Look to the sky....

This beautiful bird of prey caught my eye while visiting dobbies garden centre. For those that don't know its a European Eagle Owl and what a stunning bird they are. I have personal experience of these birds. I use to work as a Vet nurse, an amazing job i loved it. During my time someone asked us to take in this particular bird as they couldn't look after it anymore. We had links to raptor rescues so we agreed and they signed it over. On this particular occasion it was late in the afternoon, we couldn't get her picked up or hold her at our centre as we didn't have the right equipment. Luckily for us one of our receptionists keeps birds of prey and agreed to hold her if we could take her over. Brilliant ! i hear you say, job done you then add... But the thing is this is at least a 30 min journey with no cage or separate way to store the bird safely so how the hell do we get this giant hungry bird with a sharp beak and sharper claws who is about to wake up and want to hunt or be fed from our surgery to a safe place ?? Well agter some debating we did this...

We wrap the huuuuge raptor bird in a large blanket, making sure to pad out her feet. Keeping her head uncovered.

Vet drives as she is insured in her car..

I hold said huuuge bird on my knee...

Vet drives very fast, avoiding lights and basically anything else that means we have to stop.

I sit trying not to move or scream anytime the lovely huuuuuge bird looks as though its going to wake up.

This was all working fine, except for the occasional near crashes each time a passing car noticed the huge bird sitting in the passanger seat lol

Then we realised it was getting darker and darker AND the huuuuge bird was moving more and more AND the traffic got busier and busier. We turned on the internal lights praying this would make a difference NOT likely.

She did wake up AND she did the scary Owl head turn on me AND our eyes do met !! i froze the vet, who happens to be scared of birds tried to exit the fast moving car, luckily my "i know where the drugs are kept" threat stopped her lol

We kept moving and 10 mins later arrived at our destination whereby Vet exited the only just stopped car and ran practically screaming into the darkness in the vague direction of the house and our huuuge bird handler saviour who did promptly appear to rescue me ! I dont know who was more relieved me, the Vet or the poor Bird lol

I can honestly say it was the scariest, funniest and most interesting patient iv ever had to handle... Well except for the little Marmoset Monkey who came in for an emergency C section... But thats another story!

Reason to smile : memories of the best job, patients and work collegue's iv had the pleasure of working with...