All Glory to the Hypno-Jungle-Owlet!
this post was submitted on 21 May 2025
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For owls that are superb.
US Wild Animal Rescue Database: Animal Help Now
International Wildlife Rescues: RescueShelter.com
Australia Rescue Help: WIRES
Germany-Austria-Switzerland-Italy Wild Bird Rescue: wildvogelhilfe.org
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.
For more detailed help, see the OwlPages Rescue page.
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Looks like a bobblehead!
That made me cackle! Thanks so much!
How are you doing?
That was a pain to make! I had to try like 10 gif makers! I'm glad it brought joy after all that.
I'm feeling alright today. It's been a quiet week thus far. I've been enjoying the clinic animals. I got to pet a teeny tiny opossum baby, I keep feeding the owls, and I will be doing something yet unknown to assist with the upcoming open house.
Wow, you went through all that to elicit genuine delight for a fellow netizen? I think that counts as mutual aid, and the gratitude welling up inside is almost overwhelming. I mean that, it's a wild ride, and I'm so honored to have good people like you as companions on the journey.
It sounds like you're finding your rescue feet. Possums are really gentle creatures, when not feeling threatened, aren't they? But they'll not hesitate to back you up when they are feeling threatened. It reminds me of hearing how badgers here are "vicious", while quite placid across the pond. The difference seems to be in how humans react in encounters.
Good luck with open house! I'm sure you will handle it spectacularly.
I've had some adventures with a feral kitten. I was sure I'd placed it with it's mom, but last evening saw another feral that looks similar. It's probably okay, since the adoptive/mom accepted the baby, I just feel kind of guilty I couldn't locate the other possible mother for a week. Either way, the baby was alone, hungry, and inconsolable, until being placed with a mom, and two other kittens. It was eating, but cried every waking moment, despite cuddling, swaddling, stuffed animals and being unbothered, whereas upon introducing it to a family, the little things was immediately comforted and seems to be doing well. We do the best we can.
I had wanted to see of there was some quick and easy tool to do what seems like a simple thing in this current age of technology, but I couldnt find any. I used my layering tool to take some quick stills and was ready to toss them into my normal gif tool, but it kept freezing on the upload. I tried a few times and it just would take. Then other tools were either just a tease they were free or didnt need an account signup, others limited to too few images, and so on. I eventually found one that just worked. Then some trial on error on the speed, and a few had a bit of border around the image and the others didnt and it felt distracting, so then I had to crop it. 😰
It was still fun to have finally gotten it, and it looks decent enough for how slapped together it was. Not a great, smooth, AI generated thing, but in a way, it's possibly funnier this janky way of doing it by hand.
The opossum babies, I think there were 12. The mom was hit by a car and kill along with 2 more babies. A quick Googling says the babies have a 10% survival rate in the wild, so it's a bit sad this is probably the best long term outcome for them. We have another oppossum that had babies there, but I don't think I've seen them yet, other than me seeing mamma's nose sticking out her house once.
It is good you were able to find a caring cat family for the kitten. It may or may not have been the correct one, but you found it a home. Like the opossum, it may not be 100% what nature would have done, but you still gave it a chance to survive and succeed, and often, that is the best thing we can hope for.
I'm glad you went the "janky", more effort required way, even though it took more of your time. I'm no fan of AI, call me a Luddite, wrt that.
Twelve? That's a lot of joeys! Does your center have them all?
Ferals here in farm country keep the rats and snakes in check, they're a pretty important part of the ecosystem. The field by my house was fallow late, this year, I'd been optimistic it was to be allowed to rest and rejuvenate. No such luck, it was just planted late, so I'm very much keen on keeping rattlers in check. Tbh, the snakes and ferals probably keep each other in check. I've no idea how avian flu jumping to cats may affect that, but retain hope. Interestingly, I don't observe ferals bothering the birds and squirrels. I'm sure it happens, I've just never personally seen it.
They were still so tiny, I think I could have held the pile of them in one hand. The rehabber was feeding them with this miniscule tube that looked like a piece of fishing line more than a piece of tubing. I assume we were keeping them. They were very velvety and warm.
I don't think I've even seen a cat fight a snake before! The bird flu stuff makes me nervous how it's still not really mainstream just how much is being affected by it all. I fear one day everyone is going to act like nobody saw this coming. Between that and the measels stuff going around, it really feels like we've rolled back into an age of ignorance.
I've never seen such tiny babies as you describe, except squirrels and rabbits, presumably because opposums are largely nocturnal and I'm usually not. The way you describe feeding gives me the sense of a lot of time and experience having gone into the process. Dedication.
A cat fighting a snake is riveting. I've seen a twelve pound cat stalking a maybe eight? feet long snake, absolutely positive the snake would win. I should see if there are any videos and post back. Give me a bit.
I'm not able to listen to the audio right now, but this video has the tube feeding process for joeys that looked like what she was doing. The one in the video is much larger than the ones we had. The ones that we got in were more like this:
I am not seeing a video link? The photo shows tiny!
Whoops. I was doing too many things at once! Video Link
No worries, I probably shouldn't be encouraging your distraction. I'll watch the video and reserve comment until later. Thanks so much!
Omg. That takes me back some 30? years, to when I had a feral that routinely had a litter under my house. One day she didn't come back, and she'd been killed on the highway. I had my own primary schooler, a full time job and five kittens to feed, massage so they'd eliminate, and clean up, every two hours. One developed an abscess, presumably having been bitten or scratched by a sibling, which required extra care. We thought he was going to pass, but with surgery, he survived and like his siblings, found forever homes.
My neighbor found another kitten and took it to the same mom I gave a kitten. I'm going to have to get her some wet food. She's working hard.
Oh wow, you have done quite a bit of caring for animals (and people!) yourself!
I never thought I'd spend my free time helping squirrels learn to poop and such, but once you realize the necessity and value of doing the less glamorous jobs in life, they have their own unique value. I don't focus on the icky or tedious parts for long, the thing that sticks with me is knowing that I'm giving something else the best opportunity that I can.
It's been an off and on experience, but yes, I've done a little caregiving, both more and less successfully. We learn as we go, and hopefully any damage is balanced by the more helpful.
Yes, I've dealt with a lot of bodily fluids, in my lifetime, 😂. And we get through it for precisely the reason you mentioned: revisiting the icky stuff is only for reference in similar situations, the successes are so rewarding, both are opportunities for growth; and isn't that true with most memorable events, after all?