Owls visit the Saugus Public Library

By Laura Eisener

The Saugus Public Library brought the extremely popular “Eyes on Owls” program to Saugus last week. It had been scheduled to be held outdoors at Saugus Iron Works. Unfortunately, the rain Thursday morning caused the program to be moved indoors. The Community Room in the library is much smaller than the Iron Works lawn, so some audience members had to be turned away.

The Wilsons kindly stayed after the program to show a few owls to those who were willing to wait until the program ended to see some of the birds. Mark and Marcia Wilson have been bringing live owls to school groups, libraries and other organizations since 1994. The owls they house need to live in a protected environment due to injuries. The program includes information on several owl species and presents information on hazards facing owls. They also bring along some non-owl species, like the kestrel they showed at the library program.

Mark and Marcia prefer to be emailed at in**@********ls.com. Their website – eyesonowls.com – includes interesting information about owls in general and suggestions for ways to reduce owl hazards and to help injured birds, as well as links to other organizations.

August 4 each year is International Owl Awareness Day. Owls are important predators and help control pest rodent populations, but rodenticides and sticky traps sometimes used to reduce these pests can kill owls, as well as eagles, other predators and pets.

Owls are primarily night hunters, so it is not extremely common to see one during the day, although some have been spotted at Breakheart and elsewhere during daylight hours.