KSTR – May/June 2022

Hi Quepolandia – belated happy easter! It’s Dani, your spokeskid 🙂

Today I want to tell you about a new owl we received, named “Chill.” I’m also going to tell you about an animal in our sanctuary called Grandma Bella! And lastly, I want to give you an update about the nursery, and our intern position!

Chill is a Ferruginous pygmy owl. He’s a child (juvenile), and he fell out of his nest. Luckily he isn’t hurt but he can’t fly yet because he’s too young—so we’ll keep him safe until he can be released soon. Chill is tiny. This species of owl usually only grows to be 15 cm tall! He’s able to eat by himself, but we feed him twice a day to make sure he gets enough food. There’s a Pygmy owl that hangs out on the road to our house in Manuel Antonio, and at night, he flies away right as the car gets close to him in the headlights—and every time he does, it makes my heart jump! I’m glad that Chill isn’t hurt, and I’m happy to see that KSTR is there to keep him safe—and make sure he doesn’t get himself into trouble ;-)—until he’s big enough to be responsible for himself and released to the wild!

Next up is Bella, who I call “Grandma Bella”, because she’s pretty old! Bella is a Marmoset, and she’s been living in the sanctuary for a long time. Recently, we’ve made some new adjustments to her enclosure, so she can feel happy and safe. Now that she’s older, she can’t jump from branch to branch like she used to, so we added some bridges to connect the branches together! On “cold” days in Costa Rica (I know, crazy!) we give her a hot water bottle to lay on, so she can raise her body temperature without having to move around a lot. When I first started volunteering at KSTR, the second time I was there, I was going into her enclosure to give her diced food—she jumped on my shoulder! I tried to get her off, but she clearly wanted to hang out and rode long with me while I fed the parrots! Eventually, she got tired of the Dani Ride, so I took her back to her cage 🙂

UPDATE ON THE NURSERY! We’re almost done building, and it’s time to start looking for interns! We’re now accepting applications to help the Nursery Mom with care for the babies. Check out our website if you want more information kstr.org.