Great horned owl takes quite a ride in Iowa

An owl with an owie? It happened in Urbandale, Iowa, over the weekend.

A great horned owl hit a car toolin' down the road.

Or did the car hit the owl?

Either way the result was scary for driver and bird. The owl ended up stuck in the front grille, feet-first.

The driver, who didn't know what to do, drove the Chevy to a Chevy dealership, according to the The Des Moines Register.

To the rescue of both the bird and the humans trying to help it — the owl reportedly tried to bite one of the garage guys — came veteran owl "rescuer" Deb Fink of WestPet Animal Control.

"It's freaky because if you look at the grille, the openings are so small. And the great horned owl, they are very large birds," Fink told the Register.

"How they can get in there without being broken into pieces amazes me."

With its feet stuck in the grille, the owl's head and wings were sticking out. Part of the grille had to be cut off from the bottom to give Fink enough room to slide him right out after about 20 minutes, the Register reported.

The Urbandale Police Department posted photos of the owl, both stuck and freed.

"He was bruised, obviously, and we did not see any obvious fractures," Fink told the newspaper.

The little guy was eating and up on his feet by Sunday.

Fink said she gets calls like this about once a year. Scoping the ground for prey from high above on poles or trees, owls are usually too into the hunt to watch out for cars.

They swoop low to the ground.

Then bam!

The Internet is littered with stories of owls getting stuck in car grilles, the latest one from January when a great horned owl flew into the grille of an SUV driving through Virginia and ended up taking a 160-mile ride before it was rescued. It, too, survived.

But boy, was he ticked.

This story was originally published March 1, 2018 at 4:57 PM with the headline "Great horned owl takes quite a ride in Iowa."