The young lady on the telephone excitedly asked, “Are you the game warden?”
“I am! What can I help you with?”
“This is the Dixmont Corner Store. We’ve got a little dilemma up here that requires your expert advice,” she said. “A woodcutter is here with two owl eggs that fell from a tree he cut down this morning. They appear to be okay and we’re wondering what to do with them.”
“Good question,” I mumbled. “I doubt if they’ll hatch, but I suggest that maybe you wrap them in something soft and warm, and I’ll come by tomorrow morning to pick them up.”
I figured it would be a waste of time trying to do anything with the eggs, but making the effort would be good public relations if nothing else. I’d simply gather them up and discard them later when no one was around. After all, who would expect these eggs to be any good after tumbling onto the ground when the woodcutter felled the tree that held their nest? The chance of either egg hatching was remote at best, but I knew if I suggested destroying them the repercussions from those who felt they were helping out Mother Nature could be brutal.
“Okay, thank you ever so much,” she said. “We’ll wrap them up in cotton and place them on top of the popcorn machine.”
I’d forgotten all about her call when early in the morning the next day the phone rang again.
“This is the Dixmont store again. You’re not going to believe this, but we did exactly as you told us to and we’ve just watched one of the eggs hatch! I think the other one is about ready,” she gushed.
“You’re kidding me,” I responded in total disbelief. “I’ll be up soon to get them,” I promised.
Now what the hell am I going to do, I wondered.
And thus my adventure of becoming papa to a pair of young owlets began.
By the time I arrived at the store, a small crowd had gathered around the popcorn machine, watching the second egg produce another baby owl. Gathering up the small box containing the homeliest creatures God had ever created, I brought the young owls home and placed a distress call to Birdsacre, a nonprofit rehabilitation organization in Ellsworth, asking for guidance.
“Don’t get your hopes up that they’ll survive,” I was told. “They need mice, squirrels, and other food from the wild to survive. You’ll need to chop the carcasses into fine pieces, leaving the hair and bones intact.”
Grabbing my trusty pair of tin snips, I became a butcher of sorts. My neighbors and friends rallied to the cause. People began dropping off dead mice, squirrels, and even woodchucks on our doorstep in an effort to provide an ample supply of feed for the little owlets.
John Ford raised this owl from birth, feeding it roadkill, which he’d cut into pieces with tin snips.
All this gruesome activity didn’t make Mrs. Ford any too happy. She never knew what dead creature would be draped across our doorstep from one day to the next.
I spent countless hours snipping away at these carcasses, storing the remains in little plastic tubs for future use.
Tender loving care required a change in my daily patrol routine. I found myself heading home every few hours to change the hot water bottles and force-feed my new babies.
The owlets stood only a few inches tall. They had big feet, large bulging, unopened eyes, huge beaks, and no feathers covering their fragile bodies. Staggering around in their cardboard nest, they were definitely the ugly ducklings of the owl world.
When I brushed small chunks of furry meat and the remains of dead mice and other critters across their beaks, they gobbled the goodies down like candy. They grew amazingly fast, constantly demanding more food and care.
Within a few short days, a layer of white downy feathers encased their homely bodies and their bluish-gray eyes finally opened, giving them a little character. I found myself becoming quite attached to them. I named them Who-Who and Boo-Hoo.
They’d made it through the first few hectic days and now I only hoped they’d survive. The daily routine of constant feeding continued throughout the summer. Miraculously, they were turning into masterpieces of sheer beauty. As their bodies grew, their downy covering was replaced with gray and brown feathers.
We replaced the small box that was their nest with a larger one. Their daily feedings required a lot more food, but fortunately, the highway produced enough road-killed squirrels, woodchucks, and other creatures to snip apart for future meals.
Who-Who and Boo-Hoo lived in our home right along with the rest of the Ford family, until one evening as we were watching TV one of them came staggering into the living room. They’d discovered a means of escaping from their box and were exploring the big world around them.
Mrs. Ford gruffly demanded an immediate end to their free-range lifestyle. “They’ll be messing all over everything, John,” she said in an authoritative voice that I fully understood.
Who-Who and Boo-Hoo were transferred down to our cellar in an area where they could roam about as they pleased. They had an open view of the woods behind our house that would eventually become their home.
Their daily diet changed from whole mice to chicken necks, which I purchased in bulk at a processing plant in Belfast. They learned how to fly on their own, spending most of the time perched on a cellar beam overlooking the wilderness outdoors.
As fall approached, the time for freedom was close at hand. By now Who-Who and Boo-Hoo were a pair of handsome, mature barred owls, a far cry from that first day when I brought the ugly little creatures home.
The final challenge was to teach them how to survive on their own. I wanted to be sure they were capable of hunting for food. I loosely attached large chunks of cut-up squirrel meat to a length of monofilament fish line. I rapidly dragged the meal across the cellar floor, in the owls’ plain view. Their heads bobbed up and down as they intently watched their supper scooting along the floor.
One of the owls with John Ford Jr.
After a few attempts, they discovered how to fly down from their perch and strike at the moving target, devouring the moving meal in one swift attack.
The time had come to release them back into the wilderness where they belonged. Late one September afternoon, I removed the wire barrier from the cellar door, allowing the owls to freely move outside. It took a while, but eventually they worked their way to freedom, perching in a tree at the end of our porch, where they both fell asleep.
At dusk, they flew up onto the TV antenna on our roof, where once again they dozed off for another nap. They nearly caused a major traffic jam. More than one excited passerby skidded into the dooryard, screaming, “Come outside and see what the hell is perched up on your TV antenna!”
I explained the circumstances surrounding the rare sight to those strangers and friends who stopped by for a closer look. Papa Owl was quite proud of his accomplishments.
By the next morning the owls were gone.
The next day I called out to them, hoping they’d respond at least one more time. Only then did I realize what “having the kids leave the nest” really meant. I already missed them.
Suddenly, from out of the trees they flew, landing a few feet from where I stood. Their heads were bobbing up and down as they anxiously looked for yet another handout of free grub from Dad.
In the following days, the visits became less frequent, until finally they disappeared for good. I hoped they would celebrate the life they were destined for. They had survived some rather unusual circumstances, which I never thought would be possible.
The phone rang once again. “Hello, are you the game warden?” a lady’s voice inquired.
“I am, ma’am; what can I help you with?”
“Well, sir, my cat just came back from the woods and she had a little ball of fur in her mouth. I think it’s a baby coyote.”
Here we go again. I could hardly wait.
