Throwing food out of your car can kill owls

Imagine you’re an owl fledgling, and it’s finally time to leave the nest. You throw yourself down from the only home you’ve ever known, flight instinct from tens of millions of years of bird evolution lifting your wings— until you smack right into a speeding car. 

This is likely what recently happened to a young Eastern screech owl (Megascops asio) in Harwich, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod’s southern shore. After receiving a call from a worried bystander, the New England Wildlife Center’s rescue team found the fledgling sitting on the side of a busy road, which is not typical owl behavior. 

The team, “found him grounded and too disoriented to move from his spot,” the center, located further north in Weymouth, Massachusetts, explained in a Facebook post. “Based on his age and location, we believe he had just recently left the nest and was likely hit by a car while learning to fly. This may have even been his first solo-flight. Talk about learning lessons the hard way!” 

While this little bird was very young, owls and other birds of prey often hunt near roads. Many of the rodents that avians eat often gather to forage for the bits of food humans toss from their cars, Priya Patel, Wildlife Medical Director at the New England Wildlife Center, tells Popular Science. In fact, the highest number of owl-car collisions the center sees is during daylight savings in the fall. 

“When that happens it gets darker earlier and it coincides with rush hour. Now, owls are coming out to hunt during high traffic times so [they] frequently get hit,” she explains. Patel adds that driving the speed limit, especially on back roads, could mean the difference between minor bird injuries and deadly ones.

The young Eastern screech owl from Harwich had head trauma from the collision. The wildlife center’s staff noted that he was squinting, and one pupil was larger than the other. While owls can control the expansion and contraction of their individual pupils, this was a case of a condition called anisocoria.

“We see it often in head trauma cases. It can happen when the brain swells or when there’s pressure on the nerves that control the eyes resulting from trauma,” the center wrote. 

Back in the hospital, the fledgling underwent a blood test, X-rays, physical exam, and an eye exam. Since the team did not find any broken bones or lasting eye damage, they prescribed him fluids, anti-inflammatory medicine, and rest to give the swelling time to heal. Days later, the owl was back to being bright and alert. He passed a flight test, and the team decided he was ready for release. 

Patel explains that they returned the fledgling where they had found him in the hopes that his parents could keep teaching him how to hunt. 

“We are very happy to report his second flight went WAY better than the first,” concluded the post. “He took off into the woodlands!”

 

More deals, reviews, and buying guides

The PopSci team has tested hundreds of products and spent thousands of hours trying to find the best gear and gadgets you can buy.