Owl appears to “adopt” duckling after it hatches in her nest


A Florida screech owl was in for a surprise when one of her hatchlings looked nothing like her, but she didn’t hold it against him.

Unlike the Ugly Duckling fairy tale, the mother owl appeared to care for the baby duck as her own.

The had been incubating her eggs in a nest box in the backyard of a nature photographer for about a month.

One morning, photographerLaurie Wolfnoticed the figure of a little bird sitting next to the owl and ran outside excitedly to photograph it.

But when she got a closer look she realized it was a duck!

“The two of them were just sitting there side by side,”Wolf told National Geographic.“It’s not believable. It’s not believable to me to this day.”

Afraid the owl, a bird of prey, would eat the little wood duck, Wolf and her husband attempted to capture him to take him to a wildlife sanctuary.

But the duckling jumped from the nest box and “made a beeline for the pond” and they never saw him again.


Director of Bird Studies Canada Christian Artuso told National Geographic that what Wolf thought she saw happening was likely true.

It wasn’t the first time wood ducks have been scientifically recorded living with screech owls.

Artuso witnessed a similar relationship in 2005 while he was studying eastern screech owls for his Ph.D.

Only in that case, the owl incubated and hatched three wood duck chicks, says Artuso, who published his findings in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology.

“We know this occurs, but we really don’t know the frequency,” he says.

The reason, he explains, is that wood ducks practice something called brood parasitism, which means laying an egg or two in another bird’s nest to increase the chances that at least one of their offspring will survive.

“You could think of it as not keeping all your eggs in one basket,” said Artuso. “If you spread your eggs out, then your chances of passing on your genes are increased, especially if you lose your own eggs to a predator.”

Even though duck eggs are about twice the size of owls’ eggs, the owls don’t seem to suspect any foul play.

“The parents might be thinking, Oh my god! This egg is huge! We’re going to have the best baby in the world!” Artuso said.

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“Humans aren’t as good as we should be in our capacity to empathize with feelings and thoughts of others, be they humans or other animals on Earth.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson

Tyson, in my opinion, has it right. We don’t do nearly as good of a job of empathizing with ours, animals or humans. For animals in particular, we regard them as tools for us, things for our pleasure and use. We justify it by saying that they don’t have feelings, that they don’t have thoughts, and that they don’t perceive the world with the clarity that we do.

One elephant calf challenges some of those assertions.

When Zhuangzhuang was born, he was rejected by his mother. His keepers reacted in horror as the mother nearly stamped him to death almost immediately after he was born. They thought it was an accident at first. He was removed and his wounds treated, but when he was reintroduced, the mother attacked him again.


So the keepers had to remove him permanently, and that’s when he began to cry. He cried for 5 hours, even though staff at the Shendiashan Wild Animal Natural Reserve tried to comfort him.


Fortunately, after some time, the calf snapped out of it and is living a happy, healthy life these days. Good news.


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When this baby coyote’s den caved in, construction workers came to the rescue. “While digging through a pile of bedrock to run through our rock crusher I disturbed a coyote den.

On first breaking it open 4 coyotes ran off.

Going back for another rock I uncovered this little guy,” writes David Bradley. “The den had collapsed around him trapping him 5 foot below ground.”

“Amazingly enough, even though I couldn’t possibly know that he was there, I didn’t hurt him and when I moved the next rock he was just ‘there’,” explains Bradley.

“I called one of my coworkers over to help dig him out by hand. Beautiful little blue eyed coyote pup. He didn’t’ seem to be afraid of us and actually looked as if he knew we weren’t going to hurt him.”

As soon as he was freed the pup ran off to join the rest of his family.\


Coyote is a member of the canine (dog) family. Although it resembles wolf, these two are completely different species. Coyote can be found in the United States, Mexico and Canada. They inhabit different types of ecosystem, such as deserts, mountains and prairies.

They can also be often found near the urban areas, around farms and the suburban areas of New York and New Jersey. Number of coyote in the wild is stable and they are not considered as endangered species. Coyote is also known as prairie wolf and bush wolf.


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A Columbia man rescued a drowning bald eagle from the current of the Missouri River at Cooper's Landing on Sunday. The eagle was transported to the Raptor Rehabilitation Project at the MU Veternary School.

Toward the end of Sunday morning, Roger Giles went upstream in his small boat to inspect a trotline he had put out the night before.

"I noticed this bald eagle on the bank," said Giles. "The eagle jumped three or four times and then landed in the water."

Giles watched as the eagle grabbed on to a floating tree limb and appeared to work its way upstream. When the limb snapped, the eagle became distressed.

"It floated out, got caught in the current, and was taken out deeper into the river," he said.

Giles said it took him about 90 seconds to get back in his boat and move toward the eagle.


"I worked this landing net under it, kind of like a stretcher, and just lifted it into my boat," he said.

Giles brought the eagle back to his larger boat at Cooper's Landing in the hopes that it would dry out and fly away on its own. Within minutes of returning to the boat, he placed two calls to the Missouri Department of Conservation and two others to the Raptor Rehabilitation Program, part of the MU Veternary School. After several hours, he realized it was not going to recover on its own and made the decision to take it in to Raptor Rehab.

"He was very lethargic, very non-agressive, kind of sleepy," said Christa Moore, public relations officer for the Raptor Rehabilitation Project. "When they realized that there were no broken bones, they proceeded to do some blood testing and put him on some cage rest."


The eagle's condition has slighty improved, but it remains on fluids and cage rest.
This is the eighth eagle the rehabilitation project has taken care of this year. Most were struck by vehicles.

While the tests on this eagle have not come back yet, Moore speculated the cause could have come from lead toxicity.

"They get it through the food they eat, lead shot," she said. "They will pick up a lot of lead in their system which is toxic to them in high quantites."

Moore says she hopes to have the test results back soon.


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