Donny Osmond and Owls

January 24th, 2005: I love the places birding can take you. I started out by meeting Donny Osmond at KARE-11 while filming one of my birding segments. Later I went out with one of my favorite people, Amber Burnette to film owls with a crew from WCCO. When we first arrived in Cotton at Wilbert's Cafe we ran into two banders who had found an injured great gray owl. Amber and I offered to take it back to The Raptor Center after we filmed our segment and the banders placed the owl in a box and gave it to us. We went out with WCCO and only searched for an hour but found eight great gray owls and one northern hawk owl. Before we headed back to the Twin Cities, we called Gail Buhl from the Wolf Center to see if they had any injured birds that needed to be transported. She referred us to a private rehabber in Duluth who had a light phase great horned owl that needed treatment for a wing fracture and head trauma. When we collected her great horned owl she told us about a great gray at the DNR building in Cloquet, so we stopped there and picked up that bird on the way back. We called to warn The Raptor Center that we had three owls and they asked if we would stop at the Wildlife Sciences Center in Forest Lake to pick up an injured barred owl--how could we say no? The first three owls we picked up appeared to have been hit by cars, but the barred owl had been caught in a leg hold trap. Meeting cool people, seeing neat birds, and helping injured wildlife.

What could be a more fulfilling day?

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A great start to the day:
met Donny Osmond at Kare- 11!

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Notice the tiny feet of the large great gray owl.

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An injured great gray owl found by
owl banders at Sax-Zim bog.
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A wild great gray owl on Highway 7
used in WCCO segment.

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Duluth rehabber with injured
light-phased great horned owl.

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My car filled with three of the four injured
great gray owls, en route to the Raptor Center.
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Me holding an injured great gray owl
after arriving at the Raptor Center.

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Me with great gray owl with compound
wing fracture, Amber with a barred owl
that was caught in a leg-hold trap.

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This owl's head is bigger than mine,
believe it or not!
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Great horned owl with head trauma;
notice that the pupils are different sizes.

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Amber carefully crating an injured barred owl.