Zeus the Screech Owl: Why His Eyes Look Like Galaxies

Originally published 2020-08-12.

Zeus is a western screech owl who lives at the Wildlife Learning Center in Sylmar, in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. His eyes look like swirling night skies because both are clouded by cataracts and old bleeding inside the eye, damage that left him almost completely blind. He was found hurt on a porch in Southern California and has been in the center's care since 2012. Because a blind owl cannot hunt, he will never be released, and instead he works as an animal ambassador for visitors and school groups.

His photos travelled around the world in 2020. The pictures are striking, but the real story is about what happens to wild animals that survive an injury and cannot go home, and about a small, common owl that many Californians live alongside without ever noticing.

How Zeus came into care

Nobody saw what happened to him. Staff at the center have said his injuries could have come from a fight with another animal or from flying into something in the dark. Small owls hunt at night close to houses, roads and fences, and collisions with cars, windows and wires are among the most frequent reasons they end up with rehabilitators.

Whatever the cause, the result was the same: bleeding inside both eyes and lenses that turned cloudy. When he arrived, the team gave him a name to match his look. The deep blue and white flecks reminded them of a starry sky, so they chose the name of the Greek king of the gods, who ruled from the heavens.

Zeus perched in the office at the Wildlife Learning Center. Staff describe him as calm around people, which suits a bird that meets many visitors.

Why his eyes look like galaxies

A cataract is a clouding of the lens, the clear part of the eye that focuses light. In people it is often linked with age, but in wild birds it is commonly the result of trauma. When the lens and the fluid around it are damaged, they scatter light instead of passing it cleanly to the back of the eye. Under a camera flash or bright window light, that scattered light shows up as milky patches, bright specks and dark swirls.

In Zeus, old blood clots inside the eye add darker streaks and spots to the pattern. The combination is what gives him the "galaxy" appearance. It is worth remembering that this is how his eyes look to us, not what he sees. For him, the effect is the loss of almost all useful vision.

A close view of his clouded eyes. The pale flecks are light scattering off the damaged lens, and the darker areas come from old bleeding.

Why a blind owl cannot be released

Owls are famous for their hearing, and many species can find prey in near darkness by sound alone. Even so, a screech owl still relies on sight to fly safely between branches, judge distance when it swoops from a perch, and avoid predators such as larger owls and hawks. Western screech owls mostly hunt by waiting on a perch and dropping onto mice, insects, worms, crayfish and other small animals. Without vision, every part of that routine becomes dangerous.

Wildlife rehabilitators release animals only when they can feed themselves, escape danger and behave normally. An owl that fails those tests is either kept in permanent care, if a licensed facility has room for it, or humanely euthanised. Zeus was lucky in that sense: the center could give him a permanent place, and his calm temperament made him suitable for education work.

Zeus is fed and handled by experienced keepers, because a blind bird cannot find food for itself.

Life at the Wildlife Learning Center

The Wildlife Learning Center sits in an old olive grove in Sylmar. It looks after more than 100 rescued, displaced and zoo-born wild animals for life and runs field trips and outreach programs for schools. Reports from 2020 said Zeus spent his days in the office of Paul Hahn, the center's founder, perched on a stump, and that he was otherwise healthy.

His carers have spoken of how strongly people react to him. One staff comment, shared widely at the time, put it simply: "In our combined 40-plus-years of working with wildlife, we've never seen anything quite like it." They also said that his story makes visitors more curious about screech owls and the habitats they need, which is exactly the job of an animal ambassador.

Educational animals like Zeus let children see a wild owl up close and learn how injuries happen, without anyone taking a healthy bird out of the wild.

Western screech owls at a glance

The western screech owl, Megascops kennicottii, lives from southern Canada down through the western United States and Mexico into Central America. It is small, about 22 centimetres long and around 140 grams, roughly the height of a pair of binoculars. Grey or brown feathers with fine streaks let it disappear against tree bark during the day, and it raises its ear tufts to look even more like a broken branch.

• Habitat: woodland, desert, farmland, and suburban parks and gardens.
• Nesting: tree holes, often old woodpecker cavities, and backyard nest boxes. Clutches usually hold two to seven eggs.
• Voice: despite the name, the main call is not a screech but a series of hollow toots that speed up, like a bouncing ball.
• Lifespan: the oldest wild bird on record was at least 14 years and 4 months old, and a captive pair reached 19 years.
• Status: listed as Least Concern, though numbers are slowly declining in parts of the Pacific Northwest.

Zeus's exact age is not known, but with steady food, shelter and veterinary attention, captive owls often outlive their wild relatives.

Zeus's small size and ear tufts are typical of his species, which is far more common in western towns than most residents realise.

What to do if you find an injured owl

Many birds like Zeus reach care because an ordinary person stopped to help. If you find an owl that cannot fly, a few simple steps give it the best chance:

• Keep children and pets away, and avoid handling the bird more than necessary. Owls have sharp talons.
• If it is safe, gently cover it with a towel and place it in a ventilated cardboard box. Keep the box in a dark, quiet, warm place.
• Do not give food or water. The wrong food can harm an injured bird, and water can be inhaled.
• Call a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, local animal control or a veterinarian as soon as possible. In the United States, it is illegal for private people to keep native owls.

Prevention matters too. Leaving dead trees standing where safe, putting up a nest box, reducing rodent poison use and making large windows more visible to birds all help small owls in neighbourhoods.

Why his story stays with people

Zeus became famous for an unusual look, but he also shows the quieter side of wildlife rescue: years of daily feeding, cleaning and patient handling for an animal that will never return to the wild. His popularity helped many people learn that screech owls live in their own neighbourhoods, and that a phone call to the right rehabilitator can save one.

Sources: Wildlife Learning Center, Sylmar, California; Wikipedia: Western screech owl; Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds: Western Screech-Owl; staff comments as reported by Healthy Food House. Photos: Wildlife Learning Center.