ORANGE : ‘Bird Lady’ Mothers Newborn Barn Owls

This week has brought newborn crying and late-night feedings at Susan Doggett’s home.

Doggett is caring for four baby barn owls, two of which hatched early Monday morning amid a chorus of “squats” and “quacks.” The two other owls remained inside their golf ball-sized shells.

The babies eat a steady diet of mashed mouse meat and live inside a makeshift incubator that sits on the breakfast bar of Doggett’s kitchen.

“It’s sort of like baby food,” said Doggett, 40, known to friends as the “Bird Lady of Orange” because she nurses sick fowl. “To get up at 3 a.m. to serve them cut-up mice is really something. It’s as close to motherhood as I’ve been.”

The hatched owls are about the size of a quarter but will eventually grow to be a foot tall with a wing span of three feet, Doggett said.

Their appetites will increase with age too--an adult owl eats up to a dozen rodents in one night.

The owl eggs were discovered in a nest Sunday by an electrician repairing a sign at Riverside Municipal Airport. The mother owl was apparently frightened by the worker and became separated from the nest, Doggett said.

Barn owls are fairly common to urban areas, attracted by rodents who roam through the garbage. The owls are protected by federal and state laws. Keeping one of the birds in captivity can bring a $1,000 fine, Doggett said. Doggett holds a license from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that allows her to care for sick birds.

Upon discovering the nest, the electrician called the Pacific Wildlife Project for help. The project referred him to Doggett, who is known throughout Southern California for her work with sick birds.

The first owl was hatched inside an incubator at the electrician’s home Sunday night, prompting him and his wife to drive the entire five-egg nest to Doggett’s home in Orange. A second owl hatched Monday morning and a third was stillborn. Two others remain in their shells and are expected to hatch within the next two days.

The delivery began a long morning punctuated by the cries of the baby owls, who have pink flesh, white fuzz and hooked beaks. The owls have two distinct types of cries: a loud cackle that signifies hunger and a soft twitter they sound whenever the heat in the incubator is increased.

“The twitter means they are trying to call their mother,” Doggett said. “It’s like an acknowledgment of Mom.”

The owls join a house filled with more than a dozen various birds cared for by Doggett.

“They will learn to be barn owls, not people,” she said.