Covered in Mouse Blood, Sexually Harrassing Birds

So to make a long story substantially shorter, I’m currently volunteering to train two Great Horned Owls and a Red-Tailed Hawk. Mariah is an owl with only one wing, who’s developing cataracts due to her decrepit age (at least ten years older than the 13 most GHOs reach in the wild) and the fact that her favorite hobby involves staring directly into the sun while clacking her beak contentedly. She will get on the glove and tolerate presentations, but not without a great deal of hissing, biting, and general malevolence. Also, she thinks she can fly (she is wrong), so spends a lot of time proving that disabled owls have landing abilities that are the exact opposite of a house cat.

Mariah: Needs to Wear A Helmet

Stu is the other owl, who’s less than a decade and possesses slightly less than two full wings. He’s my favorite, because nobody thought he could be trained and I am proving them wrong, and because his feathers above his eyes are black like eyebrows which makes him have the most ridiculous expressions of any animal I’ve ever met. Right now, he tolerates my touching him, albeit with the air of a sexually harassed secretary that is just putting up with it for the promotion. Sometimes he makes little cheeping sounds, which makes me feel even more like a molester.

Stu: Short for Stupid.

Finally, there is K2, or KATU, or as I like to call him: Captain Asshat. He has both wings, a very unfortunate fact for me, and is blind in one eye. That means that when, like today, he takes offense at my actions and decides to fly at my face, I’m not sure if he misses on purpose or because his blood-thirsty behavior is sidetracked by his complete lack of depth perception. Right now, I’m working on curbing Asshat’s tendency to fly around his cage like a trapped wasp whenever I enter it; I have somehow successfully taught him to twirl instead.

Additionally, K2 has a cut on his foot that we’re worried may get infected. That means that every morning before dawn I creep into his cage (dressed in a big red coat in hopes that he doesn’t associate regular-me with the evil Santa Claus that violates his zen in the AM) and grab him in a towel in order to scrub out and Neosporin-up his foot. I also get to inject his mice with antibiotics; it’s all very mad scientist.

Basically, what this all boils down to is that I am constantly covered in mouse blood, and all I ever talk about is birds. This is not that much different from my life prior to this particular career track - just different nouns.

Not obvious from this photo: mouse guts in my fanny pack.