An injured snowy owl seemed to stop in the right neighbourhood this week.
The injured animal was found on Tuesday near the Ferguson street home of Kassandra Servello.
Kassandra and her fiance' Dustin Galick noticed the animal near the street at their home and tried to scoop it up with a shovel to bring into the backyard.
“My fiancé picked him up, when he was in the backyard he was inching towards under the neighbours deck so we put him comfortably there to rest and be in a better position,” explained Kassandra.
Not long afterward, they went to check on the bird and it was gone.
“We assumed he gained some strength and flew away,” she said.
However, again on Wednesday, the snowy owl was found lying nearby in the snow near their home.
Servello says bringing him into their yard was not going to be enough this time.
“My fiancé kind of propped him up to get his wings together close to him and he picked him up and brought him inside,” she explained.
“The whole side of his face from being in the snow so long, like crows were attacking him so the whole side of his face was icicles, his eye was completely glazed over, he was hardly even moving.”
Then they wrapped the owl in a blanket.
“It was a risky move because we do have four cats and a dog but obviously he is freezing and he needed to be inside so we brought him into our spare room and we had him in a blanket and after about 20 minutes with him he started to be a little bit more responsive and he started looking at us and you could tell that he was very scared but he was not going to try to attack us or anything,” she said.
Servello then put in calls to the Humane Society and the Ministry of Natural Resources and she says neither offered much help.
According to Servello, the Humane Society did call back and offered to euthanize the injured bird.
“I tried to explain it has been in our house for over an hour now, he is getting better already, he just needs some rehabilitation like I just don’t think you need to put him out of his misery,” said Servello.
“They did not even know yet what happened to him.”
Servello eventually connected with the Wild at Heart Wildlife Refuge Centre based in Lively and they immediately took action and sent someone to their Ferguson street home to pick up the injured bird and bring him to their facility.
“Right away when I talked to them on the phone they were like super understanding what was going on,” she said.
“They said they can be there in the next 45 minutes to get him.”
Servello says she will stay in touch with the Refuge Centre and wants to continue to get updated on the owl's recovery and if it gets healthy she and her fiancée would like to be there for the release back into the wild.
Mystery bird found?
The injured owl may be the large bird witnesses say snatched a small dog from the downtown area back in mid-December.
However, Servello says this owl isn’t the only one they have seen in the area recently.
She estimates this owl was about 2 1/2 feet long with a wingspan of about four feet. She says another large owl twice that size has been seen around the area as well.
See related story: Giant bird attacking pets in North Bay?
See related story: Bird experts believe not responsible in downtown pet snatching mystery
