Injured Owl Spreads Its Wings Again

Kari Jones of the Audubon Society of Portland releases an owl Thursday at Esther Short Park. It was found injured nearby and nursed back to health. (ZACHARY KAUFMAN/The Columbian)

The young Barred Owl may have wondered what was going on as he huddled in the darkness in a cardboard pet container at Esther Short Park.

Or maybe he was just waiting for his chance Thursday afternoon.

He got it.

About 5 p.m., Kari Jones pulled on yellow leather gloves, opened the box and deftly pulled him out.

A shockingly beautiful and powerful wild creature, his sharp beak and talons at the ready, he struggled, flapping his fluffy striped brown and gray wings.

Jones held the bird with his head down, and he calmed a little. Then she turned him right-side-up and let him go.

As Jones had hoped, the owl quickly flew about 100 feet and went up into the thick green leaves of a large spreading maple in the park.

Now difficult to see, he perched on a branch and watched his one-time captor and others who were standing by.

“You’re free, babe,” Jones said.

“He’s preening and fluffing and looks relaxed,” she added. “He knows he’s safe now.”

It was a different story early last month when the owl apparently crashed into a glass window of the six-story Columbian building at 415 W. Sixth St., downtown.

Someone noticed the owl sitting on a branch of a tiny tree, about five feet above the sidewalk along Sixth.

A man who was staying in the Hilton Vancouver Washington next door stood guard. A couple of people called the Audubon Society of Portland’s wildlife care center.

Jones, a volunteer and fill-in staffer at the center, fought rush-hour traffic and arrived about 90 minutes later. The hotel customer who stayed with the bird had even saved her a parking spot by motioning cars away.

“The bird’s eyes were closed,” Jones said. “It was very still and in shock. I grabbed it and noticed it didn’t appear to be seeing.”

Jones, a former veterinary technician who lives in Vancouver, took the owl home and administered fluids under its skin.

At the care center the next day, an X-ray looked fine, but the bird was unresponsive for several days.

“The eyes looked intact, like they were working properly, but the bird couldn’t see,” possibly due to nerve damage, Jones said.

But after weeks of care, and a diet of dead mice, the bird regained its vision and was ready for release.

Although the owl appeared large, Jones said it likely weighed only a pound or so.
“They’re kind of all fluff,” she said.

”You wonder what they’re thinking after they’ve been with us and released,” Jones said. “It’s like they’ve been abducted by aliens or something.”

Besides banging into windows, wild birds get hit by cars and caught in barbed-wire fences and nets, including soccer nets, she said.

Adult Barred Owls have wingspans of 44 inches; they also are called eight hooters, rain owls, wood owls, striped owls and, most commonly, hoot owls, says Wikipedia.

John Branton covers owls for The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-735-4513 or john.branton@columbian.com.