The Taronga Zoo is helping Ripley the barking owl chick (the latest addition to its bird flight presentation) learn the ropes. Acclimatization though new experiences is the name of the game for this 40 day old baby barking owl.
Learning to fly means taking occasional pit stops to check on the latest ZooBorns updates...
Here Ripley meets some new friends...
Ripley even rode the cable car to get a bird's eye view of his new digs...
excerpted from the Taronga Blog...
Ripley is nearly fully grown now and spending every day at Bird Show. He does require a little more attention though as he can fly well and is flying all over the place! This can be a little distracting but is very funny. He has been landing on top of our television monitors, cupboards, chairs and even on our keyboards! This is usually followed be a very loud BEEP as he turns the computer back on, taking it out of its energy saving mode. Ripley isn’t very energy conscious yet! I have had whole emails become illegible thanks to Ripley. And droppings everywhere!
Whilst Ripley is still growing, and is now over 42 days old, we are trying to introduce him to as much as possible, just as you would with a puppy, so he is used to different objects, environments and people when he gets older.
We are trying to make things less ‘scary’ so we took Ripley on a walk around the zoo so he could meet different people and also for a ride on our Sky Safari.
This was very exciting for Ripley. He was calm the whole time, which is a very good sign to us that he will be robust when he is in shows, just a couple of months away. Whilst in the Sky Safari his head was looking all around. His pupils became huge as we went over the elephant paddock. He tends to do that when something catches him by surprise or is new. Elephants are definitely new for Ripley.
After our ride we walked back down through the Zoo and stopped to talk to many excited people. His eyes and feet are generally what they comment on, aside from the fact he is extremely cute!
