Motorists, Residents Band Together to Save Baby Owl From Rush Hour Traffic

I turned onto Lake Avenue, toward the A&P in Midland Park, on Tuesday night and saw a pickup truck in the other lane slowly inching toward Godwin Avenue. It's rare to see anyone going slowly on this busy thoroughfare, especially at about 6:15 p.m. on a weekday. Then I saw it.

It looked like a strangely-shaped paper shopping bag, straddling the double-yellow line on my side of the road, wobbling slightly back and forth. The pickup truck driver accelerated just enough to say, "You believe that? There's an owl stuck in the middle of the road" before advancing.

A what? An owl? I stopped the car.

Cars continued passing on the other end but with the owl in my lane, a few feet ahead, and cars idling behind me for a few hundred feet onto Godwin, I wasn't going anywhere. Even if I were able to find a way to pass, this small gray-horned owl may not have been so lucky to escape the drivers roaring to get where they needed to go.

I got out of the car, clapped loudly, shouted, appeared threatening (ineffective in most settings; this was no different). Nothing. A bored, contemptuous, scared face stared back at me.

By now I heard expletives hurled at me for holding up commutes. I grabbed an umbrella. Maybe this would shoo it to the side of the road. Instead, it only served to make the owl more upset.

It puffed up considerably, extending the wings, clapping its beak and showing its razor-sharp talons. Maybe the umbrella wasn't a great idea after all.

I called the Ridgewood Police Department.

"I know this sounds crazy, but there's a baby owl in the middle of the road on Lake Avenue. It may be injured, it can't seem to fly. Maybe you guys could stop by with Animal Control," I said to the desk.

By now motorists from both sides had formed something of an owl rescue subcommittee as vehicles fled, no doubt in commuter frustration, lessening the traffic volume.

Gail Grossi of Wyckoff, the driver of the car behind mine, said we could toss a blanket over it and get it off the road, minimizing the danger. 

Soon, Ridgewood resident Laurie Tesar, who works in landscape architecture and had been driving back from a dentist appointment, came by with a large board. The baby owl, stuck in the blanket, was scooped onto the board and out of danger, now in a neighboring yard.

A Ridgewood Police officer soon arrived and shortly thereafter, Animal Control. The animal control officer said the bird was likely knocked out of the nest during the heavy weekend storms, away from the adults that were likely to be fast asleep in the nest.

"He's probably only three-to-four weeks old," she said,  adding that its wings were not developed, though she didn't believe the animal was injured.

Ellen Barkenbush, a neighbor whose property houses the owl nests, remarked she was concerned that the bird would wander into the street again and may not be able to get back to the nest, given the inability to fly.

The decision, offered by the animal control officer, was made to take the owl to the Franklin Lakes Animal Hospital, after which it would likely be sent to Millington, where the Raptor Trust has a bird sanctuary.

"In 40 years of living on Lake Avenue I've never seen traffic stop because of an owl," Barkenbush said. She added that given how busy the intersection is, the bird is fortunate to not have been killed. If not relocated, it may not be so lucky next time.

"It's just great to see people banding together to save an owl in danger," Tesar, the landscape architect, added as the Animal Control van rode up toward Franklin Lakes.

As the sun set on Lake Avenue, cars sped by as usual, the world seemed normal again. But really, it may not have been much of a victory for the owl at all.

Do you risk the owl staying near its family where chances are strong it could be hurt, if not outright killed? Or do you take the owl from the only environment it knows and hope its life is better?

We'll likely never know how things end up turning out for the owl "who" couldn't cross the road.