Thursday, August 10, 2023

Boaters spot injured bird trying to swim to their boat. A pool noodle saves the day


Screen grab from Facebook

Brooke Baitinger
Wed, August 9, 2023

A group of people were out boating on a lake in British Columbia, Canada, when a peculiar sight caught their eye.

They noticed a “bald eagle bobbing in the water,” so they turned around to rescue it, Natalie Parent said on Facebook July 23.

The eagle flew off as they approached — which revealed another bird in the water where the eagle had been, Parent said.

“This poor Osprey was drowning,” she said. “He actually started to swim to the boat but couldn’t make it.”

So Parent’s husband Ed jumped into action to help the injured bird. Photos show the man swimming out to the bird with a pool noodle, scooping it into a towel and swimming back to the boat with it.


The bird didn’t struggle against him, Ed Parent told CBC’s Daybreak South.

“He knew he was being rescued, and he pulled up his wings,” he said. “He looked at me in the face. My face was inches away from his face — he could have pecked at me, and he didn’t. He just wanted to be rescued.”





Once they got the bird on the boat, they learned it had been injured — probably in a fight with the eagle over a fish, Natalie Parent told the news outlet.

The couple dropped the bird off with a local wildlife rescue organization, and said in the comments on the Facebook post that they expect it to make a full recovery so long as its wound doesn’t get infected.

The osprey is now recovering at BC Wildlife Park in Kamloops, CTV News reported. Tracy Reynolds, the organization’s care manager, told the outlet on Aug. 8 that the bird is “doing really, really well.”

Reynolds said the bird has “quite a lot of bruising” and needed stitches for a deep cut, the outlet reported. She said it’s unlikely the bird would have survived without care.

“So happy you were able to save that beautiful bird!” someone commented on Natalie Parent’s Facebook post.

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