After four weeks of rehabilitation at the Chattahoochee Nature Center, the 3 year-old barred owl that was discovered huddled by a light post along Church Street after being hit by a car, was released back into the area where he was found Wednesday evening.

As dusk fell on the quiet, northern edge of the Decatur cemetery, Chattahoochee Nature Center Wildlife Director Kathryn Dudeck explained to Diane (a.k.a. “for the birds”), her son and me, that the owl had had some pretty extensive blunt force trauma when he first came to the Center a month ago, but had since made a full recovery, evidenced by the fact that he had been “catching live mice and rats for the past 5 days in a 140 square foot cage”.

Taken with expert care from his small dog crate, the owl stood alert on Kathryn’s arm, starring at her and occasionally making a clicking noise with his beak, as we walked toward the more wooded eastern edge of the cemetery.  Kathryn explained that owls don’t actually attack anything with their beaks, but only with their talons, meaning that if an owl is injured on the ground all you must do to retrieve it is put out a hand and it will flip over for you.  Then (if you’re a trained professional or being monitored by one) you can just throw a blanket over it and retrieve it by its leg.

Easy as pie!   Right.

As soon as Kathryn let go of his legs, the owl flew up into the nearest tree and sat there for a good bit, staring back at us.  However, this tree must have also been the home of a rather irritated family of mockingbirds, because even after he flew farther out into the forest, three mockingbirds followed, dive-bombing him as he sat perched on a branch still staring back in our direction.  Within a minute or two, even though Kathryn threw a couple of dead mice in his direction, the owl had had enough of the noisy mockingbirds and the photo-taking humans and flew farther into the woods and out of sight.

I must admit that it was an inspiring moment and one that couldn’t have occurred without groups like A.W.A.R.E. and the Chattahoochee Nature Center.  Without any governmental support, these organizations take in hundreds of animals a year and help rehabilitate them so they can return to the wild.  (Kathryn spoke of how the first step in rehab for raptors is a smaller 25 square foot cage with a kiddie pool full of mice and lined with Vaseline to prevent escape)  As an example of expenses, Kathryn mentioned off-hand that the barred owl’s 4 week stint had probably cost the Center around $750.

So, here’s where we can help out. If you’re willing, you can help offset the cost to the Center with a donation, which can be made easily on their secure website.  If you go to the Center’s “Adopt a Friend” donation page, select a donation level, and check off “barred owl”, the Center can even monitor contributions, and I will check in with Kathryn in a week or so and find out how much we’ve donated.

Once again, thanks to everyone that helped save this owl.  It’s been a humbling experience to see firsthand the power of a true community effort.

From the most excellent Michael Ellis at A.W.A.RE…

The owl is, as of today going into a small intermediate flight cage to test its ability to fly and rebuild its flight muscles.

At this point the wings are being held up in a balanced position and we have hopes that the bird will progress over the next week to a point that it will be releasable back to its home habitat.

…AWARE and CNC work together on many bird rescues. We often do the rescue and emergency triage and then we transferred this bird to CNC for its continued care. Kathryn [at the Chattahoochee Nature Center] specializes in raptors and is one of the best in our field so this bird has a good chance.

Michael also mentions that he sees no reason why we couldn’t make the bird’s release back into it’s habitat a publicized event.  I’ll coordinate with the Chattahoochee Nature Center to see if we can make that happen.

Stay tuned.