Late yesterday afternoon the Hosea Kutako International Airport outside Windhoek was Tyto's first port of call in Namibia, as the bird arrived in the country to start its journey to recover from a suspected broken leg.

Its next stopover, and expected to be its home and place of recuperation for the next couple of weeks, was the Namibia Animal Rehabilitation, Research and Education Centre (Narrec) at Brakwater outside Windhoek.

There wildlife specialist Liz Komen and her staff are set to treat the owl and prepare it for what is expected to be its eventual return to the wild.

The owl's journey to Namibia started with an encounter in a Luanda flat late in August.

It landed in the home of a couple who soon turned out to be the bird's good Samaritans - Luanda residents Lidia and Reinier Doyer.

In a letter to The Namibian that accompanied Tyto to Windhoek yesterday, the couple related that on the evening of August 24 they heard a noise coming from the kitchen of their fourth-floor apartment in the Angolan capital.

They found what they described as a "bedraggled" bird on the floor, its right leg sticking out straight forward and one of its claws cramped into a ball.

The new arrival did not seem to have very good table manners, as it soon regurgitated what was probably remaining from its last meal - "a foul-smelling ball of hairy substance mixed with very small bones", the Doyers related.

The next day they took the bird to one of only two veterinary clinics in Luanda.

They were told that the bird either had a broken leg - in which case nothing could be done, because the clinics lacked the necessary know-how and equipment, like X-ray machines - or had a muscular problem which could be cured by rest, or also might have arthritis, for which nothing could be done either.

The bird was underweight, drawing the scale to 285 grams, whereas an adult barn owl normally weighs in at between 300 and 350 grams.

The bird that arrived in Namibia yesterday weighed all of 390 grams, though, as in the mean time the Doyers had been hand-feeding it with raw beef, mixed with vitamins and bone sawdust, trying to see whether the leg would recover by itself.

It did not.

While the leg had returned to its normal position under the body, the balled talons had opened up, and the bird's feathers took on a healthy sheen, it was still hobbling badly when it walks, the couple reported.

Despite his misfortune, Tyto received another lucky break when the couple contacted a friend in Windhoek, Marion Bause, to ask whether she knew of any places in Namibia that worked with such injured animals and could rehabilitate them to return to the wild.

Soon a cross-border rescue operation was in full swing.

Bause contacted Komen who, within hours, had organised a permit from the Ministry of Environment and Tourism to allow the bird to be brought to Namibia.

After a few days an Angolan government permit had also been issued.

The next helping hand came from Air Namibia - Lidia Doyer works for the airline in Luanda - which agreed to transport the injured animal to Namibia.

Air Namibia pilot Carl Hahn safely delivered the owl that the Doyers had christened Tyto to Bause at the airport yesterday, and from there it was delivered to Narrec.

Commented the Doyers in their letter: "It is amazing how without exception all entities (collective or individuals) gave their assistance, free of charge, to save 390 grs of bird".

The couple thanked the airline, the Angolan Ministry of Agriculture and Namibia's Environment Ministry, which issued the licences, the Maculusso Veterinary Clinic in Luanda, and the Fundacao Quissama, an organisation involved in rehabilitating Angola's Quissama national park after the Angolan civil war, for their help in saving Tyto.

* Barn owls (scientific name: Tyto alba, with the subspecies found in sub-Saharan Africa called Tyto alba affinis; they are also known as church owls, death owls and ghost owls) are found in large parts of the earth - from most parts of Africa to Europe, India, Australia and Latin and North America.

According to an authoritative work on the region's birds, 'Roberts' Birds of Southern Africa', barn owls are widespread in Southern Africa.

They feed mostly on rodents, which can account for 75 to 97 per cent of the birds' diet.

In urban areas - such as where the Luanda owl comes from - barn owls feed mainly on small birds, which can make up as much as 95 per cent of their diet.

Up to half of barn owls take over the nests of hamerkop birds, and some 31 per cent of the owls use buildings to live in, according to Roberts'.

The barn owl can be a very productive breeder.

Roberts' states that in years of rodent plagues a female barn owl can lay the first egg of a new clutch of chicks before the young of her current brood had even left the nest.

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