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A friend sent me a provocative text on a recent Sunday morning. "There is a baby owl on the ground at the corner of Fell and Virginia. Mama owl is present." I immediately reached out to friends, and fifteen minutes later, my arborist friend Nate, our local raptor expert Given, and I were standing on a sidewalk, assessing the situation. Things quickly became complicated, and I briefly lamented this change to my Sunday plans. Then, I saw the Great-horned Owl nestling on the ground, and I was transfixed.
She was a serene white ball of fluff rippling in the breeze. Despite the dire situation, she appeared to be at ease. She sat perfectly still on her oversized feet and calmly watched us. The thin coat of white down barely concealed her tiny muscular body. She was 10 inches tall, and her bright yellow eyes tracked our every move.
A storm rolled in from the west the night before, and high winds blew her out of her nest in a tall white pine tree. Her parents were perched nearby, watching us.
The homeowners were not home, and the tree was too far off the road to use a lift truck to put her back in the nest, so we had to devise an alternative plan. Fortunately, Given was prepared.
We gathered around the trunk of his car, and he explained that he had done this before. All we had to do was take this plastic tub, drill holes in the bottom, fill it with sticks and leaves, and strap it to a nearby tree. Then, we placed the nestling in the tub, where she would be protected from predators and the elements, and the parents would, hopefully, keep feeding her.
The plan was not entered into lightly, and we only proceeded because we were with a trained professional with many years of experience handling raptors. Typically, birds on the ground are fledglings, and the best thing to do is to leave them alone. Here is a link that provides guidance on what to do if you find a baby bird. In this case, Given could estimate the nestlings age and knew she was not old enough to survive outside the nest for long.
In addition, our options were limited. We conferred with a veterinarian, who told us he could take her to the University of Illinois Veterinarian Clinic on Monday morning if we needed to do that. We could also have taken her to a raptor rehab facility, but once an owl is removed from nature and her family, it is unlikely that she will be able to survive in the wild.
Now that we had a plan for the nestling, we all started calling friends to see if anyone knew who lived here. We quickly learned that the current residents have lived here for 30 years. They could be out of town on vacation or at church. We noticed a bird feeder in the backyard, which seemed to bode well for the owls' nestling.
Meanwhile, since Nate lives a few blocks away, he went to talk to his friend Zach, who lives next door to the owl's house. Zach promptly showed up, looked at the owl on the ground, and said, "How can I help? "
We asked him, "Do you know the people that live in that red brick house? We would like to put this tub in their maple tree." "Yes, I do," he said. "I will talk to them."
He returned a few minutes later and said, "It's no problem. You can go ahead and put the tub in the maple tree."
We took the tub, straps, and a drill to the maple tree to assemble the makeshift nest. A large limb 8 feet up looked promising. Given said we’d need a few pieces of firewood, a ladder, sticks, leaves, and evergreen boughs. We were starting to attract a crowd, with people watching from the sidewalk as we drilled holes in the tub and prepared the straps.
Nate and Zach returned with the supplies. Given climbed up the ladder and started winding the straps around limbs. Once the tub was secured and level, Given stuck evergreen branches around the perimeter to provide cover for the nestling.
We were ready to place the young owl in her new nest. At this point, the owners of the home where the original nest was located had returned home from church and were watching us. We walked over and explained the situation. They were relieved that we had sprung into action. They said they hear the owls calling at night and are glad we're giving the nestling a chance to survive.
We returned to the nestling, who was sleeping. When we got close, she slowly opened her eyes. She did not move or react until Given picked her up, at which point she started snapping her big black bill. It was not intimidating.
He walks over to the ladder, climbs up with a smile, and places the nestling into her new nest. Our rescue mission is complete.
The next day, we received reports from friends telling us that they saw the adults feeding the nestling in the tub. We were also informed that a red-tailed hawk was eating a rabbit in the old crow nest on top of the pine. This means the parents stored extra food in the nest, and the nestling owl will likely be well-fed. She will gain over an ounce of weight daily for the next two weeks. The degree to which she changes over a few days is remarkable. She has grown so much that we can now see her peering over the lip of the tub during the day.
Researchers have noted that curiosity is evident in nestling owls at 21 days of age. She can climb around 40 days of age and is likely to fledge around day 45. She will be capable of flight soon after fledging.
Fledgling Great-horned Owls maintain a loose association with adults over the summer and fall. Adults may continue occasional feeding through the fall. Then, the young disperse. At this point, she will have transformed from a helpless fuzzy white nestling into an imposing and enigmatic Great-horned Owl.
I close my eyes and imagine her as a mature owl with soft brown feathers ruffling in the night. She will enchant the darkness. She will become an empress of silence.
She will become fear that swells in the night and falls from the sky with an awful thud. A muscled grace with death-stained talons. She will make the trembling rabbit fall.
"we're all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one… It's in them all.
And yet there is someone, whose hands
Infinitely calm, hold up all this falling."
Rainer Maria Rilke
This trembling, dark encounter fuels life and gives us nestling owls, innocent darlings that embody the best part of life. We are also part of this natural cycle of life. Something deep within us yearns for a more natural life. When this yearning rises to the surface, we experience feelings of not fitting into our modern culture, and these feelings embody the best part of us. To reside in the shadows of a flashy culture puts us on solid ground and brings us into the presence of an eternal song.
"I am the rest between two notes,
Which are somehow always in discord
Because death's note wants to climb over –
But in the dark interval, reconciled
They stand there trembling.
And the song goes on, beautiful."
Rainer Maria Rilke
The song goes on into the night, and Rilke praises darkness.
"You darkness, that I come from
I love you more than all the fires
That fence in the world,
For the fire makes
A circle of light for everyone,
And then no one outside learns of you.
But the darkness pulls in everything:
Shapes and fires, animals, and myself
How easily it gathers them!-
Powers and people –
And it is possible a great energy
Is moving near me.
I have faith in night."
I have faith in the owl's ability to see into the darkness and our ability to enlarge our vision and peer into the dark recesses of our inner life, where our fears, insecurities, and coping mechanisms can be brought into the light of awareness. We can fall into a rhythm that merges with Joseph Campbell's view: "The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with nature."
Thank you for your wonderful rescue and story! We had a similar rescue at the nature center where I work. Our little owlet still had its egg tooth. PSE&G came with their bucket truck and went up about 70' with a newly fashioned nest. It seems GHOs aren't great at making nests!
Awesome post and resuce mission Bill! Great-horned Owls are such impressive birds in so many ways. Thanks to you and your crew for helping this little one reunite with her parents.