"Webbing" : The search continues...

What kind of information do I need?
Digital-based: I decided to try Wabash Valley Education Center’s online catalogue and discovered three videos about owls. They arrived Friday and I watched them last night. “Two Little Owls” followed two owlets from the time of being hatched to leaving the nest to hunt on their own. “Raptors: Birds of Prey” covered all the raptors but had a great segment on an injured owl whose wing was being set. “Owls and Their Pellets” focused on barn owls and also included a segment with an injured owl. Not a lot of new information, but I loved the images of the owls soaring through the air. The other format I want to explore is the CD-ROM National Geographic.

Live: Both Mindy and Bev have emailed me several times and are probably providing me with the best information since it’s absolutely firsthand. The more I read about the rehabilitation efforts, the more I want to have some sort of service component in this project. These wonderful people, in many cases, are financing these rehabilitations themselves. Mindy certainly is. Bev has her organization to support her efforts, but she probably has to do fund-raising constantly to keep it going.

How do I find the specific pieces of information I need?
Web Pages: I did some more Internet searching today. Using ixquick www.ixquick.com a metasearch engine, I used “rehabilitate AND owls” and found a wonderful site called Wingmasters. It’s in Massachusetts near my brother so I emailed them to find out if they allow visitors. Next I tried “owls nesting boxes Indiana” and looked at the Department of Natural Resources site. Apparently, the only nesting box project in Indiana is in southern Indiana but is fairly ambitious. EZ2 Find http://ez2find.com has a wonderful image tab. Searching with “barn owls” I found so terrific pictures. I wonder why the Federal government doesn’t provide more leadership in re-establishing owls. The farmers and agricultural departments are all involved in nesting box projects because they are being pressured to use less chemicals to control rodents and barn owls are rodent eating machines. When the birds don’t recognize state boundaries (or national boundaries for that matter!) wider cooperation would really help.
While this post was basically about webbing, there is lots of wiggling and weaving going on as well.