Barn owl makes a surprise visit

[Donna]

Endangered bird rarely seen in Wisconsin is on the mend in Fredonia after being found injured in the middle of condominium construction site

When Doug Winquist saw the mass of feathers lying under a pine tree, he thought he had stumbled upon an injured great horned owl, maybe even a peregrine falcon.

Then he picked the bird up.

“I said, ‘Hey, this is a barn owl.’ I couldn’t believe my eyes,� said Winquist, a Fredonia resident and longtime board member and volunteer at Pine View Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in the Town of Fredonia.

“I’ve never seen a barn owl in the wild, so this was quite a surprise,� he said.

Winquist isn’t the only one surprised by the discovery of a bird that has been listed as an endangered species in Wisconsin since 1979.


“Barn owls are rare in Wisconsin, very rare,� said Noel Cutright, a bird expert from the Town of Saukville. “I’ve seen them in the wild, but only a couple of them in my 30-plus years around here.�

Winquist, who was responding to a report of an injured bird, found the barn owl last month in the unlikeliest of places — a residential area of Mequon a short distance south of Mequon Road and just west of Port Washington Road.

“After I got over the initial shock of finding a barn owl, I thought, ‘What the heck is a barn owl doing in the middle of a Mequon condominium subdivision?’� he said.

That remains a mystery, as does the owl’s ailment, although Pine View Director Jean Lord reported last week that the bird appears to be recovering at her center.

“For now, things are looking better, much better than three weeks ago, but it’s been a very long month trying to figure out what was wrong with this bird,� Lord said.

The owl, which was noticed by a landscaper working in the Mequon subdivision, was severely underweight and couldn’t fly or stand when it was brought to Pine View.

Lord has seen just about every injury animals can suffer, and many times it’s painfully obvious what ails the animals. Birds that have been shot, hit by cars and poisoned are frequent visitors to her center.

But the barn owl — so rare in Wisconsin that this is the first one to be cared for at the 30-year-old Pine View center — had Lord and other experts stumped.

The bird had no physical signs of injury, so experts turned their attention to internal problems. First on the list of suspected causes was lead poisoning, a significant threat to birds who ingest lead shot and fishing sinkers consumed by the prey they eat.

But one test after another came back negative. Eventually, high levels of uric acid were found in the bird’s system, suggesting a kidney problem.

Although there is no specific diagnosis, what’s important now, Lord said, is that this bird seems to be recovering. Its weight has increased to that of a normal female barn owl, which is larger than a male, and it can stand, Lord said.

“This has been such a complicated case, but we’re finally seeing some progress,� Lord said.

Local residents fortunate enough to have seen a barn owl in the wild remember when several of the birds took up residence in the steeple of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Lake Church about 20 years ago. The birds garnered quite a bit of attention and were eventually caught and moved to nearby Harrington Beach State Park in the Town of Belgium, St. Mary’s historian and longtime Belgium resident Bea Krier said.

As rare as the barn owl is in Wisconsin, it is widespread throughout the world, living on all continents except Antarctica.

In this country, the owl typically lives well south of Wisconsin where there are ample grasslands and open forests well-suited to these stealthy hunters that specialize in catching small rodents.

“We’ve just lost so much of our grassland in Wisconsin,� Cutright said. “The loss of habitat is really why barn owls are rare in this area.�

With its distinctive face, chilling shriek  and reputation as a lethal hunter of rodents, the barn owl has a host of nicknames ranging from monkey-faced owl to death owl.

It is also called the ghost owl, a moniker it owes to the white feathers on its chest and under its wings and haunting shriek.

“They look white when they fly. And the fact they fly almost perfectly silently adds to the mystique,� Cutright said.

“They are really magnificent birds.�

[valhalla]

Good story and a happy one.  Kidneys are responsible for a LOT of things.