His name was Golf.

Not so much because he was found on a golf course as because, on the side of the box he was in, was written the word "Golf".

The call came a little before 10 on Saturday. Folks on the golf course along the river bottom had found an owl all wrapped up in a barbed wire fence. They couldn't get it untangled, so they just cut the wire.

"It still has wire around its wing," the dispatcher reported. She didn't sound hopeful at all. But then, she knows the score as well as I.

Due to death, old age and job transfers, our huge state is down to just two bird rehabilitators. One in the northeast corner, and one in the northwest. Each a four to five hour drive for us.

In this era of tight budgets, the Outfit frowns heavily on spending such resources for just a single animal. Especially for a relatively common species.

The orders are... if they can't be quickly fixed up and released back to the wild, put 'em down.

Wing injuries are almost never a quick fix. I will probably have to kill an owl today.

On the long drives, half of you is always hoping the animal expires before you get there.

He didn't.

Judging by his size, I was guessing a young bird. Probably a male. After I get him home, the wife grabs her gloves, I hand her an owl (by the talons... always, always make sure you have ahold of an owl's talons) and we start following the strand of wire that disappears up under his right wing, only to reappear by his neck. Dangerously close to the eye.

It takes some doing, with my fingers coming back bloody, to realize the wire is not wrapped around the wing. In fact, there is one barb that is buried in a ball of flesh and feathers.

That's it. The bones look fine.

I retrieve a scalpel to gingerly cut the tissue off the wire, and start to hope...

Maybe if we could sew this back up, it could actually fly...

Maybe it shouldn't be me committing surgery.

Without using my fine blade, I call the vet. He's eager and willing to meet me at the clinic.

Once inside, he asks me if it'd be better to knock the owl out with an injection, or gas?

Ummm, how about we just pull the wing back and you see if you can get the wire out?

Apparently he had no idea an owl would actually let you do that, but this little Golf is a real sweetheart. A quick inspection has the vet reaching the same conclusion as I.

However... where I reached for a scalpel, he reaches into the back room and comes back with some huge honking tongs longer than the owl. The type you use to trim chunks off horses hooves! And reaches under the wing, lines it up, and 'chunk!' the wire is free.

And Golf flaps his wing.

Wow. I lift him up by his legs, and both wings beat, in unison. Yes, he holds the right one lower, but he uses it. The vet gives him a careful inspection, and also finds no broken bones or joints. "You might be able to let it go fend for itself," he says. "Or feed it a few mice for a few days."

"But let me give it a slow-acting antibiotic to help." And the friendly owl gets a little injection up his backside.

Now Doc, the outfit won't pay for any of this, so just add it to our bill, okay?

"I'm not worried about it," he says. And repeats himself so he knows I understand. This is gratis.

Almost.

"Would you mind holding him for a couple pictures?" he asks.

No, not at all.

So, upon our return, the wife prepares a feast for our guest. Strips of raw deer rump, and a bowl of warm water. And we commence feeding.

He took to being fed like it's happened most of his life, which it probably has. We just don't look like Mom or Dad, and our meat doesn't have any bones or fur in it. He eats well, but mostly what he wants is the eyedroplets of water.

Which isn't surprising, considering the blood he lost.

I feed him again in the evening, and he is perfectly content to sit in his box and let me stuff his face. And he loves the water/deer blood mixture the wife came up with.

Last feeding is a little before eleven, and the wife is surprised I don't need help, that little Golf is again happy to sit in his box and wait for food and blood water. But his box is too small to turn around in without twisting the injured wing, so I grab a larger box, and a chunk of wood for him to perch on.

As we transfer between boxes, his right wing falls limp. He can flap it a little, but cannot even hold it up close to his body.

Craaap. Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap.

As we wash up the bloody dishes, I comment.

This all probably wasn't so smart.

It's just going to make it harder to do what needs to be done tomorrow.

As usual, the masked heeler wakes me at a quarter to six. As I let her out, I actually debate if I want to peek into the box on the porch, with the window screen and brick on top.

Once again, I am half hoping Mother Nature has taken the decision out of my hands.

She has.

But not the way I expected.

For the box is empty! The window screen, which had been jammed down between a table and chair at one end and held by the brick on the other, is lifted up next to the chair.

My first thought is "Those damn cats!", but there is no blood. No scattering of feathers. And this raised corner, the one above the open flap of the box, would have been almost impossible to lift from the outside.

But from underneath?

If you were invigorated by raw deer meat, fresh blood and antibiotics?

Well, apparently so.

A flashlight inspection of the entire property and nearby streets yielded no owl, but there was one tiny owl feather under the apple tree.

And the wife swears she heard the 'screek' of an immature owl as she drove under the elm trees on her way to church.