomorrow I will talk about the octopus and Thursday I'll finish with the owl. I'll copy these posts directly from my presentation notes, complete with formatting; bolded words and phrases are things I absolutely want to include; underlined and italicized means I want to ask the group a question; everything else is fair game and might be changed on the fly depending on timing. Sections in square brackets might be removed before I actually give this presentation. So, without further ado, I give you....the black-tailed Prairie dog! (Note: there are implied "pauses" after each of the questions I ask; it may look like I am just running it all together in the "script".)

Georgia's Baptism: A Plog Post

The proud papa and the gorgeous child

Yesterday we attended the baptism of our niece, Georgia Alexandria, at the Franciscan Church of St. Bonaventure, near Edwards Gardens in Toronto. There is very little point in my trying to explain or even tell the story of the actual ceremony; as an atheist I don't really follow the machinations of any church and, in this particular case, I was concentrating so much on capturing the event on film that I really wasn't paying attention to the words and specific events unfolding in front of me. If you are unfamiliar with the procedure as well, there are myriad places to look on the internet to shed some light for you. I say this with neither rancour nor judgment; rather, I offer it as an apology for the incompleteness of this blog post today, which will consist mainly of pictures. The ceremony was certainly lively—we also attended the baptisms of Georgia's brothers Max and Charlie at the same church—and very important to our extended family; we are always honoured when we are asked to attend these sacraments. Yesterday Georgia was the only infant being baptised, which is very unusual in my rather limited experience. As a result, we had the church to ourselves after the Sunday service was completed which gave me ample opportunity to take photos during the proceedings (flashless, after receiving the permission of the friar performing the ceremony).

Goodbye Hudson!

CEO John Tracogna on Undercover Boss

One especially nice thing that our Volunteer Coordinator, Karen Conway, has arranged for us this month is a tour of the Nutrition Centre at the Zoo. This is a very rare privilege and I hope that our whole class takes advantage of it while they can. We had several days to choose from but each day's tour group was limited to fifteen people maximum—many existing Volunteers signed up as well—so it was difficult to find an opening. I decided to book it for yesterday, a Saturday, in the hopes that it would be a bit calmer and it was. As it was also the final weekend at the Zoo for our beloved polar bear cub, Hudson, who is leaving Monday for the Assiniboine Park Zoo in Winnipeg, Sarah came with me and did her own thing while I was on the tour. I took copious and quite detailed notes on the experience but I get the impression that the Zoo would be most happy if I didn't share too much of the specifics of the centre's operations. If you have a chance to watch the very first episode of Undercover Boss: Canada you will see the CEO, John Tracogna, working at the centre for part of the show. I can report that the mural that was commissioned for the centre at the end of that segment is really quite nice. I wish I could show it to you, but I can't find a single picture of it on the web. (The Zoo has some pretty severe privacy issues with their behind-the-scenes tours.) In general terms, the work that goes on every day with respect to food preparation is astonishing. The budget for animal sustenance is approximately $900,000 per year, which is almost perfectly offset by the yearly revenues from the parking charges. We were quite lucky yesterday: owing to quite a few people being off for various health or family reasons, the two "big cheeses" at the centre, Jaap Wensvoort and Karen Alexander, were the only two people working so we got our information straight from the top. There was a very good article in Maclean's a couple of years back concerning Jaap's "browse diet" for the gorillas; there are many other innovations and concoctions that the Toronto Zoo's nutritionists have come up with over the years, some of which they receive royalties on when they sell them to other zoos. It was a fascinating tour and I'm really glad I participated!