Driving North on Old Beattie Rd. in Lockport, towards Rapids, about 6pm. Cruising along, I see what looks to be a small owl sitting on the rightmost white line. Turn around, go back past it, turn around again, and pull up about 15 ft away from it with my lights on. Still standing there. So, I walk up to it, and pick it up. Brought it home with me with very little struggle. Got some towels and sticks and put them in a cat carrier, and let the owl roam around in there. It’s an adult grey-phase male screech owl. I named him Dustin for the night (I’m sure a few of you will understand why).
Anyway, long story short, long ago I used to rehab, breed and care for birds of prey. Another life. So, made sure he was physically sound. Didn’t even have any feathers missing. Perfect shape. He is likely an imprint, which means that a human found him when he was very young, and decided it was so cute, and they would keep him. Well, this means that this owl now thinks that he too is human, and can no longer survive in the wild.
It’s also highly illegal to house any bird of prey, so I did the right thing and brought him down to Hawk Creek in East Aurora. He’ll likely end up being used for educational projects, and live a great life. Good folks there. They want to me volunteer. As if I had the time.
However, I did take one last picture of Dustin before we drove down there.
When we did the Camaro/ Mustang photo shoot at Central Terminal there were a bunch of Peregrine Falcons flying around. They have an amazing call. It looked like they had some roosts up in the top parts of the main tower.
