Our first youngster of 2025 has been admitted after being discovered on the ground under her family’s nest on Panther Hollow Bridge in Schenley Park, Pittsburgh. Fortunately x-rays and a physical exam indicate that only minor injuries were sustained in the fall, primarily to her beak.
Our first priority when admitting a nestling raptor, is to medically stabilize the young bird, and then identify whether there are any injuries. Since raptors nestlings have significant mass and are likely to fall long heights, injury including fractures is not uncommon. Care for the growing bird is provided in a way that prevents associating humans with food, and prevents imprinting on humans- a situation in which the bird identifies humans as its own kind.
Great horned Owls are the first birds to nest in our area. They are typically incubating eggs anywhere from late January to late March, but this owlet’s family must have started the 33 day incubation process extra early, as she would have hatched in early February. Given the hazardous location of this nest and the risk of her potentially falling again, this owlet will not be returned, but we will be seeking options to join her to a wild foster family either as a nestling or at the fledgling stage.
Thank you to Sarah Mateskovich for rescuing this owlet, to WIN volunteers for transporting her, and to all who support our center and make her treatment possible! If you would like to be part of treating this precious owlet and other wildlife, check out www.tamarackwildlife.org
that nest location is intense!!! amazing that she survived, much less without injury.
It is very helpful that they don’t weigh all that much. It is like if you threw a baseball, a tennis ball, and a balloon at something. The baseball has more mass, and would hit pretty hard, the tennis ball would hit solidly, but nothing like the impact of the baseball, and even throwing the balloon is rather challenging, let alone hitting anything with force.
Even though this one may lack the feathers and strength to fly, it looks old enough to at least have been practicing the proper movements. They do exercise flying the way a baby will crawl and then try holding itself up in preparation to walk, so it may have been able to additionally show itself down a bit.