Oh no, here we go again. Way back and shortly after Al Gore invented the
Internet ;-)), there was the most hysterically funny and entertaining thread on
BirdChat that I have ever seen, ever(!), anywhere(!), pertaining to birder's
encounters and experiences with roadkills. Of course, the topic is
certainly NOT funny but some of the sometimes morbid tales and how they affected
people were and often left the reader aghast and speechless. It's been many
many years now since I related this story to 'tweeters' and some of you gray
hair old timers may remember this one, and you turn of the century newbies may
enjoy a revisit of an amazing encounter I had once upon a time.

I can't remember exactly when this happened, maybe 10 years ago, or maybe it
was actually the same day as the Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles,
whenever that was. Anyway, I was up birding and exploring the Skagit on an
exceptionally glorious winter weekday. It was sunny, warm, and calm, and just an
outrageous break in the winter doldrums, and gas was still cheap.

Along about mid afternoon, I was heading north along Chuckanut Drive south
of Bellingham intermittently watching the road and gazing out the window at the
splendid watery views to the west and islands beyond. When all of a sudden
out of nowhere, for all of a split second I caught a small gray blur out of
the corner of my eye and in the next instant was a 'poink!' as the object
banged into the driver's side rear door of the car. I slammed on the breaks and
looking in the rear view window, there lying in the middle of the road right
on the yellow center line was belly up a tiny ball of gray fluff. My God, a
little owl I thought, maybe Saw-whet. I backed up wildly trying not to run
over the thing and trying to protect the object from being literally run over
by traffic and praying I wouldn't get rear-ended or worse myself. Then
there was the panic of trying to actually retrieve the thing without the owl or
me getting run over. Nice day, lots of traffic, much too much for what should
otherwise be an ordinary week day. On the shoulder now and some distance
away, lots of cars passed and no one managed to squash it. Phew! In a lull,
I rushed out to retrieve the prize. Flat out in the middle of the road,
belly up, talons in the air, one eye open, one eye shut, and looking dead as
doornail. I scooped it up and scampered off the road out of harms way and
examined it as it was lying in my hand. Northern Pygmy Owl. Ooh, cool! Still
warm it started to stir slightly, more of a quiver really and slow heartbeat.
It's NOT dead, just stunned and didn't appear otherwise suffering any obvious
injuries.

Then I went back to the car with it, examined it some more, still virtually
motionless, still with one eye open, one eye shut, I tried to set it on the
steering wheel but it wouldn't attach itself and fell off in my lap, so I
gingerly set it up on the dashboard. It lay there on it's back for awhile as I
was thinking about what I should do next. Fortunately I was still parked on
the shoulder since after a minute or two or three, it suddenly without warning
rolled over and came to life and I could see things were about to become
testy. I tried to grab it but it immediately flew off INSIDE THE CAR! It was
utter chaos in there(!!); a pygmy owl loose in the car and I couldn't get
control of the situation as it went from front to back and side to side, (1992
Subaru station wagon, so a long impossible reach to the back) and back and
forth. Imagine the chaos had I been driving!! Finally when it momentarily
paused on the dash again I grabbed it by pinning it to the windshield. YEOW!
You vicious little beast as it immediately pinned me in return instantly
sinking it's needle like talons into my hand.

Now, assuming it must be okay, it was just a matter of getting rid of it.
Just simply rolling down the windows wasn't as easy as it seems. Electric
windows, first you have to turn on the ignition, right? But when the owl sunk
it's talons into my hand I let go, and there it was loose like a banshee
flying around the car again and harder yet to recapture. I finally got the
drivers side window down but I couldn't coax the owl to that one and didn't want to
open the door for fear of it being sheared off by passing traffic.
Eventually, risking more sharp puncture wounds, I captured it again, and pretty much
just tossed it out the window and the owl just shook itself off and flew away
like nothing had ever happened. It just kept going like a shot back into
the scrubby shoreline woods and I never saw it again leaving me to surmise, the
owl was just fine.

So, at least this story had a happy ending. There were others, some mine,
many from others during that most memorable year and thread of the "roadkill"
on BirdChat that didn't turn out so well and we won't go there. Besides,
it's dinner time and you really don't want to hear about the New Zealand Harrier
accident I had an even a longer time ago :-||


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Richard Rowlett
Bellevue (Eastgate), WA, USA

"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what
nobody has thought" --Albert Szent-Gyorgi (1893-1986).
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