At the beginning of January, one concerned landowner called Suffolk Owl Sanctuary to report a presumably injured little owl. But upon the first inspection of the female bird, the rescuers thought the owl to be ‘soggy’ as she wasn’t able to fly. However, as it later turned out, the cute owl wasn’t soggy at all – she was just a tad overindulged. Well, not just a tad probably, as the Suffolk Owl Sanctuary had examined the fat bird and deemed it “simply extremely obese” and therefore “unable to fly effectively.”
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One concerned citizen called animal rescuers as he found an owl in a ditch, unable to fly
Image credits: Suffolk Owl Sanctuary
Suffolk Owl Sanctuary – a UK-based organization – was contacted when one landowner spotted a bird of prey in a ditch. “Usually in these instances, we assume injury of sorts that is preventing the owl from flying – occasionally becoming wet causes them to become grounded too,” the bird sanctuary wrote on their Facebook page. “So you can imagine our surprise that when we examined her, we found her to simply be an extremely fat animal!”
But as it turned out, the owl was simply ‘too fat’ to be airborne
Image credits: Suffolk Owl Sanctuary
Upon weighing the overindulged bird, the bird rescuers found out that it is roughly a third heavier than a large healthy female little owl (Athene noctua). “She was unable to fly effectively due to the fatty deposits around her body,” Suffolk-based animal rescuers wrote. They added that it is very unusual for wild birds to become obese naturally, so the rescuers put all effort into investigating the possible scenarios – the first being that she was an escaped aviary bird. However, it turned out that she was simply “an unusual case of natural obesity.” As this winter was pretty mild, the area that the little owl roamed in was crawling with field mice and voles. The animal rescuers spent a few weeks observing the fluffy bird and put her on a strict diet. “We can now happily say she has trimmed down to a more natural weight for release,” Suffolk Owl Sanctuary writes.
After a few weeks of strict diet, the little owl was released back into the wild
“Wow…what a little star Plump has turned out to be!” animal sanctuary writes. “Here she is upon release, flying gracefully off into the British countryside at a much healthier, and happier weight.” Let’s just hope that this chunky avian has learned her lesson and won’t be overindulging in mice anymore!
Many people thought they’d found their spirit animal
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I know, eh?! I've been brainstorming in comments above, so join me if you want. There's a story here. It so incredibly strange.
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Oh I know how that happened! What if she found some dumped raw meat or bread put out for birds or something of that nature and ate that? Especially with bread she could gain weight at a faster pace, since it isn't her natural diet and certainly Canada geese will do it even though it isn't a natural diet for them and they get overweight while being somewhat wild.
This would be a really interesting situation. Is it that she started out not flying, or not flying very high as a chick and just found she could survive okay, so why not and then she somehow managed to no get attacked or run over and got really good at feeding on the ground? How would this owl not notice that her weight was making it too hard to hunt over time? Could she have gorged on something big and gained weight fairly suddenly? I get it with animals that don't have to work for their food, but I just find it hard to imagine how this got so bad so fast in a wild context and wasn't self-correcting. I wonder too how long she could have managed to survive hunting on the ground and how long she already had. The rescuers seem to think she'd never have survived on her own, but given she apparently got herself into this state, I wonder if she could have gone on hunting prey less frequently on the ground.
I know, eh?! I've been brainstorming in comments above, so join me if you want. There's a story here. It so incredibly strange.
Load More Replies... Oh I know how that happened! What if she found some dumped raw meat or bread put out for birds or something of that nature and ate that? Especially with bread she could gain weight at a faster pace, since it isn't her natural diet and certainly Canada geese will do it even though it isn't a natural diet for them and they get overweight while being somewhat wild.
This would be a really interesting situation. Is it that she started out not flying, or not flying very high as a chick and just found she could survive okay, so why not and then she somehow managed to no get attacked or run over and got really good at feeding on the ground? How would this owl not notice that her weight was making it too hard to hunt over time? Could she have gorged on something big and gained weight fairly suddenly? I get it with animals that don't have to work for their food, but I just find it hard to imagine how this got so bad so fast in a wild context and wasn't self-correcting. I wonder too how long she could have managed to survive hunting on the ground and how long she already had. The rescuers seem to think she'd never have survived on her own, but given she apparently got herself into this state, I wonder if she could have gone on hunting prey less frequently on the ground.
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