Alice's bath pan is more of a tub--it's a 2x3 foot black plastic tub that holds a heck of a lot of water. And considering we don't have running water on the second floor of the house (which is where Alice's room is) it's quite a pain in the butt to keep the water clean. Ken, my husband, usually fills it with a hose, and it's really only good for one bath.
Ken noticed Alice standing on the edge of her bath pan this evening, eyeing the water. You can't just jump in you know....owls have to think things over a LONG time before they do anything. So to speed the process up, Ken started spraying her with a water bottle. She really wanted a bath, but she hopped over to her bow perch, then over to her drinking water bowl, then to the tub. THEN she finally hopped in the tub. She much prefers it when we keep squirting her while she bathes. She's good at getting her underside and face all good and wet, but she's not so good at the back, hence the squirt bottle.
The whole bathing sequence is basically what a little kid would do--hop in, splash around like crazy for 3 minutes max, then hop out. Alice then heads right to the railing in the upstairs hallway to preen for an hour or more to get herself back to normal. It's funny though...she really gets weighted down by the water...she can hardly hop up to the railing when normally she doesn't have any problem.
She's happily preening/drying away now.
