It is rare to see a great horned owl up close, especially at 8 a.m. So it took several minutes for Terri Cain, garden manager at Guilford's Hubbard Community Garden (located behind the Medad Stone Tavern), to realize that the ball of feathers looking up at her from the ground was indeed a great horned owl.

The owl, sitting in an open space in the Children's Garden area, didn't attempt to fly or get away. Cain called wildlife rescuers from A Place Called Hope. Within 20 minutes, the owl was captured and on its way to the rehabilitation center in Killingworth. It was determined that the bird was a possible victim of secondary poisoning, an all-too-common cause of death for birds of prey. The use of poisons to control mice and other rodents as well as pesticides has a wide impact on non-targeted wildlife. Mice who have been poisoned run slower, unfortunately making them easy targets for wildlife who rely on them as a food source.

This story has a happy ending. The owl made a full recovery and was successfully released back into the Hubbard Community Garden.