Owl Makes a Home in Rocket Test Tower : Rescue: Eggs are removed from the nest and taken to an incubation site. Engineers were ready to test engine.

Whooooooever thought a bird couldn’t slow down a multimillion-dollar rocket development project never met the not-so-wise old owl who somehow mistook a steel tower for a hollow oak tree.

Rocketdyne engineers were prepped and ready to test a rocket propulsion system last Saturday when they found a great horned owl’s nest discreetly tucked in the center of a six-story engine test tower just west of Chatsworth in Ventura County.

Within the nest were two eggs, about the size of chicken eggs, which would have been roasted in the flames of a rocket test. Instead, they were carefully removed by Rocketdyne’s fire department and handed over to representatives of the state Department of Fish and Game, who transported them to an incubation site in Simi Valley, hoping to hatch them.

The mother owl was last sighted early Tuesday but could not be found. She had taken over a nest in the test tower originally built by a crow, said Jerry Thompson of the Fish and Game Department. Great horned owls--which are distinguished by feathered tufts that crown their heads like horns--do not make their own nests, but take over abandoned ones, he said.

A week ago Jim Buzzell, the engineer in charge of the test area, was surveying the three-level test tower when a large bird flew off it.

“She startled me,” said Buzzell. “I thought it was a hawk.” Then, trying to locate where the owl came from, he spotted a three-foot-long nest hidden beneath a light-blue grating.

Tuesday, Rocketdyne’s fire department and the Department of Fish and Game removed the nest. At first the rescuers planned to cut the grating but concluded that that might harm the eggs.

Dean Lidstrom, a Rocketdyne firefighter and veteran mountain climber, was hoisted to a platform below the grating, where--held by ropes--he leaned backward over the edge until he could reach up into the nest.

“I’ve been rock climbing for 15 years so this is really simple,” he said, after handing over the eggs to Thompson.

Thompson said the eggs ordinarily would hatch within 30 to 32 days, but these eggs were cool, indicating they may no longer be viable. “There’s no guarantee of hatchability, but we will make an attempt,” he said.

Rocketdyne engineers said this particular testing site had been dormant for six months, which gave the owl an opportunity to use it.

“We’re on a tight schedule to get this engine shipped to the customer by the end of the month,” said Steve Bommelje, a test engineer, but he said the incident did not delay testing plans. The engine is needed for a satellite launch, he said.

Rocketdyne, a division of Rockwell International, makes and tests rocket engines which are later sent to aerospace manufacturers such as McDonnell Douglas and Martin Marietta.