While we didn’t have a white Christmas this year in Leelanau County, another rare sight, an adult male snowy owl, was found and rescued off the side of the road in December and is now being nursed back to health.
Leelanau county resident Robin Boeske-Dubord was driving on M-72 in Empire on Dec. 20 when herself, daughters, and husband, Eric, found the lone owl appearing to struggle alongside the road. However, another young woman had already stopped with her vehicle headlights facing the owl to see if there was anything she could do, and that’s when Dubord decided to pull over to check out what was happening. Dubord’s first thoughts were immediate concern for the safety of the bird, but she and her husband knew they had to call someone with expertise to better assist with the situation.
“Both my girls and I thought ‘well, something must have happened to this owl, he must be injured,’ and he also looked very tiny,” Dubord said. “Come to find out later, he hadn’t eaten or drank and he flew so far, he was just a little guy — He’d (the owl) go across the road and stay low to the ground and he wasn’t going very far. He was kind of just bouncing back and forth… It was pretty cool because it is a unique situation when you don’t see them very often. They’re pretty incredible and resilient animals to make that kind of journey.”
