Adopt a bird at the park during June
Norris Dam State Park fundraiser benefits “Birds of Prey”
Norris Dam State Park Ranger Holly Ingram holds Blinky, the barred owl. (photo:Collin Riggs )
Holly Ingram, the ranger at the park who started and is overseeing the fundraiser, said it’s not new, but the park has some new additions.
“We’ve had birds here for over 20 years,” she said. “This is a fundraiser, though, to help us cover the costs associated with the care and feeding of the birds. We’re also hoping to get a new aviary built, so this helps us raise money for that.”
If, perhaps, one was surprised to learn that the park has an aviary at all, that’s all right.
“Our aviary now is in the east side of the park, and it’s not really a public aviary,” she said. “We’re hoping, though, that if we can get a new one built, we can make it more public so that people can come and see the birds even when we don’t have them out for a program.”
The park’s birds are incapable of surviving in the wild for one reason or another. While plenty of people may already be familiar with the park’s longtime friend, Blinky, the barred owl, the park has recently gained two new friends.
“Blinky has been with us close to 20 years,” said Ingram. “Barred owls can live well past 20 in captivity, so we’re not sure exactly how old he is, and I’m not even sure how he got here because he’s been here so long. He has an injured wing that wouldn’t let him survive in the wild.
“Our two new birds we took from David Crockett State Park. They were rehabs from TWRA. Our red-shouldered hawk we’re going to name Claude. He also has a broken wing and wouldn’t survive. We received another barred owl as well that we’re going to name Rufus, and he’s a fledgling that was born in the spring. He’s missing an eye and is imprinted, so he’s super comfortable around humans, and both would make it very hard for him to survive.”
Ingram said the rangers are working on training the birds so they can participate in more educational programs.
“They’re all pretty good and pretty comfortable around humans,” she said. “Rufus is a fledgling and is still making the baby call, like a little scream. We’re working on training them and getting them more comfortable perching on their stand and on our hands. We’re doing programs with Blinky a lot, but we’re working on the other two and we’ll start doing programs with them soon. We’re really excited to have them on our team.”
While the park has some benefits regarding licensing and other aspects of care for the birds, costs do add up, and Ingram hopes the fundraiser will help both with the costs of care and in creating a new aviary that, perhaps, will even let the park expand their programs.
“Since we are an educational facility, we do not have to pay for our permits from TWRA but we have to keep them up every year. The birds eat mice and other pre-frozen meat and those vary in costs, but it usually costs about 3-4 dollars a day per bird, and that adds up over time since they eat every single day. Then we have medical costs as well if they get sick or develop a cut on their foot or something. Then the aviary will also cost quite a bit. We’re not sure how big we might build it but it will definitely be a few thousand dollars to get a good facility.
“In the future, we might look at getting more birds or expanding our facility to do rehab. Right now we don’t because we don’t have the facilities to do that, so we only do educational stuff. If everything goes well, though, we could potentially start rehabbing birds to release them back into the wild.”
Anyone that would like to meet the birds, participate in the fundraiser, or simply learn more, is encouraged to attend one of the park’s programs.
“If people want to meet the birds, we do programs with them all the time. If people want to meet them, people can find when those programs are on our events page at the State Park Website and on our Facebook page. Every bit of support we get helps us take care of the birds and also helps us get a new home for them, which isn’t just beneficial for the birds, but also for the park at large. It would be nice to have a place where people could come and see the birds even when we don’t have them out for a program.”