Hi all.

Wednesday afternoon, the sexton at the church where I serve erupted into my office shouting, "There's a big owl in the boiler room!" Grabbing my camera, I scooted over the boiler room, opened the door cautiously, and found a Barred Owl sitting there on one of the heating pipes, checking me out. We have no idea how the bird got in the room. All the windows are covered with fine grating. Our only guess is that it found a hole somewhere, possibly following a retreating mouse, and wound up squeezing through a hole in the inside wall of the boiler room.

We had no idea how to liberate the bird from such mundane surroundings. No one in City government animal control, or the zoo, or anyone else we could think of would come out. Well, we did find one volunteer but that person was so tied up that he couldn't come before we had to close the church for the night. 

We checked the next morning and the boiler room was birdless. Maybe he left by the same hole in the wall he used to enter. We thought the chapter was at an end.

Turn the page.

Today the bird was found in a different room in the basement. No hallway connects the two rooms. Once again, it appears likely (as improbable as it sounds!) that the bird found its way through the space between the interior walls and found an opening into the second room. 
I got more pictures. The bird appeared less agitated at my presence today, perhaps because it was getting hungry. (However, since the church appears to have more than its share of mice at the moment, maybe our friend is getting some nourishment after all.)

If anyone has ideas of people to contact to help this bird out of our building, I'd appreciate the information. Normally, we don't go to such lengths getting someone or something out of the building. Usually we're working for the opposite purpose.

If anyone is interested in some photos of a Barred Owl in unusual habitat, I've posted some photos on FLICKR. I don't know how to tell you the web address, except to advise searching for Flikr on a web search engine, and searching looking for my name (donburggraf - one word) among the names of those who've submitted photos.

Good birding, wherever you bird!


Don Burggraf

Baltimore




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