Crews go out on a limb for rescue

By Holly Miyasaki - Penticton Western News - May 09, 2008

NewS.102.20080508170029.placement_20080509.jpg

Mark Brett/Western News

Ken Fujino, executive director of the South Okanagan Rehabilitation Centre for Owls, returns a young owl to a tree. The owl, too immature to fly, was found under trees in Skaha Lake Park Monday afternoon.

The sky was falling for two great-horned owls Tuesday.

Just hours apart, the birds (both too young to fly) fell from their respective trees in separate Penticton parks.

Luckily for the little hooters, Ken Fujino, executive director of the South Okanagan Rehabilitation Centre for Owls, was contacted.

Early in the day, just as pedestrians at King’s Park noticed the grounded the bird, Manuel Borba, who does parks maintenance for the city, was driving by.

“I asked if they needed help,” he said, adding he called the city’s electrical department for assistance.

Once Fujino and one of the city’s bucket trucks were on the scene, they got to work capturing the bird.

Fujino was raised up into the trees with the bucket truck and placed the bird on a branch safely and securely.

But this wouldn’t be the only time the crew would gather to save an owl. In the afternoon another took a tumble in Skaha Lake Park.

Judy Gauci, an Australian teacher on a home exchange, has been monitoring the birds for nearly a month.

“The babies are quite inquisitive, they look down at you,” she said of her observations from the ground below. “We don’t have that sort of thing in Australia.”

But Tuesday Gauci would get a closer encounter than ever before.

While working in her yard near the park, a person approached her asking if she could contact conservation officers regarding the owl which was slowly wandering the ground under the trees.

Watching from above were what were suspected to be two owl siblings and a mother.

Once again Borba, Fujino and other city employees met in an attempt to put the owl back where it belonged.

Approaching the bird of prey, Fujino managed to cover him with a blanket and then pick him up with leather gloves.

Immediately the mother could be heard hooting in distress, while her baby was busy clicking his beak and flapping his wings in futile warnings to the bird specialist.

For the second time that day, Fujino rode the bucket into the trees with owl in hand.

But this time, the fledgling lost his grip on the branch and fell from the tree. Reminiscent of a very large lint ball, he bounced off the tree before hitting the ground and laying still in shock.

Retrieved again, his body and wings were limp in a seemingly defeated way, as he and his rescuer ascended into the trees again this time reaching success.

The owl managed to get a good grip on his branch and stayed put.

Fujino said due to the young nestlings’ thick down feathers, their falls were cushioned substantially. He added that great-horned owl parents are not known for abandoning their chicks.

But the most concerning thing to Fujino was not the owls taking tumbles, it was the fact that in both instances there were no nests in the trees — the reason for the young raptors’ falls.

If you see a bird of prey on the ground contact local conservation officers or Fujino at SORCO.

Email | Print | Letter to Editor | Share on Facebook

Crews go out on a limb for rescue

Most read in your Region

Most read across BC