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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The Northern Frontier Visitors Centre received a surprise visitor last week in the form of a boreal owl that had a sleepover there after being found seemingly stunned and confused outside.

Strokey the boreal owl sits on a stack of Yellowknife maps at the Northern Frontier Visitors Centre last Thursday. After being found stunned outside the centre's door, Strokey was brought inside before being released back into the wild the next day. - photo courtesy of Tracy Therrien

"I named him Strokey because he almost gave me three strokes," said Tracy Therrien, general manager at the centre, of the shock she experienced while dealing with the small predatory bird.

It was around 6 p.m., Nov. 15, and Therrien was in the facility alone. She had stayed late to finish decorating the Christmas tree, which she never did get around to finishing because of the events that followed. Therrien had stepped outside the centre for a moment and almost tripped over something fluffy lying on the ground. Initially, she thought it was a small dog but upon closer inspection it appeared to be an owl curled up in the corner of the door.

"It was just sitting there, like 'help me,'" she said.

That was near-stroke number one.

After determining that the animal wasn't aggressive and seemed to be injured, Therrien picked the owl up and went inside with the intention of putting it in a box and calling around to see what could be done to help the poor creature.

"So, I get him in the store room and he slowly perches himself on my finger and then flies away and perches on a pipe nearby," she said.

Seeing the owl take off flying was near-stroke number two, said Therrien.

Her initial reaction was to call the visitor centre's board of governors, who were in a meeting at that time. They referred her Weledeh MLA and local bird expert Bob Bromley.

"I tracked down Bob. He was at dinner with his mom but he very graciously calmed me down," she said.

While she was on the phone, Strokey flew down from where he was hiding and perched himself on a rack of city maps. Therrien then used her phone to take several pictures of the owl, which seemed startled by the lights and sounds coming from the camera, she said.

Strokey took flight again and disappeared.

Thinking that she lost the owl in the centre was near-stroke number three.

"I thought, good Lord I've lost him and we're never going to get him," said Therrien.

She said Bromley instructed her to leave water out for the owl and let it stay in the centre for the night, saying he would stop by the following morning to help her catch it.

True to his word, Bromley was there the next morning with frozen ptarmigan wings, trying to entice Strokey down from his lofty perch on a rafter.

Bromley, a bird biologist since 1997, said he gets these emergency bird calls from time to time and in that respect this incident was no surprise. He said he was more concerned with making sure the owl was healthy than with trying to catch it himself.

"I knew it would take a landing net and some effort to catch it in that big space," Bromley said of his recommendation to call wildlife officers. "There are a ton of perching spots in there."

Boreal owls are the smallest known owl around Yellowknife, said Bromley. While they are not abundant in the area, they are well within their normal range. It's not unusual for these owls to become mesmerized by lights, and fly into things and stun themselves, said Bromley.

When the ptarmigan wings didn't work, wildlife officers were called in to try and capture it.

While Therrien was not present when the bird was finally captured, she said she was told it took two people wielding butterfly nets to catch the owl.

"We really should have taken a video, it could have been a YouTube moment," she said.

Department officials later contacted Therrien to say that the owl had likely hit a window outside and stunned itself. However, it was perfectly healthy except for being slightly dehydrated after the ordeal.

Judy McLinton, the department's manager of public affairs and communications, confirmed two wildlife officers captured the owl on Friday, and brought it back to their office to be released later that day.

"The owl is fine and the owl is back in the wild," she said.

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