"Owl is the grand and rather clever old man of the forest. He can also spell Tuesday.." - Winnie the Pooh

I was picking up some kids for school and saw this guy on a wire. the kids who lived there said they saw him there the day before also.   i didn't have my glasses on, so at first he just looked hurt and blurry.. but when Colin and I rode back later on our bikes (with glasses on), i realized that his foot was stuck in the twists of the wire.  it was windy and he was exhausted and trying to keep his balance on one foot.  the more he tried to fly away, the tighter his foot wedged in there.

I called a rescue, who said to call PG&E, because of the wires, and that they are under obligation to come out.  so i called them and we decided to wait and watch.  I didn't know how long they would take, but to their credit, a nice guy and his bucket truck showed up within 15 min.  He was surprised to see the owl alive, because "usually, they are electrocuted".  He got  gloves and an extra shirt to put over him.  he had some trouble freeing his leg, and ended up hurting him quite a bit (pulling the leg at bad, bad angles) to free him.  then he lost his grip and the owl spread his wings and floated down to the ground.  The guy tossed me his shirt and i tossed it over the owl.

His leg was in terrible shape, black and rubbed all the way to the bone.  It looked burned, and the foot was swollen.  But he was a magnificent creature.  I have never seen one "in real life".  His coloring, his alien face, his huge, pupil-less, starry eyes, and his sharp beak and talons made for an almost unreal experience.  it felt like i had captured a ghost or a pixie.  About the same size, chickens are heavy and the owl was like holding a feathery balloon.  He weighed almost nothing.  When we put him in a plastic tub, he immediately went to sleep... or died.

We got him home,which was tricky because it was a BIG plastic tub, and colin's tire decided that was the moment to go flat and it was 3/4 of a mile away. 

When I got no response from the first 3 phone calls, and it looked like i might have to keep him over night,  I looked up how to care for injured owls.  I found an article that was hell bent on making sure you didn't even THINK about keeping that owl - "unless you are ready to commit to obtaining, thawing, and dissecting copious amounts of dead rodents, at all times of day and night for the next 10 years, an owl is not for you." - was my favorite argument.

well we found a rescue and a vet and raced to make it there by closing time.  All 7 of us went in to the tiny waiting room... a girl took the box and said, "ok".

then he was gone and we all stood there for a few extra minuets, to see if anyone wanted to make a nat geo special about us... no interviews?...

ok.  um.  bye.