Burrowing Owl rescue: Birds can become oiled on land as well as the sea
Ihave received many, many calls, texts and emails over the years asking for help for wildlife in trouble. One day, years ago, I got a message about a small owl that was on the ground just outside the Tehachapi city limits, so I went to see if I could assist it.
My first thought when I heard that it was a “little owl on the ground” was that it might be a Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia), a native of grasslands, arid scrub, and other open areas, which is unusual among owls in that it is often diurnal, or active during the day, and spends most of its time on the ground or even under it.
When I got to the house where the owl had been reported, I found that it was indeed one of these small, adorable little owls with bright yellow eyes and mottled brown and white feathers. This particular owl, however, had tangled with some kind of oil, perhaps old used crankcase oil, and had become considerably darker as a result of the oiling.
The owl was still alert and reasonably active, but no longer seemed able to fly as a result of the oiling. While Burrowing Owls do tend to spend much of their time on the ground, they can fly well and some populations living in colder areas migrate for the winter.
I easily captured the little owl by gently tossing an old shirt over it. They are cute, but Burrowing Owls still have needle-like talons and long legs, and they can seize your hand or arm with a lightning fast movement and draw blood wherever their sharp talons pierce your skin. I took the owl to my friend Dr. Ted Murphy, who was a professor at Cal State University Bakersfield and ran the Facility for Animal Care and Treatment, which performed wildlife rehab, primarily on raptors. Unfortunately the FACT center closed a few years after Ted retired.
Ted took the small owl and told me he’d let me know how it fared. After being washed thoroughly with Dawn dish detergent to remove the oil, the owl was placed in a flight cage to recover.
Several weeks later, I happened to be in Bakersfield, so I met Dr. Ted at FACT and we took the owl out for a flight test. The bird had gained weight on a diet of chicken from old laying hens donated by a large egg ranch, and the owl was noticeably heavier than when I had first captured it. At that time it was emaciated and felt like an almost weightless bundle of feathers.
Dr. Ted carefully placed tethers on the bird’s feet, and these were connected by a swivel to monofilament line on a fishing pole.
I walked away from Ted and on his signal, I tossed the little owl in the air while Ted held the fishing pole and let out fishing line, and the diminutive raptor flew several hundred feet away with short, powerful wingbeats. We flew it a couple of more times, then returned the bird to its rehab flight cage.
“It’s doing well,” Ted observed, “Come back in a week or two after some more conditioning flights, and you can pick it up and turn it loose again.”
Happy to have this rescue end on a positive note (many injured raptors end up being euthanized), I came back down to Bakersfield later that month and picked up the revitalized Burrowing Owl.
I brought it back to Tehachapi, and that afternoon released it in large, vacant fields south of town. The bird flew a short distance and landed on a chunk of discarded concrete. It quickly spotted an abandoned ground squirrel hole, and ducked inside. Operation Burrowing Owl Rescue was completed.
Burrowing Owl numbers in many areas have gone down in the past century as open grasslands and fields have been converted to housing, intensive agriculture and other development. But their numbers are still substantial, and the little owls continue to thrive in many areas. They can still be found in local grasslands and open areas, and are part of the tapestry of life in the Tehachapi Mountains. Have a good week.
Jon Hammond has written for Tehachapi News for more than 40 years. Send email to tehachapimtnlover@gmail.com.