We posted a photo to our Facebook page yesterday that showed an outrageously cute owl sprawled out on a kayak–presumably after it had been rescued from the water. Fans asked for the backstory, so we got to the bottom of it.
Last fall, a Finnish kayaker named Pentti Taskinen was out for a paddle in Finland’s Lake Tuusula. He spotted a disturbance in the water, and when he got closer, realized it was a struggling owl. With the bird obviously at risk of drowning, Taskinen helped it onto the front of his kayak and headed for shore, as reported by Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat.
Once the Northern Hawk Owl dried off and regrouped a bit, it managed to fly away just fine. This is the second kayak-bird rescue we’ve heard about recently, as last year a GearJunkie editor rescued a pair of diving birds using a Folbot folding kayak in Denver.
As a geeky aside, Northern Hawk Owls aren’t nocturnal like most owls, instead they prey on small mammals when the sun is high in the sky. So, there ya’ go.
