I was excited to see a story from a rescue I haven’t seen anything from in a while, and what a story it is! Stick through to the end. This looks to be one tough owl!
This week’s patient of the week just arrived a couple days ago, but what a story so far that we only hope continues to to improve!
I received a message from Jane on my way in to the wildlife hospital on Wednesday that a Barred Owl had been found hit by a car nearby at Rock Springs, but unfortunately had died on the way over and had been left by the finder by the door. A sad story right there for sure, but sometimes no matter what we do they just don’t make it in time.
I arrived to see the blanket wrapped bundle waiting, and came up to the door, reaching in to pick up the owl… And was astonished when the owl lashed out and tried to grab me! She was alive! Likely she had lost consciousness, but here she was trying to fight me!
She was weak and obviously felt awful, but I hurried her in to do an exam and check her over, run blood work, and see what was going on. Her energy to fight was in very short bursts followed by weak stillness. She was slightly anemic, and had some scrapes on her feet, but surprisingly everything else seemed ok physically. I still gave her some pain meds and anti-inflammatory medication to help and we set her up on oxygen in one of our incubators to see if she’d recover.
She spent that first day with her head pressed against a wall, which can indicate some head pain, but before I left that evening she turned and looked at me with wide eyes, more alert than she has been. The next day she succeeded in grabbing me when I went to give her her meds again, and spent the day alternating between dozing and glaring at everyone.
Today she was looking good enough that I moved her into our standard hospital caging that let’s her have more space to stretch and look around. Mostly she seems offended to see us around and she was energetic when being moved.
We’ve been referring to her as Lazarus, but we are very happy that she has surprised us by not only not being dead when she arrived, but also continuing to show promising recovery.
Those eyes… Such a creature.
I got to stand right next to a surprisingly social Barred Owl this last summer at a rescue, and the eyes were so sad and gentle, and it made little purring sounds at me. It really bumped up my ranking of the Barred Owls, which sound much more aggressive in many stories. This one seemed very pleasant. I also talked with the handler that was working with him to try and crate train him so he’s get in the crate to go get his weekly checkup. Owls do not look easy to train! 😜
I’ve thought about his sad face and gentle noises ever since!