life bird but with a concern

•

"This picture is very poor," emailed Betty Thompson. "Yesterday, as I was driving home after a fantastic day of birding/photographing, I noticed Mr. Owl on top of a cedar tree. This is a Lifer for me, and my heart skipped a beat. Safety was my biggest concern. It was almost dark and I was on a four lane road, and had no place to pull over." 

"But first, I made myself look at him, our eyes met, my heart was pumping, I was love struck to say the least. I had to take the moment in before raising my lens. I quickly took a couple of pics, drove away and turned around again, and he was still there, and I still took poor photos. BUT look at his eye. It was like this in every photo, even the second round after I drove up the road and turned around"

"What is wrong with its eye?"

There is nothing like finding a Life Bird on your own. You seem to always remember the moment.

Great horned owls are three pounds of intense predator. Strong and powerful raptors known as flying tigers. But aside from their reputation, they are fragile like all birds. I really do not know what is wrong with its eye but I suspect an injury that we hope heals on its own.

Owls are notoriously farsighted, blessed with tremendous binocular vision that sees sharply at great distances in low light. But up close, they really need reading glasses as do I. We can suspect that many launch themselves in the dark towards moving prey 100 feet away and brush into a close branch or twig without noticing it beforehand.  

At the nature center, the birds I helped care for over the years generally had either wing or eye injuries that prevented them from ever being on their own again.

Congratulations, Betty on your life bird. And by now, let's hope the swelling in that eye has gone away. 

•