Wormwood

CS Lewis wrote the Screw Tape Letters and the main character was a demon named

Screwtape. He had a little assistant demon, Wormwood. This is a story about a different

little demon I named Wormwood. This is not a sweet children’s story filled with fluff and

smiles. It is about a struggle for a little owl to survive when no one, least of all me,

thought it would .

As happens to me many times a day, this story began with a phone call: “I found a bird.”

Then someone I didn’t know showed up at my front door with a box. This is not unusual.

In fact it happens hundreds of times a year. A stranger handed the box to me and

walked away. Lying in the bottom of the box was a bloodied, swollen tattered pile of

feathers. The left side of its face was so swollen I was sure the eye must have been

destroyed. It was bent over backwards in a very unnatural posture. All my education and

experience told me there was no way this bird would survive.

Technically, when I receive a bird that cannot be rehabbed and released, under my

Texas Parks and Wildlife rehab permit, I am to euthanize. I have been rehabbing birds

for a very long time and there are days I just can’t do it. I just can’t kill another creature.

That was one of those days. This bird had been mortally injured, most likely by a close

encounter with a truck.

Well I made the bird as comfortable as possible in a carrier, covered it, and assumed it

would be dead in the morning.

It didn’t die!

So, if the bird was going to struggle to live, I’d better do my part. My old nursing clinical

assessment skills kicked into gear. I washed it and it lay still in my hands. I don’t have

X-ray so I ran my hands over legs, wings, body and head. Looked down its throat. The

entire left side of its head was grossly deformed and swollen. Cool compresses to its

head, a squirt of water in its mouth. It swallowed. This is good. The crop ( a stomach

before its stomach) was empty and it was very thin so food was the next order of

business. I’m one of the few people around that keeps mice and rats in the freezer, and

other things, you really don’t want to know. I put one small fuzzy mouse piece in its

mouth and watch. It swallowed. Back into the carrier to repeat the whole process in an

hour. That was day two.

And it didn’t die.

Every day for the first week, we repeated the routine. Still couldn’t tell if there was an

eye but the swelling was going down. It couldn’t control its head movement, couldn’t fly,

nor perch on a stick or sit up for very long.

But it didn’t die

Cleaned up I could tell that what I had was an Eastern Screech Owl with brownish red

feathers. It couldn’t eat on its own so I placed food in its mouth. I have plenty of rats and

mice, frozen. I am also part of a network of rehabbers of all wild creatures, so when

baby bunnies, possums, skunks, squirrels or raccoons die they are frozen to become

part of the food chain for other birds and mammals that would naturally eat them.

Every hour, I would force open the owl’s mouth to place a tiny piece of meat and a squirt

of water inside. Its appearance was recovering slowly after many baths, with smoother

feathers, but we had a long way to go. I guessed it was a female and an adult but age

was undetermined. In the wild they have a short life, but I do know that Blackland Prairie

Raptor Center just celebrated the 19th birthday of their education Screech Owl

ambassador. This little owl’s future held possibilities, if it survived. I was willing to work

with her since it was apparent that this little bird wanted to live.

The moral dilemma is what is the end game for a brain damaged little wild owl. She was

probably in pain, but I had no way to determine from what, or means to relieve it. She

couldn’t control wild trashing of her head which prevented her from focusing her eyes on

food, a perch or me. Her balance was impaired. She fell off low branches I placed her

on. I didn’t observe any seizures, which was a tiny positive note. So quality of life is the

issue. What quality of life would this little bird have? But it was struggling so hard to

live. There was no one to turn to about this decision. If she failed to progress I could

always euthanize her, which was what I am authorized to do. But nothing says when I

had to kill her. There is no law or rule that sets a timeline. It was all on me.

The big change came at the end of the second week. I looked at her and she looked

back at me, with both eyes! Okay, this was good. Definitely brain damaged, poor head

control, eating very well. It was time to accept the fact this bird was here to stay and

needed a name. Wormwood!

Wormwood came to me on February 1st, 2023. By April it was apparent that this bird

was going to be handicapped but she would be alive. Sitting in a cage doing nothing

does not constitute quality of life in my book. I had to give her purpose. What purpose

could a little brain damaged owl serve? It occurred to me that these birds were common

in our area though generally unseen by residents.

Under the law I have three options, 1- rehab and release, 2- euthanize or 3- place the

bird under an educational permit through US Fish and Wildlife. So I had a way to be

compliant with the law and not kill Wormwood. Sounds easy until I began a national

search for a facility of some kind that could put Wormwood under an educational permit.

Not only would the facility have to be able to place Wormwood under an educational

permit but they had to accept a wild bird that was permanently brain damaged. Though

she was improving slowly over months but the ultimate outcome was an absolute

unknown. There was no other choice, Wormwood and I were committed to keep going.

Improvements happened at glacial speed, but there were improvements. She was in

beautiful feather, eating well and tolerating daily baths. I had to preen her when she

molted because it required too much balance and coordination for her to do it herself. I

sat her on my knee and started preening her, and it must have felt good because she

didn’t move. I called her by name and slowly she would turn her head toward me when I

spoke.

Slowly the head thrashing stopped and I needed her to sit on a glove. A falconer friend

advised me to get anklets and jesses like they use for the falconry hunting birds. She

pulled out the jesses and went to work on the anklets but they didn’t come off. Slowly

she accepted the anklets. I replaced the jesses. I put her on my glove to have her sit

quietly. She bit my thumb! Thank God for that attitude!

That’s the attitude that kept her going and why now, 9 months later, she is ready to

begin her new life. Wormwood is going to the Salisbury Maryland Zoo as an

ambassador. I still choke up when I say that. Now when I say her name, she looks

straight at me, no head thrashing. If I tip my head to one side she copies me, then back

the other way. If I lift my arm she lifts a wing. She was evaluated by two veterinarians

that confirmed that she is brain damaged, and can’t fly thereby meeting the criteria for

being non releasable. BUT she now has purpose. She is going show visitors to the zoo

that courage and heart comes in little packages too.