Here comes February!

Happy February and Groundhog Day!

As many of you may have seen, our resident Great horned Owl, Marcus, was featured on the cover of Explore LI in Tuesday's Newsday. Many people have seen the story and come by the arboretum to meet our resident wildlife. The photos for this shoot were taken several weeks ago by LI photographer Heather Walsh . As always, our resident animals were captivating and photogenic.


Things have started to pick up a bit in the hospital and we know spring is not far around the corner! In the last few days we admitted another Mourning Dove and a Lesser Scaup. The Mourning Dove was another unfortunate victim of a car collision. He was in rough shape on arrival but is improving slowly. The Scaup came to us from a local veterinarian on the South Shore. This little duck was shot with a pellet. We have a follow up appointment with our veterinarian tomorrow but so far he is eating and swimming well. In addition to the lodged pellet, he also is missing some of the webbing from his feet. For many diving ducks, they rely on their webbed feet to help them catch live fish. Luckily for this scaup, his species consumes slower moving food like clams, crustaceans and insects in addition to aquatic plants and seeds. As long as he can overcome the injuries from the pellet shot, we think he'll have a good chance back in the wild. Here he is in the tub:


Yesterday, we visited one of our favorite elementary schools on the South Shore with our owls, hawk and falcon. We love going to this school as the teachers and students are so enthusiastic and excited to see the birds! We will be returning tomorrow for the final two of the five programs. Here is Addie, our Clinic Assistant, handling Solomon (Barred Owl) for one of our programs!

Lastly,on Sunday at 1pm, we'll be participating in our first Nature Adventure at the Arboretum! Come on down to meet our Virginia Opossums and Eastern Grey Squirrels and learn about the wonderful adaptations of our local mammals! Following our program, a nature hike with Bailey Arboretum's naturalist will take place at 2 pm. We hope to see you there!