After a long day of canoeing the Oak Orchard Creek in Alabama, NY we got back to Beaver Meadow to find out we missed a phone call on an injured owl. The message said a grey and white large owl. My initial thought was a barred owl. So I called the gentleman about this owl and heard an amazing story about how he found this owl in his brand new burn barrel. When he tried to let it out it tried to fly but ended up just flapping around a bit and then went back into the burn barrel which was a 50 gallon steel drum.
I listened intently with memories of the hundreds of rescues I had been on where the caller claimed to have some exotic species, only to find out that the animal needing rescue was something more common. I always hated the dissapointed look on the rescuers face when I told them what they really had. So as I listened to the gentleman on the other end of the line tell me his story of this owl and how it came to be in his burn barrel, he finally told me his identification. “It apears to be one of those Canadian Snow Owls”.
OK… Now first of all it is a 75 degree day in late April. All the Snowy owls have already flown to the northern tundra in search of lemmings. I thanked the gentleman and told him I would be there in 10 minutes. I jumped in the car and headed over to rescue the Snowy Owl. Of course I was certain it was a barred owl.
As we pulled into the driveway the kindly gentleman was there to greet us and led us right over to his burn barrel. As I peered in I saw…
Just goes to show that sometimes you just have to believe that nature can throw you a few surprises now and then.