Last night I was lucky enough to release one of Vale's patients back to the wild. Martin expertly netted him (her?) for me and I was able to have a close look before he went into his travelling box - what huge feet for a bird that size.
Tawny Owl's have to be released near to their capture site, so the near darkness found me walking up the middle of a field close to Droitwich. I carefully opened the box and immediately...
Nothing happened!
The Owl sat there for a little while and then he was away into the night - my first sighting of a wild Tawny Owl (does that count?)
I'm not sure of the history of this bird - perhaps Caroline will tell us what she knows.
Never one to miss the chance to post an image - here is a Tawny Owl, this isn't the bird released, it is a captive bird taken at a local Falconry.
Glad to hear he, or she, went well! And beautiful picture too.
The tawny was brought in to us, via a local vet, after being found by the side of a road. We of course assumed that it had been hit by a car, although with injured wildlife we can only guess at the cause as we have no history & we have to try to work out what has happened by a thorough examination of the patient. When we find injuries, we may decide that it was probably hit by a car but there is the possibility that there was already a problem with the animal before that.
Anyway, this lucky fellow got off quite lightly - he had a minor injury to one wing & a problem with one eye. Following a course of antibiotics, a bit of tlc from our Care Assistants & a few days in an aviary, he was ready for release, & Gary kindly agreed to do the honours (he gets to do all the best bits!!!)
If he had been left at the roadside there is no doubt that he would have perished, either under the wheels of another car, or just from shock or concussion, so although we didn't need to do too much for him, he survived because someone cared enough to pick him up & get him looked at.
Our wildlife is worth it - let's all look after it!
