I have a family of barn owls that live in my warehouse. They roost up where the I-beam meets one of the inner walls. There is a gap in the brickwork here and they seem to have (somewhat contentedly) set up a baby owl production line in there.
Every couple of months the juveniles get kicked out of the nest and are forced to experience the reality of existence. This is always a bit of a problematic time period for me, because juvenile barn owls are… how do I put this politely… really stupid. That and my warehouse (during the day at least) isn’t exactly the optimal training ground to hotdog around in and ‘buzz’ the tower1.
[1] Personally my favorite Maverick was actually Mel Gibson in the movie by the same name.
In any event, this one was especially dense. He kept flying into walls and knocking himself unconscious. I actually thought he was injured because he was struggling to get airborne… and when he did achieve some level of altitude he’d fly straight into a wall. Eventually I’d had enough of his shenanigans, grabbed him and boxed him.
My ex is a vet. She’s also did falconry, once upon a time, so she knows her raptors. ‘Is this owl retarded?’ I ask (its okay when you use it anthropomorphically, I say, to no-one in particular and also in my mind).
Physically its fine. Mentally is a bit of an unknown. She’ll keep it overnight for observation, feed and hydrate it and then I’ll bring it back here tomorrow and it can roam around the warehouse over the weekend and get a feel for its wingspan and familiarize itself with the unyielding stationary nature of certain objects… eh… again.
Anyways, this is my good deed done for the day. I feel like I should fire someone to bring some balance back to the force…
*shakes the magic pinky jar on his desk* ‘Who should I fire?’
Hmmm. Cloudy.
Less helpful than anticipated.
Go Darke 
10 responses to “Owl by myself…”
Falconry is indeed a thing 😛 And while I believe owls are *technically* raptors, most falconers I know prefer to sort them into a group of their own, since their behavior when it comes to training is remarkably different in certain areas.
(Areas like how to take care of the young chicks to prevent them from attacking you and clawing out your eyeballs once they’re all grown up…)
From personal experience I can tell you this: Owls are complete and utter idiots.
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You see, you learn something new every day. On matters of anything owlish I submit to your superior knowledge and experience. Since you likely have the scars to prove your expertise.
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To be fair, you now have far more experience with wild owls than I do! 😉
I don’t think I have ever even seen an owl in the wild. I have always assumed they had a bit more survival instinct than the moron I have in my living room, but your story sounds almost exactly like when Artemis was learning to fly…
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Gonna get my (boy scout) owl wrangling merit badge. Oh yeah… 😀
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Be glad it didn’t break anything. You ever had to take care of an owl with a broken leg when the vet tells you it’s not allowed to fly for a month…?
Ain’t easy to keep an owl from flying.
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I suppose duct-tape is… eh… ethically frowned upon for keeping owls earthside?
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I had just paid quite a lot of money to have a steel rod the size of a needle inserted in his leg, so I wanted to avoid maiming him further.
My solution was to keep him in a cat carrier for a month.
Honestly… Most peaceful month I have had since I got him (though cleaning proved challenging)
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Is keeping an owl… like a form of masochism? Are you punishing yourself for something? Ha ha.
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It’s… starting to feel that way.
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*Genuine LOL*
We’ve all got our psychosis I guess. Yours is small and feathered.
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