The Hour

Two chicks, an American Black Vulture and a Snowy Owl, joined presenters Michelle MacManus and Colin Kelly on the sofa this week and immediately set about causing havoc in The Hour studio.

Within seconds of being brought in by carer Graeme Dick, our overly-relaxed vulture had ‘made a mess’ of the floor before taking a worrying interest in Michelle’s shoes, all to the backdrop of shrieking from the baby Snowy Owl.

Despite this carnage Graeme, who looks after the birds at the World of Wings centre in Cumbernauld, pointed out that these balls of fluff will grow into some of nature’s most fascinating and environmentally important animals. It just might take some patience to get there.

“Vultures have a bit of a bad press around them," he said. "A lot of people see them as really smelly, and they can be, but these guys are so important to the environment: They are nature’s clean-up crew.

“[It's poo] smells particularly bad but it wouldn’t smell half as bad as if there were lots of rotting animals around, and these guys clean up all the disease as well – E. coli, anthrax, all that sort of stuff. Their stomach enzymes are strong enough to digest all that.”

Unfortunately they didn’t look like they were going to clean up after themselves on the show today, but viewers of The Hour were invited to send in their suggestions for names. If you have a suggestion, that isn’t too harsh, e-mail thehour@stv.tv.

WILD BIRDS

• The penguins and storks of Edinburgh Zoo
• The owls of Owl Magic
• Old bird pulls toy boy