On Nov 17, 2012, at 10:54 AM, Barbara Deihl quoted Suzanne West, Executive Director, Sarvey Wildlife Care Center

> I addressed this case with Will to clarify and he said that the owl was reported down on the ground and had been seen in the same place the night before. The next day it was still there in the general area standing on its "dinner". Will said that he tried to get it to fly off and it could not lift, sounds like it just barely got off the ground.

So I'm not sure if this is an argument for weak pectorals (poor condition) or back injury (car strike?).

This leaves an interesting question of how do you evaluate the condition of a Snowy on the ground without flushing it. If it flushes is it OK? If it stays in one spot (overnight?) is that bad?

If you have it in the hand then clearly you can evaluate it's condition by feeling fat and muscle over the bone but to do that you have to handle the bird.

> The staff have rehydrated her and she is now eating.

The Cap Hill Snowy did kill and partially eat the gull it was on from reports of multiple people at the site in the evening. It was on top of the gull when I saw it in the morning. Perhaps that's another motivation for a hungry bird not to leave too ("This is my gull and I'm going to eat it later"). I've seen other raptors been pretty tenacious about a prey item. The bird was also very alert (tracking an oblivious squirrel on the fence above her).

I'm not against the rescue: a Snowy on the ground in an urban area is "less than ideal" and this bird was not in good shape.

> Kestrel, our Education Director teaches a class and focuses on this with her education team

It's nice to see that birds that don't get released can progress to internal positions at Sarvey. :-)
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Kevin Purcell (Capitol Hill, Seattle, WA)
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