Cedrick the Screech-Owl

Last week my sister-in-law called to tell me that her parents had a baby owl in their mailbox. The notion seemed quite strange to me--but since they only live a few miles from the park I decided to go check it out. I was secretly hoping it was a Northern Saw-whet Owl--but I was not terribly disappointed when I opened the box to find a beautiful red-phase Eastern Screech Owl!

I very carefully reached in (with gloves on, of course) and retrieved him and put him in the only thing I had available at the time--one of our traps used for catching and banding hummingbirds. He was very polite and didn't bite me. He dug in a little with his very strong talons--but not enough to break the skin. He looked a little rough and no one was sure how long he had been in the mailbox, so I decided to call the Carolina Raptor Center to see if they would be able to see him.

We drove him down after the park closed. Emmy was so excited to see the owl. She named him Cedrick right away and asked the whole way there if he was going to be okay. I assured her that we were taking him to the best doctors around and that he may have to stay at "the bird hospital" for a little while. That did not stop her from crying all the way home about having to leave him there though.

When we arrived, the volunteers were working to set the the broken wing of a Red-tailed Hawk. It was great to be able to see their process. Emmy was glued to the window and had found a new friend to worry herself about. She asked the ladies several times when they came out if the hawk would be okay. They told her he probably would if his wing set right and then got out a frozen mouse to give to the hawk.

That's all it took for Emmy to begin a new line of questioning! Why are they feeding it the mouse? Is the mouse okay? Will the hawk be okay? Will Cedrick be okay? Will Cedrick eat a mouse? On and on she went . . . and my mom and dad and I loved it. I love the fact that she is so curious and gets to participate in such "hands-on" learning.

After they were finished with the Red-tail, they transferred Cedrick to a light weight cardboard box with holes so he could get weighed. I snapped a shot of him looking through one of the holes at me and wondered if he was thinking what in the world had I done to him.

He weighed 119 grams--which is really low. An average male should weigh around 200 grams. The exam revealed that he had probably been hit by a car as there was some damage to his left eye and left wing--but it wasn't terribly bad. He just needed to be re hydrated and kept until his eye was better and he could hunt on his own again.

They called me yesterday to let me know that he had gained up to 159 grams and was doing well. He is in the outside flight cage and is hunting on his own. He should get to come home one day next week if things continue as they are. They also said that out of thousands of Screech Owls that they've gotten over the years that not one of them had been found in someone's mailbox.
Emmy has asked everyday about Cedrick and can't wait to go back with me to pick him up. She has been pretending she is an owl a lot more too . . . .