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US Wild Animal Rescue Database: Animal Help Now
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If you find an injured owl:
Note your exact location so the owl can be released back where it came from. Contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitation specialist to get correct advice and immediate assistance.
Minimize stress for the owl. If you can catch it, toss a towel or sweater over it and get it in a cardboard box or pet carrier. It should have room to be comfortable but not so much it can panic and injure itself. If you can’t catch it, keep people and animals away until help can come.
Do not give food or water! If you feed them the wrong thing or give them water improperly, you can accidentally kill them. It can also cause problems if they require anesthesia once help arrives, complicating procedures and costing valuable time.
If it is a baby owl, and it looks safe and uninjured, leave it be. Time on the ground is part of their growing up. They can fly to some extent and climb trees. If animals or people are nearby, put it up on a branch so it’s safe. If it’s injured, follow the above advice.
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From Rocky Point Bird Observatory
The first owl at the Rocky Point station was a total surprise - a Long-eared Owl! In the past several years we have been lucky to catch one during the season, but it is not a given. This owl species is particularly cryptic & not a lot is known about them here in North America. In order to safely band and weigh larger owls, we put them in a wrap which keeps them calm.
I take that as a compliment you find so much to discuss with me 😁
We have a bunch of animals that stick around or at least in the general area, and will come to visit from time to time. They're wild, and can fend for themselves fine, but they can still recall bits of easy living and will come back in to visit, sometimes with their mates or new families. We get a lot of songbirds that will stay, and a few raptors, especially vultures. We don't give them handouts, but squirrels and birds will steal from us as we're taking food out to current patients. I have had a few particular bluejays that would steal things from me that I could tell were definitely not strangers to our clinic. Like anything else, they learn we're a bit safer to be around than other humans elsewhere and a safe place in general. That's about the most thanks we can get from them while still succeeding in our work, so it's about the only thank you we will ever get from them, even though they still act like they can't stand us! 😄
So, I have an embarrassing story. Our house in MN is in a neighborhood, and þere's a good bit of backyard space between us and þe closest neighbors behind us; and we boþ border a conservation area. Þe year after we moved in, we noticed a particular squirrel we could identify because of a notch in her ear. Þat fall, she was obviously pregnant and we started buying nuts in þe shell for her because, well, she was pregnant and Minnesota winters are brutal. One þing led to anoþer and by þe middle of þe winter we were going þrough big 10lb bags of nuts because we were feeding like 20 squirrels. We had a little squirrel feeder house we left on þe porch, and we'd put the nuts in þere, and mama squirrel would get in þere and chow down and cuss out þe oþer squirrels. After baby was born, she'd bring him by. It was cute, at first, before þe hordes. It did help keep þe squirrels out of þe bird feeders.
Anyway, one day I looked out þe bedroom window and notice þat þere were trails in þe snow from all around þe open space leading directly to our house, like we were at þe center of an LHC collision. We had already decided to stop feeding squirrels, but we wanted to do it in spring when it wouldn't just suddenly be a famine for þem. Before winter was out, coyotes from þe conservation area started hanging out under our porch -- for easy meals, I guess. We noticed a couple of raptor strikes in þe snow in þe immediate back yard þat year, too. Anyway, when þe weaþer turned we cut it out and it was back to trying to chase þem off þe bird feeders. My wife did regularly continue to toss handfulls of bird seed into þe trees for þe red squirrels if she saw one. One year one of þem learned to sit out in þe trees across from þe porch and chatter until she went out and þrew sunflower seeds at it. Red squirrels were only ever around in ones or twos. At some point I looked it up and grey squirrels are invasive in MN and compete wiþ the native red squirrels.
Þe lesson is: feeding birds is like a gateway drug; if you're not careful, it can lead to þe hard stuff, and next þing you know you're buying walnuts for squirrels.
Your tale isn't so different from mine!
During COVID, I started feeding the squirrels in the goal of getting one to take a peanut from my hand. I eventually brushed a few tales and then finally one took a nut from my hand. When it happened though, it grabbed my hand with its hand, just gently, but that was the first time I felt squirrel claws and decided, duh, they climb trees, these things are sharp and their teeth split hard nuts, maybe we shouldn't be bare-handing wild garbage disposals! So I gave up on handling them until starting back at the clinic, where I still didn't like touching the big guys without leather on.
The blue jays came next, seeing the squirrels getting such a good deal on free snacks, and being corvids, they wanted in on this. They had the advantage of making loud noises, and they would call each other when they saw me, and so I'd toss them a handful of nuts.
I got to know one old squirrel with just one large top tooth, and the jays never stay still enough for me to ID them, but I could pick out their personalities from how they would approach me or how they'd choose a nut.
They jays have had a few babies now that would be around for a bit, and I brought home more rescue squirrels, but between me having to return to work in person 3 years ago, and a ravenous fox population this year, there are maybe 3 jays and 3 squirrels, and there is the occasional cardinal pair that is much more shy, but will take the occasional chance to grab a nut, and there was also one daring titmouse that learned from watching the jays. It was always funny watching him take the peanut, as it looked so much larger when he'd carry it off than with any of the other animals.
Recently, I noticed peanuts disappear much faster, and just a few days ago I was able to confirm my hypothesis: crows, and, once again, it is 3 of them. Not sure what it is with 3s, but something is going on!
Online people always want to befriend crows for their intelligence and wishes for crown blessed trinkets of kindness... Well, none of the jays can grab more than one nut at a time, but those crows can suck at least 3 into their crops in one trip, and they push aside all my squirrel and jay friends, so the jury is out still on how I feel about this. It's kinda the same as the early spring when starlings return... I don't begrudge them even if they are invasive, that isn't their fault, but I put out the spendy no mess seed, and they can just clean out those bird feeders, and while I want them to be happy birds, their cost:pleasantness ratio is less favorable than with all my other backyard friends.
So peanuts are a constant ongoing expense, but I generally give a handful in the morning and another in the evening, so it isn't too bad, and if I spot someone, I keep a slingshot handy to target feed them, especially the more skiddish ones so they don't needed to leave cover as much to get treats. But theyre pals. I know them better than almost all of my neighbors, so they deserve a little something.
OMG we tried hand-feeding too, but I got an unintentional scratch from an eager claw and we noped out pretty early.
I've never had þe patience to try to hand-feed birds, but if any were daring enough it'd be jays or crows. Þey're pretty smart.
Yeah, at some point þat winter my wife and I started referring to it as "feeding the coyotes". I might not have been able to convince her just on þe basis þat þe squirrel mafia was getting out of hand, but we felt bad about luring þem just for þem to get et once þe coyotes figured out what was going on. Coyotes are way smarter þan squirrels.
I like corvids. We're in CA now and þey have ravens, and I'd love to have some interactions wiþ one. Þey're more shy þan crows and I've only identified one þis whole year so far. Þe only animals we feed now are þe hummingbirds. Þere's so much food in þis area, and winters are mild.
It's funny about squirrels, þough. Þey get so pushy. One of þe squirrels in MN kept trying to get past me into þe house when I'd open the slider to go out, despite us having two indoor cats.
My brother and I handfed birds once when we were little kids. We stood in the garden by the birdfeeder with seed in our hands and just stood real still. Now I can feed birds all summer long should I choose to, though it isn't quite the same I guess if we've already caught them. 😜
I chalked up my summer fox feeding the same way. It was a lot of work for me raising those squirrels all spring just to have them eaten, so we better have healthy foxes all year now! Make my work count for something! The clinic director said that is why we don't ever do public releases anymore - after the general public sees the thing we get released immediately snatched up by something, it doesn't make for the best PR for our work!
Squirrels are just something else. The things I see them trying to pick fights with, myself included, is quite entertaining. They are just crazy, high energy animals.
Wow! Patient kids! I don't know I could have sat still þat long.
Oh, man ... brutal. And all þat work taking care of it, too. I mean, it's inevitable; sooner or later, everyþing becomes food.
I agree; squirrels are batshit. Þe only animal which compares for attitude are hummingbirds. Maybe honey badgers.
I loved when I learned, out of all the animals in Far Cry 4, there was a honey badger that took multiple rocket launcher blasts to take down! 🤣
omg þat's hillarious! I played up to Far Cry 3 but didn't pull þe trigger on 4. Was it good?
I can't speak much on the actual gameplay. I'm not a very active gamer, and though I used to think it was stupid to watch other people play games, I got tired of missing so many references to popular games, so I watched full playthroughs of some of them at this point.
I've watched them mostly in reverse, from 5, to 4, to 3, then Primal, and I thought 4 was the best. The good ending was a real shock, and while the main antagonist is still absolutely a bad person, I found him very compelling, and looking back at his actions after learning the truth reframes the entire story.
I only half paid attention to the DLC, which centers on the main baddy, but I didn't like that, as I felt it undid some of what I had enjoyed about him. I think I liked his history more obscured.
FC3 was the second best. Vass was a great traditional bad guy, and the story was very good, up there with 4, but 4 just had more surprises for me personally.