(CNN) Holiday overindulgence may not be an exclusively human weakness -- as a team of falconers discovered after rescuing an owl that was too fat to fly.

Suffolk Owl Sanctuary in eastern England was called to rescue the female "little owl," known scientifically as athene noctua, after a concerned passerby found it sodden in a ditch.

Head falconer Rufus Samkin told CNN that the team took in the owl on January 3.

At first they thought she had been injured or that her flying was impeded by the fact she was wet -- but even after drying off and getting a clean bill of health, the tubby avian still struggled to fly up to the perches in the aviary.

The team then considered whether the owl had been kept as a pet -- but it found "no evidence" of that being the case, as she refused foods commonly given to pet birds in favor of feed eaten by wild owls.

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