‘It’s the Christmas miracle of 2020’
The tale of the rescued owl — who has, naturally, since been dubbed “Rockefeller” — quickly became the silver lining of the rocky debut for this year’s version of the iconic Christmas tree.
Written content by Andrea Salcedo via The Washington Post
Ellen Kalish is used to getting calls about taking in undomesticated animals at her nonprofit group, the Ravensbeard Wildlife Center in Saugerties, N.Y. So when a woman called on Monday asking if she could rehabilitate an owl, she was happy to help.
Then, the caller told her where exactly this tiny owl was hiding out.
“She said, ‘At the Christmas tree in the Rockefeller Center,’ ” Kalish, the founder and director of the center, told The Washington Post. “I’ve been doing this for 20 years and I’ve never heard a story like that.”
The tale of the rescued owl — who has, naturally, since been dubbed “Rockefeller” — quickly became the silver lining of the rocky debut for this year’s version of the iconic Christmas tree. The 75-foot-tall Norway spruce from Oneonta, N.Y., emerged on Saturday looking worse for wear, with some calling its bedraggled branches and thin needles as a “metaphor for 2020.”
As the world was busy this weekend mocking the tree — which a Rockefeller Center spokesperson told NBC’s “Today” show will look better after unfolding more following its long ride from upstate — a small stowaway was hiding inside its limbs.
When the spruce was still horizontal early in the process, one of the workers who was unraveling the branches spotted the creature buried in the base of the tree, Kalish said. The woman who called Kalish, who said her husband also works for the company in charge of this task, told her the man initially thought the owl might be injured because it was glued to the tree’s base.
That’s when one of the workers called his wife to tell her he was bringing the owl home, and asking her if she could find a place that specialized in helping wildlife animals.
The raptor, which most likely accompanied the tree in its 170-mile journey to Manhattan, is the smallest of its kind living in the Northeast. So, how did he end up stuck in the tree in the first place? Read more from The Washington Post.
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