Owls

charlie clown · March 4, 2021

Don't quite know where to post this so I'll give it the honour of a standalone post.

Bit of background - we have some owls nearby. We live next to an old churchyard so the area is extensively wooded even though its in the middle of a fairly built-up suburban part of town. We hear them a lot in the evenings, hooting away like some mad, hooty things.

Yesterday Mrs.C. said to me "you heard the owls lately?". "Nay", says I. "Well... and she tells me that she's been talking to the vicar who lives next door...

A week or so back they hear this noise in their chimney. Think nothing of it, it'll be pigeons sat on the roof, making their usual racket. Next day it's there again but louder and closer. They look inside their chimney flue and there's an owl there, wedged in. They get a towel and gently wrap it around the owl and extract it from the chimney. It's only a little un but it appears to be in one piece and a bit dazed but otherwise OK.

They shine a torch up the flue to check for any damage and there's another owl there. They pull that one out too but sadly this one is dead. And its a full grown adult.

Another look up and there is yet another one in there. They get that one out and it's another adult but this time, still alive.

The assumption, obviously, is that the little one got stuck in the chimney, the parents followed it in and they all got trapped in there.

So Mr & Mrs Vicar reunite the surviving parent with the child and take them outside so that they can fly off to their nest. They refuse to move. Just stand there on the grass, stuck to the spot.

Meanwhile our local colony of magpies (there's about 15 of them) start to gather, maybe sensing that there is owl for dinner.

So the owls are re-towelled and taken back inside and the local bird rescue place is called.

They are supposedly now close to full recovery and are scheduled to return next week.

The vicar's having his chimney re-capped before they come back (not prison slang).

So we'll see what happens next week.

cymrococh · March 4, 2021