No Image - Dead Owl Question
Found my first ever Long Eared Owl yesterday but unfortunately, it was dead. The circumstances of its demise were a bit strange so I thought I'd ask here to see if anyone has any ideas. Story is as follows. I saw something waving in the wind on the top strand of some barbed wire fence. When I got closer I saw it was a complete wing. It had been detached at what I would equate to the shoulder but otherwise it was completely intact. On the ground a few feet away was the body of the owl. It's other wing was also missing and was a few feet away in some bushes, also completely intact. It too had been detached from the shoulder but the upper wing bone was still attached to the chest and had been stripped of flesh and broken off at the "elbow". The owl's body was still pliable as if it had only recently died. There were no plucked feathers, no blood other than from the detached wings, and no other signs of trauma on the body or feathers. The wing on the fence was twisted quite tightly on one of the barbs but it may have been from spinning in the wind. My theory is that it flew into the barb, got stuck, and ripped its wing off trying to free itself. One wing seems plausible, but two seems to be quite a stretch. Anybody seen anything like this or have any other ideas?
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Originally Posted by John Chardine
