Adventures With Mel & Syd: Help on the way..

SNN (ScrollingNetworkNews) ✿ ✿ Our Mel and Sydney returned to their nesting box with plenty of bonding occurring..but after 2.5 months of Sydney in the box from Dec 2013 to mid Feb 2014, the lack of prey gifts from Mel ( perhaps due to the severe and historic drought underway in California)and they have forgone the nesting process this year as many other raptors ✿ Compared to other owls of similar size, the Barn Owl has a much higher metabolic rate, requiring relatively more food. Pound for pound, Barn Owls consume more rodents – often regarded as pests by humans – than possibly any other creature. ✿ We remind viewers that sometimes owlets may not survive - the parents will dispose of things in "The Owl Way" -viewer discretion is advised, this is nature and the "Owl way". ✿ ~ ✿ “Animals, like us, are living souls. They are not things. They are not objects. Neither are they human. Yet they mourn. They love. They dance. They suffer. They know the peaks and chasms of being.” ― Gary Kowalski, The Souls of Animals ✿ Each species is a masterpiece, a creation assembled with extreme care and genius." ~ E.O. Wilson

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Help on the way..

WESTPORT — A great horned owl is resting comfortably at Tufts University’s wildlife clinic after being rescued from a soccer net behind the high school early last week.
The owl was found tangled in the soccer net on the morning of Monday, Oct. 17.
Dr. Colley covered the bird in a towel in an effort to keep it calm while a school custodian cut it out of the net.

“It was not happy at all,” he said.

They did not want to cut too close and injure the owl, he said, so though they freed it, netting was still twisted around its right wing.
They placed the owl in a box to be transported to Buttonwood Zoo in New Bedford where a veterinarian could examine him.

Inside the box, the owl tried to intimidate the humans.

“He fluffed himself right up to look twice as big as he normally is,” Dr. Colley said. “Then you pick him up and he doesn’t weigh anything.”
Dr. Colley drove the owl to the zoo, where the rest of the netting was taken off its wing, he said. He left it there in anticipation of a Tuesday visit with a wildlife veterinarian.
But on Tuesday, the zoo contacted the superintendent to tell him the vet was delayed and asked whether he would drive the owl to the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine near Worcester, he said.

“So after school, the owl and I took a trip,” he said.

The veterinarian exam and X-rays there revealed no broken bones, but because it refused to fly during a test flight, its doctors believe there may be soft tissue damage, said a clinic staff member.The GHO has been given pain medication and will rest for about a week before release in the Westport area.
Barred owl rescue page 2

October 24, 2011

AUBURN — A state trooper and two environmental police officers took some time out yesterday morning for the birds.

State and environmental police rescued a barred owl about 11 a.m. yesterday morning that was injured and struggling in the breakdown lane near Exit 10 eastbound on the Massachusetts Turnpike.

State Trooper Michael J. Golenski from the Charlton State Police Barracks said he parked his cruiser in front of the owl and stood watch until Officer Jason DeJackome and Sgt. Scott Amati with the Massachusetts Environmental Police arrived.
“It was in the breakdown lane and it was injured,” said Trooper Golenski. “I kept traffic away from it. It tried standing up, but its left wing was broken.”
He said cars were whizzing by at high speeds as Sgt. Amati scooped the bird up with his bare hands.
The species is on the state’s protected list, said Officer DeJackome.

“It wasn’t able to fly,” he said. “Eventually it would have been hit by a car or a predator would have eventually eaten it. It was right on the side of the Mass. Pike.”

He said he transported the owl to the emergency wildlife rescue clinic at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University.