Owls in Towels
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owlsintowels.org
Owls in Towels
@owlsintowels.org
2.2K followers 18 following 130 posts
Wildlife rehabilitators often wrap owls so they can be weighed and fed. If not, the owls get in a flap.
The result? Loads of pictures of #owlsintowels

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The season’s first orphaned Ruru was admitted to Birdcare Aotearoa's nursery. BCA says with food, rest, and flight practice this feisty youngster can be released in a safe location.
Want to donate? birdcareaotearoa.org.nz/donate/ Video source: instagram.com/p/DR-9wwck0OQ #owlsintowels 💛🦉 🇳🇿
January 11, 2026 at 8:48 AM
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Great Horned Owl tangled in a soccer net. No fractures but heavy swelling in soft tissues due to struggling. Congress of the Birds advises "Taking nets down when not in use can prevent these injuries." Want to donate? www.congressofthebirds.org Source: fb.com/102301306190... #owlsintowels 💛🦉
Angry yellow eyes on this Great Horned Owl are accentuated by the V-shape of his brow stretching from the tips of his plumicorns to his nostrils. He's burrito-wrapped in a vanilla towel, held by a rehabilitator with blue gloves. The towel covers the tip of his beak, and lifts a tuft of feathers to the back. It cannot be overstated how mad he looks. Lighting has a dramatic effect on the GHOW's appearance. His pupils are much smaller, contracted in the brighter setting, and his expression far calmer compared to the previous photo, despite being fundamentally the same. Make no mistake, he's still plotting murder. He's not wearing a towel here, and we see the yellow mesh of the soccer net that got him into this situation wrapped around his left wing. The incident in question. The goal frame is on its side amid piles of autumn leaves before a white paling fence. The GHOW stares violently at the camera as the rescuer holds him by the legs. His wing and back feathers are ensnared in the strands of green-yellow mesh that has been cut free from the main net. He does not look remotely thankful.
January 1, 2026 at 11:50 AM
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Luna the Spectacled Owl is the resident matriarch raptor at Belize Raptor Center, going on 30 years wise. Here she's wrapped so the carers can trim her beak as it had "gotten a bit too long." Want to donate to BRC? belizeraptorcenter.org/donate/ Source: sent in #owlsintowels 💛🦉 🇧🇿
Luna the Spectacled Owl is wrapped like a torpedo at Belize Raptor Center. Luna's encased in a bright seafoam green towel on top of a second towel, aqua blue, folded upon a bed of polished floorboards next to a rotary grinding tool. A microwave sits behind. Luna's eyes are olive green and looking squarely at the camera, unimpressed. The "spectacles" of her species' namesake are white, in stark contrast to her black plumage. The spectacles are more akin to a pair of greater than '>' and less than '<' symbols that don't quite meet in the middle. Her chin feathers, also white, look a little like a beard. A slightly different angle of Luna. Interestingly, owl beaks keep growing. Their talons too, and just like human hair and fingernails, they need the occasional trim. In the wild this excess growth tends to exfoliate naturally when they're out hunting and scavenging, picking meat from bones etc. But in captivity? Owls (and other birds of prey) work a little less hard for their food. Less wear and tear means the keratin builds up, and growth is spurred along by nutrient-rich diets. So carers often use tools to trim and shape (aka "cope") their beaks to maintain proper function and health for the birds. The brand-agnostic rotary tool in the foreground is one such coping instrument. If looks could kill, we'd all be dead right now.
December 29, 2025 at 12:17 PM
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If it’s any reassurance, Saw-whets are nomadic and so aren’t tied to a particular habitat. NatGeo quotes Ellen as saying “They don’t have a favourite tree. They exhaust the food source and move on”

Interesting side fact: Saw-whets also find a new mate each season
December 24, 2025 at 2:23 PM
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Rocky the Owl was a surprise stowaway in a giant spruce tree transported from upstate NY to 30 Rock Plaza. The owl was rescued by a worker and rehabilitated by Ellen at Ravensbeard. More at owlsintowels.org/rocky-the-xm... Want to donate to RWC? givebutter.com/ravensbeard-... #owlsintowels 💛🦉🎄
‘Twas the month before xmas in upstate New York, when Ellen Kalish had a curious talk. “Can you help with a bird?” asked the voice on the phone, “Yes we can,” Ellen said in a welcoming tone. The caller explained that her husband found loose an owl on the branch of a Norwegian Spruce. But this tree? ‘Twas uncommon, no ordinary stock. ‘Twas picked for a place. And that place? 30 Rock! [Rocky the Northern Saw-whet Owl is snugly wrapped in an orange knitted scarf held by Ellen Kalish at Ravensbeard Wildlife Center]
December 24, 2025 at 11:00 AM
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Morley the Morepork is released by Judy Fentress, of Judy's Bird Nursery at The Sculpture Park along the Waitakaruru Stream in the Waikato region NZ. Full video: youtu.be/vU1-EmBnCA4 #owlsintowels 💛🦉 🇳🇿
Morley is wrapped in an astroturf-green towel, held by Judy out of frame on a forest pathway. In the full video, Morely nibbles angrily at the towel and the footage cross-fades to a close-up of his face, somewhat less-agitated and with a better view of his alert green-yellow eyes. The final shots are him in slow-motion departing the confines of the towel. He takes flight to a tall bank of vegetation in the mid distance - flapping eagerly over the heads of onlookers, returning to the wilderness where he will spend the rest of his days.
December 18, 2025 at 4:59 AM
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Important correction: Judy's nursery is still operating but at a limited capacity: "I am no longer taking garden birds, only natives now. That's all that has changed. I need help and money and someone joining me to do something like this. It requires a DOC permit and a lot of time and energy"
December 18, 2025 at 1:35 AM
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Another Morepork / Ruru being cared for by Judy Fentress. This one is very young and still has his baby fluff. Judy was featured in a Department of Conservation (DOC) blogpost celebrating her years of dedication to New Zealand native birds: blog.doc.govt.nz/2023/04/11/j... #owlsintowels 💛🦉 🇳🇿
A juvenile Ruru / Morepork still has his baby fluff - thin wisps of white feathers around his head that make him look like an old man. His eyes are wide, yellow, and lacking any thought behind them. Some darker markings above look like raised eyebrows, as if he's especially shocked by the featherless bipeds around him. He's wrapped in a blue tea towel, held to the chest of Judy the rehabilitator behind.
December 17, 2025 at 8:47 AM
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Bonus video of Judy releasing a Ruru at Sculpture Park along the Waitakaruru Stream (which incidentally means 'owl by the river') sculpturepark.co.nz
December 16, 2025 at 5:46 AM
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After decades of dedicated service, Judy's Bird Nursery in the Waikato region of NZ is closing operations. A huge thanks to Judy Fentress for her extraordinary and invaluable work helping native birds. Pictured is a Ruru in a towel by u/NewZealandDunc i.redd.it/4m2og4cw1i3g... #owlsintowels 💛🦉 🇳🇿
Close-up of a Ruru's face wrapped in a coral pink towel. His eyes are yellow, wide and bulging. The photographer's hand is reflected in one pupil. The owl's chin feathers are a little matted, possibly from his latest meal. His beak is a pale olive-grey and looks like a miniature archetype of the plague doctor, but with nostrils for eyes.
December 16, 2025 at 5:41 AM
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Illustration of an Owl in a Towel by MooseAllain
December 11, 2025 at 12:53 PM
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The photographer says it's for determining the owl's age:
"Under the soft glow of a black light, the owls’ feathers reveal a hidden secret: a pigment that shines bright pink. The younger the owl, the more vibrant the glow. As they age, the pink slowly fades. It’s a breathtaking thing to witness."
December 11, 2025 at 12:45 PM
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Did someone say TOWL
December 11, 2025 at 12:35 PM
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Barbed-wire tore this Short Eared Owl's wing, but expert vet care and suturing of wounds in a surgical suite funded by donors gave this cutie the best chance at release. Want to donate to Discovery Bay WBR? discoverybaywildbirdrescue.com/donate Source: instagram.com/p/CVgy6iIvoC0/ #owlsintowels 💛🦉
A Short Eared Owl is bundled in a brown towel. The owl's eyes - wide in size and narrow in focus - appear mostly black from the pupils within, and are flanked by crescents of yellow, like bright parentheses. He has white feathers about his face, punctuated by a black beak and surrounded by a mane of caramel, brown and charcoal feathers. An oblique close-up of the owl in an enclosure with natural light. A purple bandage takes up the bottom left of frame, wrapped around the owl's wing. The owl's attention is off-camera somewhere. The owl's eye is a black circle surrounded by a narrow ring of yellow, like a solar eclipse. Same owl, different towel. The rehabilitator wears a blue hoodie and holds the owl lightly to their chest, with the owl's legs locked between their fingers. The owl's talons are in grabby mode. His expression is, despite everything, fairly neutral. Maybe a little grumpy, but a neutral kind of grumpy.
December 11, 2025 at 12:23 PM
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A Brown Boobook is admitted for injuries from a window collision. He's burrito-wrapped in a towel with an expression vaguely reminiscent of a certain Studio Ghibli character...
Original post by Chungnam Wild Animal Rescue Center in Korea 🇰🇷 Source: fb.com/860196862802... #owlsintowels 💛🦉
A Boobook with brown feathers and lustrous yellow eyes is wrapped in a vanilla towel. Draped behind is a grey blanket featuring the face of the titular character from My Neighbor Totoro, the 1988 animated film by Studio Ghibli. The owl's eyes are wide and ever-so-slightly divergent in focus, almost perfectly matching the character behind.
December 8, 2025 at 11:11 AM
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Volunteers for Rocky Point Bird Observatory 🇨🇦 are banding tiny Northern Saw-whet Owls for research. They gently examine the nocturnal birds, and check feathers under UV to help find their age. Want to donate? rpbo.org/donate/ Source: instagram.com/p/DPWyQEBEsRo 📷 SHEENA DAVIES #owlsintowels 💛🦉
A Saw-whet Owl's head pops out of a glacier-blue pouch. The owl is held by a volunteer wearing an orange long-sleeve top, whose giant hand in the foreground gives a sense of scale of how small these creatures are. It's a night shot, but the subject is well lit against the dark. The owl's eyes are near-perfect concentric circles of black pupils inside green-yellow irises, focussed just above the camera. This one's feathers are white to ashy-brown. The owl has an outstretched wing on a tabletop beneath the violet glow of a blacklight. A volunteer holds the owl's feet in one hand, and fans the feathers of the wing with the other. The tube light fluoresces the scene like a rave, highlighting the person's polished fingernails in brilliant white and the owl's feathers in a cosy red and pink. Although open, the owl's eyes are dark, and what little light is reflected in them is unexpectedly brighter inside the pupil than the surrounding iris, giving the owl a ghostly supernatural look. A Saw-whet Owl is centre of frame with their legs lightly held in the volunteer's right fist. Their left hand holds a panel about the size of a playing card but half as wide next to the owl's face. The panel contains 4 shades of yellow ranging from pale ale to lemon orange Sparkling Duet, each numbered to help register the pigment of the owl's eyes.
December 3, 2025 at 1:12 PM
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A pair of retired Great Horned Owls, Alice (28) and Iris (20+) get their beaks and talons trimmed at the International Owl Center in Houston, Minnesota. Want to donate to IOC? internationalowlcenter.org/donate.html Source: fb.com/125729527310... #owlsintowels 💛🦉
Alice the 28 year old Great Horned Owl is cocooned in a sunny lime towel. She is lying on her back, with the camera looking down and her looking right back up. Her eyes are pear-yellow with an expression that says "do not eff with me". Side view of Alice. Her beak is pointed to the ceiling and being trimmed by a Dremel. Her face is obscured by a hand in the foreground holding her head steady while another hand does the trimming. If Alice fears this rotary tool, she keeps it hidden. It's a coping mechanism. Same angle but no longer obscured by human hands, Alice turns to the camera to express herself, fully. Her mouth is wide and she looks IRATE. A second person's forearms enters the frame to brace either side of Alice's torso with the towel. Another (!) set of hands, this time restraining Alice's ankles. Three people are involved in this process, four if you count the photographer. Attached to said ankles are fuzzy feet, each clenched in a ball showcasing Alice's impressive talons. Also impressive is her plumage in stripes of black and white.
December 1, 2025 at 3:42 AM
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A rufous (red) Eastern Screech Owl mending from a car collision that fractured his wing and foot. Doc's Vet wrote "He has just woken up from surgery. Send him good healing vibes!"
Want to donate to Doc's Veterinary Wildlife? venmo.com/u/docsveteri... Source: fb.com/122110877906... #owlsintowels 💛🦉
A stunning red-morph Screech Owl with a bandaged wing is nested in a white fleecy fabric. He stares at the camera with wide eyes in a shade of pale yellow-green that matches his beak. His feathers are reddish-brown all over, with patches of cream and streaks of black / dark brown. His rictal bristles around the beak and between the eyes are all standing up and flared out like a scrubbing brush, but I don't think he'd like it if you used them in that way. A single plumicorn (ear tuft) stands up on the left, the other covered by the fabric.
November 28, 2025 at 3:08 AM
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A Barred Owl in care at Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research with notably large black eyes is photographed prior to being released. Want to donate to Tri-State? tristatebird.org/donate/ Source: fb.com/102322002983... #owlsintowels 💛🦉
A Barred Owl is wrapped in a pale pink-white towel. The rehabilitator behind wears a dark top in a shade best described as "ocean diving on a moonlit night". The owl has large black eyes, with the slightest tinge of brown to them, and a ceiling tube light reflected in each. She has a bright yellow beak and plumage in bars of ashy white and brown. She looks like a polite owl.
November 15, 2025 at 10:40 AM
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An Endangered African Grass Owl with a fractured leg (hit by a combine harvester). Vets near Pretoria 🇿🇦 got her leg stable so she could hopefully heal at Owl Rescue Centre and get back home ASAP. Want to donate to ORC? owlrescuecentre.org.za/Donate/ Source: fb.com/561681345834... #owlsintowels 💛🦉
An African Grass Owl in a white towel expresses a look that sits somewhere between fear and trust, as if to say, "The featherless apes have trapped me, but I sense they're not going to eat me... yet". She has black marble eyes above a pink beak, with a short trail of mascara-like markings (like back-to-back musical notes or lower-case q and p) running down either side a bridge of creamy white feathers. Are these inky lines due to a natural pigmentation of her feathers? Or some long-term staining from build-up of eye goop? Hard to say. Eye goop experts please advise. In spite of this description, she's a beautiful owl, with cautious curiosity framed inside a cardioid-shaped facial disc, like a heart or half-apple.
November 12, 2025 at 8:20 AM
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Think Wild posted a juvenile Northern Saw-Whet Owl noting she was well-flighted and eating live prey. A week later she was self-feeding and hunting crickets, with mouse tests next. 🦗🍴 Want to donate to Think Wild Central Oregon? thinkwildco.org/donate/ Source: fb.com/125479683001... #owlsintowels 💛🦉
A Saw-Whet Owl has bright yellow eyes, wide open and fixed on camera. Her plumage is brown except for a flourish of white on the forehead and between the eyes. Only her head is visible; the rest of her is wrapped in a mossy teal fabric. The rehabber is behind wearing a navy blue shirt with the circular Think Wild logo in blue and gold, and clinic name in orange. The logo features a deer and raptor in a rocky desert beneath a sunny sky.
November 6, 2025 at 9:36 AM
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There's no donation page on the Capes Raptor site, so if you really want to have an impact, read the original article by Madigan Landry at ABC South West abc.net.au/news/2025-07... and write to enquiries@apvma.gov.au RE: Unregulated Poisons. Rark them up, remind them their report is 4 months-overdue
Councils join activists in boycotting rat bait as 60 owls die in WA
Wildlife carers in WA say the easy availability of rat and mouse poisons is having a devastating impact on native animals.
www.abc.net.au
November 3, 2025 at 9:30 AM
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Native animals like this Australian Masked Owl are the unintended victims of commonly available rat and mice poisons ☠️ in a report by ABC "Despair Over Owl Deaths as Regulator in Fourth Year of Rat Bait Review"
Want to donate to Capes Raptor Centre? Source: fb.com/watch/?v=194... #owlsintowels 💛🦉
A Masked Owl wrapped in an orange towel is the poster bird for an ABC article about native animals that sadly are often killed by rat poisons. (The owl is fine by the way, the reporters simply needed a model from Capes Raptor Centre). Quick summary of the article below, see next image for a proper alt text description: Wildlife carers say rodenticides are having a devastating impact on native wildlife. People who buy these poisons - readily available in hardware stores and supermarkets - use them to bait mice or rats, and can inadvertently kill or severely injure hunter animals like owls that eat the poisoned prey. Owls can eat upwards of 1000 mice a year. Local councils in Western Australia are working with wildlife advocates to protect dwindling owl populations by seeking regulatory limits on the availability of these poisons and their spread in the food chain. The regulating body APVMA (Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority) was expected to finalise documents for its anticoagulant rodenticides review in July. The report is now months overdue. This Australian Masked Owl has a heart-shaped facial disk, much like his cousin the Barn Owl from the same genus, Tyto. His feathers are generally light tan to white in colour, with the exception of flecks of brown around his neck, and a dark ring of brown around his head, forming the "mask" from which he gets his name. He is wrapped in an orange towel, held by a person in black clothes in an outdoor setting. He got big feets Descriptively, there's not much more to add. I just wanted to upload another image with the owl a little more face-on. Last one I swear. Such a good looking owl.
November 3, 2025 at 9:03 AM
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Calendar round-up of the 31 days of #Owltober 🕸️👻🦉 Happy #Owloween!

Higher res available at owlsintowels.org/owltober-2025/
A calandar grid of 31 owls, one for each day of 'Owl toe burr' 2025, with the message "Happy Owl-o-ween from Owls in Towels dot org"
November 1, 2025 at 9:16 AM
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Happy #Owloween! It's the 31st of #Owltober and we've saved one of the best for last: A wet Ruru Owl at Wildbase Recovery after a bath for flaky skin. Pics pre- and post- blowdry are night and day. Want to donate? wildbaserecovery.co.nz/help-us/dona... Source: fb.com/389992264669... #owlsintowels 💛🦉
A Ruru Owl is thoroughly bedraggled, wrapped in a blue towel after a bath. His cat-like eyes are fixed on the camera, wide and yellow. Feathers around the chest are matted and parted to expose skin that looks like, well... uncooked chicken breast. Green plastic boxes appear on a concrete slab behind. A full body shot of the wet owl, sans towel. His Sid Vicious plumage is blackened by the wetness, and some barbs are stuck to the the feather shafts, creating gaps in the wings that look like see-through ribs. The photo really is something: imagine a yellow-eyed Koosh ball on a swivel, sticking out from a tarred turkey carcass. A truly bizarre and sorry-looking creature, but if it's any assurance the owl is fine. His legs are bowed with tan-feathered toes splayed out below. He stands upon a white net inside a green plastic box, with wooden perches around the edge. Another angle of this Cronenbergian horror with Disney eyes. This one's taken a little closer, and the owl's leg stance is sturdier. If you ignore the whole looking-like-a-drowned-abomination aspect, he's far more photogenic and you know what? Kinda badass. Like a character-select screen in an RPG. What's interesting is we don't often see the definition of an owl's neck (the head feathers typically merge into the shoulder like a lumpy snowman), but here with everything matted and shaped to the owl's bone structure he appears almost humanoid. How can this possibly be the same owl? Feathers now dry, our Ruru friend has resumed his original puffy shape, like an inflatable butternut squash. His eyes are still wide, but rather than taking up 90% of his face, they're now (in terms of size) like finger holes in a bowling ball. His legs are held by a bare-handed rehabilitator. His chest feathers are an impressive medley of brushstrokes (the owl not the person) in white, tan and dark brown. The background is a garage interior, with ladder, workbench, and sheets of soft plastic strewn about before a wall of cardboard boxes and metal rolling door.
October 31, 2025 at 7:11 AM