He was concussed on intake and his left eye seemed “squinty” during a cursory exam when he arrived. A full intake exam as soon as he was inside revealed that eye is very cloudy, as you can see in the photo below. The good news is he’s alert and eating well; now we wait to see if the eye will clear. If not, owls hunt more by hearing than sight, so he may still be releasable. In a couple of days he’ll go into the mini-pen to see how he does with balance, perching, etc.
And the barred owl that led to my soapbox rant last week died the next morning, before the finders could bring it to LWR.
We attempted a release for the red shoulder; he flew straight to the ground and ran to a fence row, which made it easy to recapture him. Nothing is broken; he just can’t seem to fly. This would suggest some sort of soft tissue damage like a strained or torn tendon/ligament, so he’s in the main flight now to see if perhaps he just needs more conditioning or additional time for the soft tissue damage to heal. He’s been at LWR plenty long enough for a coracoid fracture to heal, so that can pretty confidently be ruled out. So we just give him more time to see what will happen…