A great-horned owl arrived at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah with its face, chest and right wing covered in dried concrete after falling into a concrete mixer at a nearby construction site. After several cleaning sessions, the owl is on a path to recovery.

The owl arrived at Best Friends’ doors at the end of October, but the sanctuary is unsure of the circumstances that caused the owl to stumble into the mixer. The staff’s first concern was ensuring the owl’s airways were not blocked. After a handful of daily baths, they removed the concrete completely from its body.

Now, the owl is continuing to recover in a flight aviary. The great horn is a silent flier, which helps it hunt its prey, but the cleaning process frayed his feathers. The sanctuary will not release the owl into the wild until it sheds its current feathers, which is expected to happen around late spring or early summer of next year.

The the owl is believed to be a young male due to his size, and is the first case of its kind the sanctuary had seen. Some of the young birds that come to the sanctuary have fallen out of their nests and are not ready to be on their own. Best Friends cares for hundreds of animals at any given time, including dogs, cats, horses, goats, pigs and bunnies, along with birds and wildlife.