Every year a large Christmas tree is cut down in Upstate New York and trucked down to Rockefeller Center to be installed behind the ice rink. This year, a 75-foot Norway spruce from was felled in Oneonta, in upstate New York and it made the 170 mile trip down to NYC.
A tiny owl was rescued from the branches of the tree in NYC, by a worker who helped transport and secure the tree and his wife called the Ravensbeard Wildlife Center.
At the Center the tiny adult Saw-whet owl owl was swaddled in a wool blanket and named Rockefeller or Rocky for short.
When the owl was found, she hadn’t eaten or drunk in three days, but began to recover after getting fluids and food.
The center said a return trip to Oneonta would likely be too traumatic to the bird, so it planned to release it on facility grounds in the upstate town of Saugerties.
Rocky was released Monday November 23, 2020 at dusk by avian veterinarians and owl experts. “Rocky’s release was a success!” the center said in a Facebook post on Tuesday. “She is a tough little bird and we’re happy to see her back in her natural habitat.”