We are always sharing stories about unfortunate birds that are brought into our Raptor Hospital following collisions with vehicles on our roads. This recent case though has hit the headlines!
A family on holiday in the area were driving home late one evening and saw a bird in the road. They slowed down to avoid it but didn’t see where the bird went and assumed that it must have flown to the side at the last minute, as there was nothing in the road when they checked the mirrors.
The next morning, when they went out to the car, there was the unfortunate Tawny Owl with his head jammed behind the number plate! He’d been hanging there all night, and for the remainder of their journey the previous night!
Stuck fast!
The family called us and we were able to give advice on how to carefully extract the bird and bring it to us. Upon arrival, the team were surprised to find the adult bird in very good condition. He was a healthy weight and in excellent condition, apart from a rather sore head. Thankfully, it appear that the bird hadn’t struggled too much as there was no damage to his feathers and apart from a gash across his face, there were no other injuries.
One very lucky owl!
We immediately administered pain relief and some critical care solution to help with the birds recovery. After a couple of days he was able to eat small amounts of food and the swelling had subsided. Once he was able to eat unaided we moved him to one of our outdoor aviaries so that we could monitor his flight. Everything is looking promising so we’re hoping to release him in the area where the family saw him in the road, with instructions to stay away from roads in future!
Looking good in the outdoor aviary.
It’s not our usual policy to post hard-hitting images like the first one above on our social media, but on this occasion we did. As a result of this, the following day we had the BBC on the phone asking for more details! Falconer Dolly spoke to them, which was included on various news programmes. The story has also been picked up by local and national press!
Following multiple name suggestions via the BBC post, we’ve nicknamed this Tawny Owl Reg (thanks partly to the BBC for changing the wording to licence plate, which resulted in lots of comments about the use of English across the pond!)