Most of the chicks here at the centre are raised by their parents, with little or no help from us. However, the Brown Wood Owl chick is being hand reared. This is because it's parents are being foster parents to wild Tawny Owl chicks.

Members of the public often find tawny owl chicks on the ground and pick them up and bring them to wildlife centres. Most of the time the chicks would be fine where they are, as they can hop up through the branches and mum and dad will be close by, but some may be in more danger, close to busy roads etc. We would like these chicks to eventually be soft-released back into the wild, so to prevent them imprinting on us, we allow foster parents to raise them. The hand reared Brown Wood Owl will then be able to join another collection as a display owl.