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Late this afternoon we got to watch a Barred Owl return to the wild after a short stint in rehab at the Avian Haven. A few weeks ago it flew into a car driving on Route 123 near Knight's Corner and apparently suffered a concussion. The driver scooped it up while it was stunned and put it in the car—note: this is not a great plan, as you will learn when it regains consciousness in your car—and brought it the Harpswell Neck Fire Station where a friend of hers helped her get it into a dog crate for the night and then turned it over to Avian Haven the next day.
A pair of volunteers from Avian Haven arrived with the bird in a cardboard box. They carried the box a short distance to a spot near the trees, then opened the box and it flew off into the woods. It perched briefly on a branch right nearby, then flew off. A few minutes later one of the group of us who had gathered to watch it be released noticed that it had returned to a branch very near where it first perched. It sat there watching us in the fading light and was still on the branch when we dispersed and returned to our cars; the last two pictures in this post were taken in that fading light and are lower quality due to the greatly reduced light.
This owl is quite likely one of a mated pair that "owns" the territory around Mitchell Field, along Route 123 from the Curtis Farm Preserve parking area north past the Fire Station and Mitchell Field to Knight's Corner. It also seems likely that the Barred Owl I posted pictures of back around New Year's is one of this pair, either this one or its mate. I took those pictures from the Curtis Farm Preserve parking area while the owl was perched on utility lines along Route 123 next to the parking area.
For more photos of the release, visit our Facebook group.
(Submitted by Howard Marshall. February 10, 2023)
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