Owls [Tag Prof Marsh] on Care of Magical Creatures

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

July 12, 2021 2:24 AM

Owls [Tag Prof Marsh] by Sadie-Lake Chalmers

OOC: My understanding of the assistantship post is that I'm allowed to make up reasonable duties for Sadie to be conducting. Will modify if any issues.

The level of responsibility in this post is based off this how to examine an owl' guide which is aimed at members of the public, so seemed like it would be within the capabilities of someone doing a specific subject and taking a special interest in animal care. BIC:

The owlery was one of Sadie’s biggest jobs. For the most part, the Sonora post owls were the responsibility of the Prairie Elves, unless they fell sick enough to be taken to Professor Marsh. The elves did the majority of the cleaning, feeding and caring. However, Sadie had noticed that the owls tended to be very sick by the time they arrived. Maybe it was because the elves had a lot of responsibilities around the school, maybe they just didn’t know how to spot more subtle problems. Either way, it had been a good opportunity to create a job for herself, which was one of the things suggested of her position as the COMC assistant. It gave her an example of ‘initiative’ for when she inevitably had to write resumes and cover letters.

Did having initiative mean she was smart?

She had done the check for the first time last term, with Professor Marsh’s help and guidance. She had suggested a series of checks and what she would look for, and he had observed her and helped her clarify what she was looking at and whether her decisions were right or wrong. They had mostly been right, so this time she was doing the checks by herself.

So, was she capable of being independent?

She examined each owl in situ, looking for any signs of recent droppings that were off colour, and tagging who the owl and its neighbours were in any of those cases, as it was hard to tell what belonged to who up here…. After that, she took each owl, positioning it so it wouldn’t struggle or be able to get her too much, and giving it a brief physical examining to check for it being underweight, or any signs of pain and injury.

By the end of her visit, she had three nips on her fingers, and four owls in boxes. In three cases, there was possibly nothing wrong at all, or possibly things that would sort themselves out with the fullness of time. But it wasn’t within her skillset to make those decisions. And she didn’t particularly want it to be. It was reasonable now, whilst she was still a student, but she was supposed to be building to something with all this.

Was she lazy?

Or was she smart enough and independent enough to do this, but not more? She liked her position here, and she couldn’t imagine wanting it to change. She didn’t have the grades or the drive to be a vet, and honestly the idea terrified her, of having to be the one who made decisions about whether people’s much loved animals lived or died… But following someone else’s instructions, making those animals’ lives better whilst they were having to be patients? That sounded nice.

She returned to the COMC room with the four boxed owls, setting them down on Professor Marsh’s desk, grouped into a three versus a single.

“These two seem a little underweight, and this one has a swollen leg,” she tapped the relevant boxes in the three. “This one got really agitated when I tried to examine its left wing, and it seemed to be holding it kind of asymmetrically,” she stated, pointing to the box she had separated out.

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