This owl can out-dance all of us
Get ready to have all of your Halloween dreams come true in a one-minute video from the Eagle Valley Raptor Center. I can’t emphasize how utterly and completely adorbs it is. It’s sweeter than candy corn. And candy apples. And all the trick or treat candy in the world if it was mixed together, baked into a cake and slathered with pumpkin spice icing. Have I got your attention? Good. Because we’re talking SERIOUSLY sweet.
You might be wondering what the Eagle Valley Raptor Center is and what exactly carnivorous dinosaurs have to do with Halloween (or sweetness). Spoiler alert: not that kind of raptor. We’re talking about birds of prey (yeah, they’re known as raptors), not Velociraptors. So there’s really no need to call Chris Pratt. (Not that we would complain if he just randomly turned up.)
The Eagle Valley Raptor Center takes in eagles, hawks, vultures, kites and falcons that are orphaned, sick, injured or otherwise unable to survive in the wild. They also rescue owls. Cute, adorable, DANCING owls!
Meet Oakley. Oakley is a Great Horned Owl that was hand-raised at Eagle Valley. During his tenure at Eagle Valley, he was a little too young and fragile to interact with other owls, but he needed the comfort and warmth that a mama owl would normally provide. So rescuers gave him the next best thing—a stuffed animal owl. Apparently, they gave him a few. But Oakley’s fave was a stuffed owl that sings the Halloween classic song Monster Mash by Bobby Pickett. (Because clearly Oakley is the most rad Great Horned Owl in the entire universe. Also, he likes himself some Halloween.) According to the staff at Eagle Valley, he leaned against the hilarious toy all the time. He also liked to dance every time it played the song, and much to our everlasting gratitude, they captured Oakley’s excellent bee-bopping dance skills on video.
Oakley has since been released into the wild (mad props for him!), but he’ll forever dance in our memories. Because YouTube.
(Image and video via YouTube.)