Found this owl injured at the base of a tree by my daughter's ball field. It's obviously not doing well. Do you leave it be or try and rescue and get it to a bird of prey rescue group? Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk
We have an organization called the raptor trust near my house. Have brought multiple hawks there and all have made full recoveries and returned to the wild. Seems to be a lot of organizations like that. They do great work and really care for the birds. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Whatever you do watch those talons... been there. I would call DNR first... they are a protected species and you don't want to end up paying a fine.
We nursed one back to health as kids. And I caught, and released one from a leg-hold trap once. I'd call our local raptor center now, but... A heavy (jean/canvas) coat carefully wrapped around it,can gently secure the wings and talons, temporarily. My dad quickly built a large boxed cage (~4'x3'x3'), we used very long tweezers (~1' long, no idea where dad got them) to feed pieces of raw liver or field mice to it. Once better it was released...
I'd leave the SOB there and hope a yote or bobcat gave it a long and painful death. I hate owls and lessor hawks with a passion! Walk into a bird pen and find a few dead pheasant, quail or chuckars lying headless in the pen floor in the morning and see how you feel about raptors then. I prefer my game birds, screw the raptors. (Never have had any issues with redtailed hawks). That Owl just looks like a young one that fell upon starting to learn to fly, he'll probably be okay unfortunately.
Well, I spoke w. the conservation officer and he said he was Ok w. me rescuing it and taking it to a bird of prey rescue center. Kinda sucks because the closest one is about 70 miles away. I had no issue capturing the owl, I just draped a towel over him and grabbed him around the wings(wearing heavy leather gloves). He put up no fight at all. The CO said it's common for them to eat too much and not be able to fly. He also said they seem to get alot of head trauma type injuries which usually don't end well. It almost looks like he has damages one of his eyes, possibly punctured it with a thorn.
Well, checked on him this morning and he didn't make it through the night. Generally I just let nature run it's course, but something about owls and birds of prey that I have a soft spot for. I'm going to guess he flew into the tree and hit his head, punctured his eye and fell to the ground. Just a guess. We had some pretty strong winds yesterday that could have knocked him off is course. Oh well, it's part of nature. My 11 year old daughter was pretty disappointed though.
