Julian Norton: ‘Spill’ then thrill of baby owl recovery
A few months ago, a baby owl was presented at the practice.
Fluffy and fuzzy, without the type of feathers necessary for flight, he was clearly quite young. It transpired that he’d been found by a gardener in the wooded area of someone’s large garden. The owl box he’d been living in was rotten and falling to pieces, tilting precariously towards the ground and he’d teetered out. The fledgling had been transported to see the vet in a bucket, covered with a towel. As the towel was lifted, two huge eyes stared out to see what the heck was going on. I carefully lifted the little bird out.
He reminded me of “Plop” from the The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark, a book much loved in our house when the boys were small. I remembered reading it aloud:
Plop climbed out of the nest-hole and wobbled along the branch outside. He peeped over the edge… “I’m not a very good lander,” he said. “I might spill myself.”
It seemed that our owl had done exactly that, spilling himself somewhere near Pateley Bridge. The little fuzzy bird had no obvious injuries and so we set about the necessary phone calls to find someone to help. The other job was to think of a name. Since he’d arrived in a bucket, the nurses quickly called him “Bucky”.
It didn’t take long to secure him a place to recover and to grow strong with a lady called Rose in Thirsk, who is adept at helping owls in exactly this situation. After work, I took Bucky- this time in the safety of a basket rather than a bucket- and dropped him off on my way home. As chance would have it, Rose was nurturing another owl who had been in exactly the same predicament, and just a few weeks older. Bucky not only had a safe place to live, grow and recover, he also had a friend. Over the following weeks Rose sent updates by text and photos of Bucky and his new friend. Finally, the day arrived for the two young tawny owls to be released back to the wild.
I collected them from Rose, who was delighted that the pair could be set free, but sad to see them go. Without her fastidious care, neither would have survived, let alone been strong enough to be released. Safely in a large wooden box, my precious cargo was silent for the whole journey. The rescuing gardener was delighted to see the two owls and we compared Bucky’s current appearance with the little, fuzzy bird he had found over three months ago. It was quite a transformation. We decided to put the box at the foot of the oak tree where Bucky’s adventures first started and opened the lid. My instructions were to wait until they wanted to fly, rather than poking them too much.
I hoped it would end better than my first owl release. Early in my veterinary career, a colleague and I had nursed an injured bird back from the brink. On a bright winter’s afternoon, our patient flew majestically from the back door of the practice. We congratulated ourselves that the bird could fly perfectly, but berated ourselves for poor judgement when the owl tried to land in a nearby tree. Sadly, its feet hadn’t recovered as well as its wings and the poor bird tumbled to the ground. Back to square one.
I’d watched Bucky and pal fly and land in the rehabilitation area at Rose’s so I was confident they’d be ok. After a few minutes, first one, then the other youngster flew silently and competently to freedom. It was emotional. I’ll be making the journey back over there one evening soon to listen for their “Twit Twoo”s.