ROYSTON, B.C. — When she first noticed something stuck on her fence, Cailin Lindsay thought one of her neighbour’s backyard chickens had escaped. But then she looked closer. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing at first,” Cailin says. “I was pretty shocked.” She raced inside to get help and woke her fiancée from a deep sleep. When Maxwel Hohn looked at the fence, he thought for a moment that he must still be dreaming. “My hair was all in a rat’s nest. I was still in my pyjamas,” Maxwel recalls. “And I was like, ‘Whoa! Oh my god!’” A great horned owl was stuck in the fence, hanging upside down. Maxwel suspected it had been flying down fast to catch a squirrel. “And somehow, it was like a freak accident of both her legs getting caught in between the fence posts,” Maxwel says. “And then she just kind of hung there.” Maxwel rushed to rescue the owl, and after freeing her from the fence, placed the bird safely on the ground. Cailin caught it all on camera. “I felt heartbreak for her,” Cailin says. “It’s not every day an owl gets stuck in a fence.” While they waited for the wildlife hospital to open, the bird didn’t move, except for what looked like shivers. So, Maxwel picked up the bird from the ground, gently wrapped it in a towel, and cradled her on his lap. “To try to give it some body heat,” Maxwel says. “Because if it had been (hanging) there for several hours, the poor thing was probably pretty cold.” Maxwel and Cailin wondered if this was the same owl who they’d seen around their neighbourhood, who they named Floki, after the Marvel character who also had horns on his head. If it was, this was the first time they’d observed her not being a predator. “Its instinct is to hunt squirrels and rabbits and things like that,” Maxwel says. “But it’s also cute. It was a really heartfelt moment to get so close to her.” It was not unlike other experiences the couple has had with wild animals. Maxwel is an Emmy-award-winning nature filmmaker, while Cailin captures behind-the-scenes footage during the productions. “But we’ve never really had a chance to step in and rescue,” Cailin says. “So, it was a really great experience.” Especially after they placed Floki in a box to keep her feeling safe during the drive to the MARS Wildlife Rescue Hospital, where staff told them the owl would be released back in the forest behind their home after it was rehabilitated. “We share the land with the feathered and furry critters around us,” Cailin smiles. “Learning to cohabitate with them and look out for them when they’re in need is really important.”
