The Dedicated Ophthalmology Referral Practice

A tawny owl brought in by a rescue centre

This tawny owl was taken in after a road accident by the Vale Wildlife Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre (www.vwc.org.uk) near Gloucester. To start with he or she would not eat and appeared to be blind although they could see no actual broken bones or anything wrong in the eyes. Over a period of three weeks she started to eat again and seemed to see OK. As she would not eat or fly in an outside aviary she was brought to the Eye Veterinary Clinic to have her eyes checked. The following pictures were taken and show no damage from her accident. That means that she will soon be released back into the wild.

The pleated black object is the pecten - it is full of blood vessels so probably for nutrition also puts a shadow onto the retina behind so maybe partly to do with vision but we don't really understand its function. It is frequently damaged especially in road traffic accidents to birds. If the injured bird is presented at the rescue centre with a red eye - full of blood - the chances of recovery of vision are very poor. At least with this bird we could say that the pectens were normal in each eye.