I was pulling into my driveway tonight when I saw an owl sitting roughly 12in tall in the middle of my driveway. I pulled slowly closer I expected the owl to fly away but it didn't. The owl was visably lethargic and unbothered by me so I called the local PD to see if animal control would come to take it to a raptor sanctuary to see what was wrong with it. The animal control officer had the night off so the PD sent a regular officer to see what was up with the owl. When the officer arrived he went over to the owl and it wouldn't budge. The owl turned its head a few times in our direction but only opened its eyes minimally. The police dispatch reached out to a bird of prey vet but got no answer so they read us the what to do to help an injured bird tab on the website. I grabbed a clean dry towel and tried to approach the owl but when I did it opened its eyes wide and tried to fly and we realized at that moment that the owl had a broken wing and couldn't get off the ground. It made a few failed attempts at flying but didn't get more than a small hop in the air. We let the owl calm down to not over stress it and I was able to get behind it an toss the towel over it and gently put it in a large plastic bin with the top predrilled with 1in holes for ventilation. Right now the injured owl is in my warm garage in a tote with a few towels on the bottom for padding and I will bring it to the sanctuary in the morning. Kind of a weird unexpected end to my night at 11:30pm.
