Imitating a griffon
Just before lunchtime, a visitor stopped by with a Red-tailed Hawk in a birdcage. He'd passed the bird sitting on the side of the road, drove home to get a cage, drove back, caught the bird (!) getting only a few scratches on his hands in the process, and placed the bird into the cage. He's a braver man than I! The visitor reported that the bird flew about 25 feet when he initially approached it, but it didn't fly a second time, allowing him to effect the capture.
Though we don't rehabilitate injured animals, we still get a fair number of people dropping by asking us to take care of the injured or orphaned wildlife they've brought us. If we can't get the visitor to take the injured animal to one of two rehab centers (each about a half-hour's drive away) him/herself, one of the staff members or I will grudgingly take the animal.
We got lucky today. We called Victor Calozza of SkyKing Raptors who has done educational raptor shows for us in the past. He said that he wasn't busy and would take the bird to one of the rehab facilities, sparing our staff (or me) an hour's drive. Victor declared the bird to be an adult female Red-tail, and his cursory examination in our kitchen suggested to him that the bird might have a broken wing.
A little mid-day excitement!
4 comments:
Wow! A redtail in a birdcage and no injuries resulting. I hope the hawk will be okay. Quite an interesting midday for you!
Carolyn: I agree; I couldn't believe that the visitor got the bird into the cage with no injuries--either to himself or to the bird. When Victor picked up the hawk, he asked me to tell people to put injured raptors in boxes, not cages, because forcing a large bird into a cage often causes further injury and makes it hard to extricate the patient. Unfortunately, the visitor had already forced the bird into the cage when he brought it over.
I hope that Red-Tail recovers well. It's often heartbreaking to come upon injured wild animals.
Packrat: I don't know how the bird will make out. The raptor expert Victor delivered it to the rehab center, so I can't check on it. I agree that it's disturbing to come across injured wildlife; it happens all too frequently.
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