Meet Our Owls
Sox - British Barn Owl
Bred at the falconry centre where Emma worked at approximately 10 days old she started the process to hand rear her. Early on in this process she was bought by someone who wanted Emma to rear and her for them and through the first 12 weeks or so they visited a couple of times but when Sox was fully feathered and ready to go, (16wks) they never returned to collect her, so 11 and a half years later she is still with Emma. Not a very long story but it gives me the chance to explain to you why Sox is quite often referred to as 'he'. Sox is quite a small Barn Owl and the males of most species of Birds of Prey are smaller than the females so from very early on it was assumed that she was a male.
That is until last year when she started to lay eggs! It had never noticed before as she lives with our other Barn Owl Mimi. Previously all the egg laying had been accredited to Mimi, and Emma had been taking steps to make sure they weren't fertile. Mimi and Sox would both sit on the eggs and when the incubation period was up and no young appeared they both got off and carried on with their daily lives. This year, after they had laid and left their eggs, Sox had her own aviary and proceeded to lay some more, proving that she could! So after 10 years of calling Sox a he it's very difficult to call her her.