This is a new twist! An owl struck a Lane County Sheriff's Deputy's vehicle, not the other way around. It was a little Western Screech Owl “whoo” sustained severe head trauma. The officer stopped his vehicle, retrieved the bird and drove it to Eugene's nonprofit Cascades Raptor Center. Their specialized vet, Dr. Ulrike Streicher, cares for 300 injured birds a year, so she tended to its needs.
After six weeks of healing, the owl was ready to return home, but where was that?
"Raptors have established home ranges," said Dr. Ulrike. "Returning them to their own territory is the least stressful for them and most promising for their post-release survival. For this bird we did not know exactly where home was. All we knew was that the bird was found along the highway, about three miles out of Lorane.”
One evening she and her husband drove out to release the recovered bird and chose a random farm's driveway “about three miles” out of town and pulled off the highway.
The driveway interfaced a forest clearing, so it was an ideal spot for the little owl. They parked and took the bird's carrier from their vehicle.
"Our appearance alerted some cows, a horse, and two dogs", said Dr. Ulrike. "The cows' mooing and dogs' barking alerted a young farmer. He came down from the house on his motorbike to investigate. We explained who we were and he watched the release."
When she handed him her business card he said, "This a strange coincidence that you would come here today. My grandmother has an injured owl in her house and she doesn't know what to do with it."
Thinking she must have heard wrong but curious anyway, she entered the home and indeed found an injured Screech Owl in a laundry basket covered with a towel. The farmer and his wife were equally surprised with the unexpected appearance of an expert raptor veterinarian as Dr. Ulrike looked over owl number two!
"The bird looked miserable and had one eye closed. It, too, had a head trauma as birds so often have after being hit by a vehicle," said Dr. Ulrike. "The farmers were relieved to hand it into our care. They had hit it the previous night and taken it inside, hoping it would recover. I am not sure what would have happened to it if we had not miraculously appeared on scene.
The situation felt somewhat eerie like the Raptor Center had received a call from the Universe!"
The second Screech Owl was later returned to the farm and released in the presence of the farmer's family. Their owl story will be featured in next week's Pet Tips 'n' Tales and it proves the Aesop’s quote that, “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”
