Ow! . . . . I mean Owl

We were zipping along a windy road, somewhere in the mountains and like most country roads, you see a number of animals that didn't quite make it across. Just a fact of country life. We saw this "lump" in the distance, barely being missed by passing cars and when we passed it, it looked up at us. That is all it takes for me LOL, I am a sucker for an injured animal on the road. I was afraid that someone would run it over so we turned around to pick it up.

It was the most pathetic thing I have seen in a while. He was just a handful and weighed barely anything. His eyes and feet were the biggest thing on him. We took him to a nearby road off the highway (he most likely swooped down in time to get bonked by a car). We waited a bit to see if he would recover and when he did, Jim put him on a pile of rocks. He had a bloody beak, after checking him out, nothing appeared to be broken, he just was stunned from boinking a car.

We googled owls when we got home and we think he is a Flammbulated Owl, which is native to the Ozarks and the western US. He was about the size of a softball and almost as round.