Whilst washing the bottles, I noticed there was a small crowd of crows hopping around a little brown blob under the tree right by my house (I saw this through my kitchen window). Being more curious than Alice in Wonderland, I secured the babies in their chairs and popped outside (in my rather fetching David & Goliath glow in the dark Monster PJ's...again like you do) and went to investigate. What I found was a rather young and distressed looking owl with a bloody wing.
After shooing the crows away, I went back inside and called the vet who explained to me that I would need to capture the bird, pop it in a box and bring it in. I felt a little nervous at this, as the Owl (who I have named Smallville as his big yellow eyes kind of reminded me of Hawkman...prob best not to delve into why my brain goes to these places) was a wee bit on the feisty side - Lets put it this way, this bird was a pretty confident hisser and those talons did not look so friendly. Anyway, at this point Rob was awake and watching me work out how best to pick up an owl without getting torn to pieces, plus he very helpfully got the cat basket down from the attic for me as I hate going up the ladder.
Anyway, cutting to the skinny of it, I went outside armed with a fairly large towel, a cat box, some courage and a healthy dose of fear (as I really didn't want to damage Smallville any more than he already was). I looked down into his very large beautiful eyes and after some procrastination and a few failed attempts, reached down, picked him up and then swiftly popped him into the cat box, whilst squealing a little bit when those scary talons got caught on the towel.
One closed box and a car ride later (with the twins along for the adventure), we reached the vets who examined him, sedated him and then told me that they would have to amputate his wing. They said the injury was probably caused by him flying into a telephone wire and that he would be fine. They also said that the local Owl Sanctuary would take him in as he would not be fit to be released back into the wild. I feel kind of bad that he will never fly again but I am hoping the 5 star lifestyle that he has ahead of him after recovery will make it a bit more bearable. The vet was a little bemused with the fact that I had named him already...but if he is going to live, he needs a name.
So yeah, there you go. That was my morning... I have posted a couple of pictures of Smallville below.
Long Eared Owl, Smallville
Smallville hiding from the crows and the cat box