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Barney The Barred
Owl Our Holidays Are Never Dull. 2004
at Christmas time, about two days before Christmas, Pat was driving home very
late one night and she spotted a lump on the side of the road that drew her
attention. She turned around and
discovered it was an owl lying injured by the roadside. It still had a mouse in its talons. Just
then a State Patrol car came up and turned on its lights. This scared the owl and he tried to hop
into the woods. After questioning Pat
about what she was doing the officer drove off. Pat called for help on her cellular phone
and George and Ralph came with boxes. They
searched until nearly The
poor little owl had hurt his wing, could not see well and was bleeding a
bit. George nested the owl in a
blanket and took it back to the ranch to get it help. Well,
we nicknamed the owl Hesus. We stored
the owl in the dark in a very cool place so he wouldn’t stress out any more
than he had already. The
next morning, George Drove Hesus the 227 miles to the Dr.
Redig called to say the owl was a Barred Owl and that it was very well
fed. It had a head trauma, it had
damaged vision in one eye, its wing was hurt and he had some internal
injuries as well. It seemed obvious
that Hesus had a confrontation with a motor vehicle. But despite the injuries Dr. Redig was
optimistic about a full recovery. The
Pat went
to see how Barney was doing. Dr.
Redig took good care of Barney and and when Barney was ready for release he
agreed with our request to return Barney to his home territory where he had
done so well until playing in the street.
Dr. Pat Redig With Barney After Barney’s eyes
recovered fully and Barney’s wing and legs had been exercised by the
volunteers at the Unfortunately Barney’s home woods were
clear cut, so the decision was to release him right here at the ranch where
we have lots of mice, good water, lots of vacant woods and peaceful areas for
Barney to live. We invited the At Finally Barney jumped in the air and zoomed
past the kids lined up in front of him and he flew into a nearby tree. Then he flew to another, then another until
he disappeared into the woods.
Barney’s
Release Picture Courtesy of
Park Rapids Another wild animal was saved by our Ranch
and returned back into the wild. IT WAS
SO COOL! Not surprising to us, we have seen Barney a
few times around the ranch late in the day near night fall. |
