Releasing Fighter the Owl

I have now had Fighter the Barn Owl for two and a half months.  In spite of being found with a severely broken wing and an injured leg, he appears to have made a full recovery.

A few days ago I noticed him making strange hissing and whining sounds that I had not heard before, and he seemed quite restless.  So this evening (6th September) I decided to release him.  I opened the top door of the cage and after looking round curiously for a while he came out.

He flew laboriously and not very far, soon landing on the ground.  I walked over to him and he flew off again, failing to reach any tree and landing on the ground again.  So at least I know he can fly that high when he tries.  After that I saw him fly back and forth between the roof and some large trees.  A bit worrying was the neighbour’s cat hunched and alert on the ground, waiting to see if it would get tired and come down to the ground again.

On the next two attempts he flew into fences.  I was very concerned by now that he was not really strong enough to fly far enough or fast enough to survive for long.  I was particularly concerned that he might land in a neighbouring garden, because some of my neighbours are particularly averse to owls and would do anything to kill them.  So I kept approaching his landing place to try and either re-catch him or at least steer him away from neighbouring gardens.  Then finally he flew off and I could not follow where he had gone.  I searched the whole back garden, both on the ground and in the trees, but there was no trace.  Worried and very concerned for his future I gave up the search.  No sooner had I gone back in the house than one of the kids heard scratching noises on the roof.  I rushed outside to find him sitting on the roof of the house, quite a distance from where I had last seen him.  

I have left some food in his cage with the door open, just in case he gets hungry before he manages to find his own food.

I am very concerned for Fighter’s future, but against all odds he has made it this far and is, like Harry Potter, "the boy who lived" (although I don't actually know if he is male or female).  I sincerely hope he will survive his new life in the wild and that he will really prove to be one of my "success stories".

Fighter the owl recovers

2nd September 2012

During the past month Fighter has been gradually healing and getting stronger.  By the end of August his wing looked quite back to normal and his limp seemed to have gone.  He was getting quite restless and constantly trying to get out of the cage.  I decided to keep him just a bit longer to make sure he was fully recovered.

Update on Fighter the Barn Owl

I gave fighter this name because he has fought to survive, unlike many injured birds that I have tried to save.  In my last post I mentioned that Fighter, after two-and-a-half weeks, had finally started eating out of my hand voluntarily, instead of being force-fed. Soon Fighter was feeding directly from a plate, and not long after I started feeding him on small dead mice.

On the 14^th of July, after I had had Fighter for three weeks, my sister said it was time to remove the splint.  She said that by this time the bone had either healed or was not going to heal.  So with a pair of scissors and fingers, she carefully removed the duct tape and cardboard that had been supporting the bone.

She said as far as she could tell, the bone appeared to have healed.  But only time would tell.  Fighter was still dragging his injured wing, but she said that the muscles would take time to get strong again.

Fighter the barn owl

Fighter, the barn owl, was found outside the Livingstone Museum on the morning of 23rd June.  He had a broken wing and could not fly.  One of the staff brought him inside, and I later came and rescued him.  On examination his left upper wing bone was found to be rather badly broken.  With my sister’s help we fixed him up with a cardboard splint, held on with duct tape.  He appeared to be limping a bit but we could not see any obvious injury to his legs.  Luckily I had a cage ready that I keep for injured and abandoned birds that need attention.  I put some water in the cage but decided not to try feeding it until it had settled down.  My experience with injured birds is they will not feed the first day or two after being put into captivity.

The next day I noticed he was not standing on his right leg, but holding it up all the time.  I examined it and thought it felt broken, but was not sure.  I decided to leave it, since the owl was still in some shock at being held captive and was obviously still in a lot of pain, so I did not want to handle it too much.  That evening I tried feeding him with some mincemeat.  He would not feed willingly so I forced some into his mouth, which he then swallowed.  Every day I tried to get him to feed by itself, but he would not.  I even tried him on dead mice, but he would not show any interest.  So I had to go on force-feeding him.  I would shove a small mouse down his throat and he would then swallow, sometimes leaving the tail hanging out for a while.

In the cage is a little house that Fighter sleeps in during the day.  In the evenings he comes out and looks around.

For the next two weeks I would force-feed him most evenings.  It was not easy, as holding an owl with a broken wing and probably a broken leg without hurting it is not easy.  Added to this was the fact that he was very scared of being handled, so panicked every time I came near.  For the first few days he seemed quite weak and in pain, and I did not have much hope of him surviving.  I have had very little success with injured adult birds.  However, as the days went by he began gaining strength and began to attack me when tried to get hold of him for his daily feed.  So I thought I would let him feed himself and again tried putting mincemeat or dead mice in front of him in the cage.  The next morning it would be untouched.

After I had had him for about two weeks, one day I found Fighter on the top shelf of the cage for the first time.  I did not know if he had flown up there or climbed up the netting.  But over the next few days I saw him doing both.  The broken wing is very lop-sided with the splint on it, but he can still flap around quite a lot.  This was a good sign.  But still he was not eating by himself and fought every time against being force-fed.

I was really wondering what the best option was.  Firstly, he had not died in two weeks, so there was a good chance of him surviving.  But he would not feed himself and viciously resented being held and force-fed.  So what should I do?  I tried starving him for a day or two.  That did not work.  But then finally, a few days later, when I was really at my wit’s end about what to do, I went to feed him, holding his good wing in one hand and coving up his sharp, attacking claws with an oven glove, I started feeding him.  Finally he calmed down and began to take the food from my hand, for the first time.  I was so relieved, because it was a first step towards independence.  The next day I did the same and again he took the food (mincemeat) from my hand.

12 July 2012 

Today I mixed some kapenta (small fish) in with the mincemeat and put it on a plate.  The moment I came near he climbed up the side of the cage and flapped about.  So I had to catch him, but when I touched the food to his beak he soon calmed down and began eating out of my hand again.  Eventually I was able to completely let go of him and he went on eating from my hand, just above the plate.

It is encouraging, firstly that Fighter has survived more than two weeks in captivity with two rather badly injured limbs, and secondly, that he is finally learning to feed himself and getting more used to being handled.  I hope that in the next few days he will learn to feed directly from the plate and that soon he will also take dead mice by himself.  He appears to be in less pain and is getting more active every day.  Unfortunately it may take some time for his bones to heal.  But if they do heal well, hopefully he can eventually be set free and live the rest of his life out in the wild.

Update on doves

I have not updated this blog for quite a while.  Unfortunately the two little doves I last wrote about did not survive.  They were doing so well but then one day they just got sick and died soon after.

A Pair of Doves

Just over a week ago, on 16th May, I received a pair of baby doves to look after. They had been delivered to my Sister’s house on her farm the day before. They had either fallen out of a nest or been taken out by some little boys.

They were tiny. They were just beginning to grow feathers, but were mostly just covered in furry yellow down. I took one look at their beaks, with big bulges at the nostrils, and decided they must be doves. I did not know which type, but knew they must be a lot smaller than domestic pigeons, having raised one a year ago, which was huge.

My sister had started feeding them on chicken food (broiler starter crumbles) soaked in water, which she says is excellent food for baby birds. She asked if I would like to take them on and I said I would love to. I have raised wild doves and domestic pigeons before and it is great fun. Seed eaters are so much easier to look after than insect eaters. They also tend to be quite tame.

We first started feeding them by hand. Having made a paste with the chicken food and water, we held it between the fingers and the chicks pecked it out of our hands. Pigeons and doves naturally take food out of their mother’s mouths, unlike some other baby birds that just hold their mouths wide open for the mother to drop the food in.

I soon resorted to a method we previously used on a pigeon, using a plastic syringe, which is much easier and less messy. I cut the end off a 2ml syringe, so that it becomes a tube of equal diameter all the way along. Then suck the food paste up and it serves as a mother dove’s beak. The baby bird pushes its beak into the end of the syringe and starts gulping the food down.

I feed the birds three times a day – about 10-11 syringe-fulls at a time. My children help me, as it is hard work feeding twins! One baby is slightly bigger than the other. We do not know if this is because one is greedier than the other.

The baby birds live in a tiny cardboard box, lined with old rags, which serves as their nest. This is put, together with more cloths and two hot-water bottles, inside a plastic shopping basket. I keep the lid on just in case of cats. They are very quiet, but usually start calling gently around feeding time – a very soft “chwee, chwee”. When I get them out they get all excited and start feeling all around with their beaks for the food. I change the hot water bottles after feeding them. I also change their “nappy/diaper” (the cloth they sit on) after each feed.

Independence

25th May
The last part of the barn owl story:

On the evening of 25th May the owls were not on top of the cage when I came to feed them. So I searched the garden and found them sitting together in the fork of a large tree. The older one was tenderly grooming the younger one. They would not come immediately for food but I left the food on the cage and when I checked some hours later they were there.
Unfortunately, by this time the cats had worked out the routine and knew that there was meat on top of the owl cage every evening, so they would lie in wait and then scare off the owls to get the meat. So I had to find another place to feed them. I put the food on top of the children’s climbing frame under a big tree, and they would come down to get it each evening.

After a few days the older owl stopped coming for food, so I assumed it had learnt how to hunt by itself. Then a few days later the younger one, which was looking much more grown up by now, also stopped coming for food.

I can only hope that it learnt how to find its own food and became independent, and that I helped it in that path to independence.

It was a joy and a great learning experience to look after this pair of barn owls. I watched them work their way to freedom and independence, and I hope that they are now happily living somewhere around my neighbourhood and doing their part to keep the rat population down.

Release

The continued story of two barn owls...

21st May
After a week of being in the cage, the older owl began to get restless, and since there was obviously nothing wrong with it and the baby could now look after itself, I decided to release it. I wanted to give it the option of coming back to the baby if it wanted to, so I just opened up the upper part of one side of the cage. It soon discovered the hole and was out exploring its new surroundings.

I left the cage open in case it wanted to return to the baby later.

But to my surprise, by morning the baby was gone too. I did not think it could fly so was at first worried that perhaps a cat had got in and eaten it. But there was no sign of feathers or a feast having taken place, so I hoped for the best, but worried the whole day about what would become of it, as it was still so young.

The next evening when I went out in the garden I was pleasantly surprised by a loud “shhhhhh, shhhhhh, shhhhhh”. I tracked it down and found the baby owl sitting on the top of a kind of stepladder, with the older owl perched just above it. I later found out it had got there by hopping up the steps, one at a time, as it could not yet fly. I still don’t know where it had spent the day.

For its own safety, I caught it again and put it back in the cage, leaving the older one out, as it seemed quite independent.

I put food in the cage for the baby, and later I found the bigger owl on top of the cage looking down at the baby and trying desperately to find the way in. I first thought it was worried about the baby and wanted to care for it. But it soon became obvious that its main interest was the meat I had put in the cage. So I opened up the netting at the top of the cage and closed the previous opening I had made at the side.

By morning the larger owl was gone again but the young one was still there. In the evening I put some meat in again. Soon the older owl was back, after the meat. The next morning I found the young owl sitting on top of the cage. It had found its way out the hole at the top. It stayed there all day. I decided to put food on top of the cage that night, and the older one was back again at the usual time.

I went on putting food out each night on top of the cage and both owls would be there, the young one remaining on the cage by day, the older one flying off somewhere and coming back each night.

The barn owls settle down

This is the continued story of two barn owls that I looked after in May this year.

I asked Lawrence, the young man who had brought the owls to me, to find me some rats to feed the owls, which I offered to pay for. Meanwhile I offered my two owls some chunks of beef steak, but they were still too scared to eat. The next day Lawrence turned up with some rats, so that evening I offered one to the owls.

That got them excited and the bigger grabbed the rat and had soon swallowed it whole. There was no sign of the smaller one eating for a few days. However, it did not die, so I assumed the older one was feeding it somehow. By this time I had decided that these may not have been mother and baby, not being that much different in size, but two siblings. I had read that barn owls start incubating their eggs one by one, as soon as they are laid, so the chicks hatch at different times and siblings in one nest may be of varying ages. Older siblings will often look after and actually feed the younger siblings.

The younger owl would call for food every night with a loud hissing or “shhhhhhhh” sound, repeated at frequent, regular intervals all night.

The older one did not do this, but when one got too close it would give a deep, puff-adder-type, guttural hiss in defence, at the same time, lowering its head and raising its wings to make it look bigger and scarier.

By day, the owls would snuggle up together on the shelf in their cage. Baby owl always looked rather sleepy.

Every night I would feed them on rats or chunks of beefsteak. After a few days the younger one started feeding itself.

A Pair of Barn Owls

This is the story of a pair of barn owls that I had the pleasure of looking after.


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.

Martin - rest in peace

Sadly, Martin the owl died last night. I have not been posting updates on this story for a while, so I thought I would tell you about his last days.

After my last post, when Martin was spitting out all the food I gave him, I decided to start feeding him liquid foods. I liquidised mincemeat and kapenta fish, which I then sieved and fed him through a syringe. Later I added raw egg to his diet. Liquidised mincemeat did not work very well, so I soon cut that out. I also continued him on antibiotic through his water for a week.

He appeared to improve slightly and was willingly taking the liquid food. Since the liquid food was largely water, I fed him three times a day to try and get enough food into him. But still he did not seem to put on weight. He never bathed, so was quite a sight, with dried raw egg all down his front, where he had dribbled. I had to give him a forced bath several times, but it was not very successful, and he never preened his feathers afterwards.

Martin appeared to do nothing but sit on his perch all day, staring into space. It was as if he had given up the will to live. But at the same time, was refusing to die. I expected him to drop dead at any time, but he did not, for a whole three weeks. Most of the birds I have kept have either died within the first few days or lived. Martin just kept stubbornly hanging on the edge.

I tried to give him more privacy in his cage, hanging curtains around it, to make him more comfortable, but he showed no sign of appreciation.

For a whole week I kept trying him on solid food, but every time he would spit it out. Eventually, on 21st October, he started accepting mashed kapenta, a good sign. But a few days later he began refusing to swallow solids, so we were back to liquids again. He appeared to be having some difficulty breathing at the same time as eating, as if he had a stuffy nose. I decided to start him on antibiotic again.

Yesterday I noticed he looked very poorly, was squinting up his eyes as if in pain, and looked much weaker than usual. He still took his syringes of food. But by evening he was so weak he could hardly stand up or keep his eyes open.

This morning I found him dead. He had hung on to life for a whole three weeks. I still do not know exactly what he died of, or why he survived for so long after his injury. But he was not a happy bird while in captivity and I am relieved that now he is at peace.

Martin not very well

Martin the owl has been with me for nine days now. He is still not feeding himself, so I have been hand-feeding him every evening. I have also put some anti-biotic in his drinking water and am giving him some with a syringe each day.

Most days he has swallowed the food when I put it in his mouth. But yesterday at feeding time he was not looking too good and just kept spitting it out. He also seemed quite weak. He may have picked up an infection from his wounds. I can not tell whether he is going to make it or not, but things do not look too good right now.

This morning I tried again and he managed to swallow some food, in small quantities at a time, and I gave him lots of water. But he looked tired and weak.

Martin the owl still alive

Six days after receiving Martin the spotted eagle owl, he is still alive and looking a lot better. He would not eat for two days, so I started force-feeding him every evening on kapenta (small fish) and mincemeat.

He is still very scarred of anything that moves, and starts panicking every time anyone comes near the cage. I have to grab him and hold him down, trying not to touch his injured wing, and keeping well away from the claws, which are vicious. Then I feed him with the other hand by forcing open his mouth and trying to avoid the sharp end!

Martin the spotted eagle owl

Martin is a spotted eagle owl, who was caught scaring chickens in someone's chicken house and shot with a catapult. He was brought to me last week, just after he was shot. His right wing is broken, and I don't yet know if he has any other serious injuries. Here he is in a basket the day I received him.

He was obviously in a lot of pain. My sister, who is a farmer, helped bandage up his wing. The break is in a position that would be very difficult to splint, so we decided just to restrict movement by bandaging the whole wing together with sticking plaster.

Here he is all bandaged up and not looking very happy.

I gave him water with a syringe and then put him in a cage that I have used for previous owls and other birds.