Part 1--How to Rescue A Huge Owl From a Chimney or so we think!

What I did on my Sunday morning.....Rescued a Barred Owl from my chimney! It's true! I did it! Two nights ago Ray & I were sitting in our great room when we heard a very loud: hoot hoot dehooooo hoot hoot dehooooo! Alarming at best, it came from our fireplace! With our damper closed (thank goodness) the owl must've been sitting above it. We thought: okay, so an owl got in our chimney...it'll fly out. The next night about 6:30, there it goes again...it's still in our chimney! That's when we realized we were going to have to help the little guy out.
So this morning I set up the camera to tape it since my husband was going to open the damper and "grab" the owl out of there and, invariably, when he sets out to do something like this..it turns out much differently than he plans it in his head---typically hillarious! Though I have to say we've never had to save an owl before but just judging from previous experience I thought I should have the camera ready!
He opens the damper and we hear a lot of flapping but no bird comes through....He shines the light up the shaft only to see that the bird is enormous! That's where I come in and said, if we get a telescoping pole with an "L" at the bottom for the bird to step on, we could pull him up from the top of the chimney. So Ray gets the huge telescoping pole we had and attaches a paint roller to the bottom, duct tapes it in place and all the way across so the owl can grab on. We then climb up on our roof (PS I'm scared to death of heights!) and I proceed to talk to the owl to let him know what we were doing, then lowered the pole down to him. I got him up to the top and for a brief moment, in a wildlife to human experience, he seemed to say "Thank You" (or "Thank Hoooo"!). It was an awesome experience! Kind of spiritual experience to be 2 feet from a Barred Owl that's 24" tall with a 40" plus wingspan! It was aaaawwweeesommme!!!

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• Barred owl
• saving an owl
• rescuing an owl
• saving a bird
• freeing an owl
• save an owl

[sabrinag1966]

I love how his "accent" changes from Australian to French Louisianna to Cheech and Chong and finally, strangely to the Cookie Monster somewhere in there! He had fun doing it though!