From Middle Tennessee Raptor Center
I’m behind on this post but better late than never.
On April 25th this sweet little screech owl was brought to us after being hit by a car. All I have got to say is this is one tough cookie!
Screech owls are not very hearty birds of prey. Their size does not work in their favor when it comes to car strikes. This one got very lucky.
On the night he arrived I did not expect him to make it through us giving him fluids and pain medications. His eye was swollen shut and at that point we didn’t even know if he still had one there. He could not stand and had to be propped up with towels so he didn’t fall over.
For several days he just held his head down and was so pitiful. We just kept giving him time, anti-inflammatories, and offering little bits of food. I came to check on him one morning and he was standing up.
He is continuing to heal and was just upgraded to a larger enclosure. He has no residual effects from his head trauma and he will be able to be released back to the wild soon.
The main photo is from the day of the post, after the recovery.
Small owls like this one can have eyes that take up almost half of the volume of the skull, and they don’t have nice dense bones or any padding most places because they traded all that for flight. That leaves birds, and owls in particular, very susceptible to injury.
This is why small birds can mob the predators without much fear of being attacked back. It is just too easy to get injured as a bird, and any needless fight can blind them, leave them unable to fly, or leave them too low on calories to have the energy to hunt their next meal.
Oh gotcha, that makes sense. Thanks!