Arrival
On the 14th of May this year a young man called Lawrence, came to my house carrying a barn owl. He said he had found it sitting on the road about a kilometre away. It had seemed unable to fly and he was concerned that it would get run-over. He said he liked wild birds and wanted to save it. Someone told him I would look after it. Of course he also wanted money for it, which I declined on the grounds that it would cost me money to feed it, and it was not his to sell anyway. He reluctantly accepted. It appeared full-grown or nearly so, and we could not find any injuries or anything else wrong, but it seemed weak and reluctant to fly away. I guessed it was just in shock for some reason. I put it in a cage that I luckily had available, so that I could monitor it. Here it is, just after arrival.
About half an hour later, to my surprise, Lawrence returned with another owl. This time it was a young one, half covered in downy feathers. He said he had been heading back the same way and had found this one under a big tree by the side of the road, very close to where he had found the first owl. I guessed the first one might be the mother of this baby, which had fallen out of a nest in the tree. We could not take it back, as the mother, even if she was ok and was released, would probably reject it, so I said I would take it also and keep it until it was old enough to go free.
I put the two in the cage together. The young one looked terrified at first, but later it snuggled up against the older one and it was clear they knew each other. Here they are snuggling up together, baby rather dozy while his protector analyses the situation.
More in the next post.
No comments:
Post a Comment