Here are two short videos which show a man removing an owl from his home with a Swiffer, which is an American cleaning implement consisting of a an expensive rag on a stick. I didn’t know much about these videos but found this information from the Kansas City Star when I Googled “Swiffer’:
So the cat dragged an owl into Colton Wright’s house and being the smart fellow that he is he grabbed the first thing he could think of to remove the winged intruder: A Swiffer.
Anyone else see a TV commercial coming out of this?
Wright, now dubbed “The Owl Whisperer,” posted two YouTube videos last week that show his hair-raising adventure that went on for more than 45 minutes.
Be forewarned, he cusses. Not surprising, because we can tell you right now that if this happened to us, we’d be cursin’ too.
“Sadly, I found out through this video I scream. Not just scream, but borderline hysterics,” he noted about the first video.
Man, any cat that can catch an owl and bring it inside deserves a medal. Fortunately, the owl appears unhurt:
Owl Removal:
Then somehow he manages to hold a Swiffer in one hand and his phone in the other to videotape the remarkable removal process.
Our hand would have been shaking as we stared down that unblinking big-eyed bird of prey on the end of the sweeper.
“He was sucking my soul out,” Wright joked to one media outlet.
The dude is way more scared of that owl than he needed to be. And I’m wondering why he decided to remove the bird, himself, rather than call wildlife management, considering how freaked out he was.
b&
I would’ve kept the owl. I find it amusing that people are afraid of owls. They look so cute to me.
I think Fish and Wildlife might have a problem with that, but I, too, would be sorely tempted to adopt it.
b&
Agree 100%. And 3 or 4 owlets staring at you in their hole in a tree trunk, when you get to them on a ladder and a flashlight, are beyond adorable. They show no fear, only keep staring at you wonderingly.
For several years we had them “nesting” under our covered patio. Mama doesn’t like it when yo get too close – she will swoop down and smite thee. But once they’re out, we could stroke them as they perched on our patio furniture.
We tried that when we were (stupid) kids. But it’s not easy. Many birds of prey like their noms alive and kickin’. Or sometimes just stop eating in captivity. Did not want hamburger meat! We couldn’t provide well for it, so we let it go free.
Also the owl after meal pellets would take some getting used to.
Although owls can be very feisty. The European Tawny Owl, Strix aluco, is fiercely protective of its nest and can inflict real pain. The pioneering bird photographer, Eric Hosking, lost the sight in his left eye as the result of such an attack.
That said , the guy in this video does make a lot of fuss!
True, but it’s also a question of reading body language. This owl wasn’t making any threatening displays, and it’s not got anything to protect in the guy’s home.
Come to think of it, if he turned on the porch light, turned off all the interior lights, and opened the door wide open, and gotten well out of the way, the owl would probably have figured out the rest….
b&
You have to wonder what was going on in the owl’s head while on the Swiffer.
Jerry, you’ve got the Portugal vs USA goals video embedded in your owl post. Cheers, Connor
western screech owl?
No, Western Screech Homeowner.
That’s the species of human, not the species of owl.
Species name please!
Megascops kennicottii
It looks so comically indignant, sitting on the Swiffer.
Looks like the owl is saying, “really, dude? Really?”
Reminds me of Bert from Sesame street. He too manages to convey negative emotions with a blank stare, straight into the camera.
It has such a sociopathic intensity-just like Burt!
I removed a bat from my bedroom ceiling with a Webster (a brush on a pole for cleaning cobwebs that are up high), although all I really did was open the window and just touched the lil’ guy. He removed himself at that point.
🙂
You SHOULD be scared of bats (if not owls) because of rabies.
My cats bring home live adult fully active bats, and release them into the house so that we can all enjoy some play. The cats jump up, catch the bats on the fly, and release them again so that we can play more!
I’m now adept at catching bats in seconds. You just gently tap them while they’re in flight with something soft, like a pillow or a shirt. They fall down to the floor and pretend to be dead, and you place the bristles of a broom over them a (a handbroom works best). Then, while holding them down with the brush, wiggle a dust pan underneath.
Take the bat, broom, and dustpan sandwich outside and toss the bat up in the air: it will take off like, well, a bat out of hell.
I’m thinking of going into business under the name Batbusters.
I don’t think it’s very humane to allow the cats to catch the bats over and over again. Cats have claws and will injure them. You should catch and release the bats as soon as they’re brought inside.
Really, do you enjoy watching these animals tortured?
Oh no, they’re not tortured. I catch the bats as soon as I see them. The cats only catch them if the bats happen to fly away from me to the end of the room I’m not standing in, but the cat is.
Now that I know how to catch them, the cats rarely get a chance for much playing with them. As I said, I can catch them in seconds. I’d never let them torment wildlife.
I can and do also catch mice and baby bunnies, and put them outside unharmed.
Looks like the eastern screech owl, especially if he really is in Kansas City:
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/eastern_screech-owl/id
Amazing that the cat caught it without losing an eye.
If the cat dragged it in and possibly bit the owl, I would have called bird rescue so they could give it an antibiotic.
I would LOVE an owl in my house!
love the color commentary 🙂 And I must admit, I love my “expensive rag on a stick”, even if I haven’t gotten an owl out of my house with it.
What a wussie of a guy! He didn’t have to scream the last time when he had the owl out the window! Must have scared the owl at that point. And the owl even blinked at him.
That last scream made the whole thing for me. It was so uncalled for and unexpected; the owl’s stare totally freaked him out. I wish I knew this guy because creeping up on him and scaring him would be the best!
Haha! He probably would jump out of his skin, screaming like a schoolgirl!
Oh, yeah, can you imagine his fright if the owl did that 360 degree neck thing, a la The Exorcist?! 😛
Someone needs to tell that guy to turn his phone 90 degrees next time his cat brings an owl inside.
Brilliant!
A couple of weeks ago, I went out to the kitchen and found a Morepork sitting on the toaster staring back at me. I had never realised how impressive they look, having never been so close to one before.
Removing it was easy: open the curtains, open the windows, close doors to other rooms, turn off the lights so it could see where it was going. It was out the nearest window in a blink.
I looked about the kitchen, but was unable to find any letters from Hogwarts.
What’s a Morepork where you live? I think that’s what NuwZillanders call the Southern Boobook (Ninox novaeseelandiae), but in Oz (according to the first field guide I used, a 1950’s edition of Leach) it’s one of the names for Tawny Frogmouth (Podargus strigoides, basically a giant nightjar).
“Giant”!? Is it easier to spot?
No, they are definitely not easy to spot as they constantly freak me out when I’m picking avocados and they take off from the very tree I was picking them from having had no idea they were in it.
They are much easier to spot though when perched on a front gate at night with headlights shining directly on them as happened last week.
A truly magnificent looking bird (not owl as many here seem to think).
Picking avocados… I need to put that on my bucket list. If I can arrange to do it while watching a Tawny Frogmouth… a double win.
Well, they don’t ripen on the tree so you have to wait around 8 days for them to ripen so it’s not as great as you might think.
One bonus of this is that they are hard as a rock when picked so you can use a long stick to bash the ones high up and they don’t get damaged when they hit the ground.
A giant arboreal nightjar designed by Jim Henson; it looks exactly like a broken-off tree branch, and nearly always sits in a spot and at an angle where you’d expect a branch to have broken off. And then it opens its eyes, or mouth, or waggles its eyebrows and you’re lost.
Awwww. I just want to kiss moreporks!
Looks like a Common Dust Cowl to me. But I haven’t seen it in its natural habitat before…
That cat doesn’t need a medal, it needs a new plan to kill it’s human. The owl didn’t work.