Baby red-tailed hawk rescued
Published: June 7, 2007
When 8-year-old Center Park resident Grace Bautista spotted a baby bird on the steps of her back porch last week, she knew she had discovered something special.
“He was really cute,” she said. “At first I thought he was an osprey. He looked like he was lost.”
Her new feathered friend, a seven-week-old red-tailed hawk, had apparently fallen from his parents’ nest, located about 60 to 70 feet up in a pine tree in the woods behind the Bautista’s home.
Realizing that the bird’s feathers were a bit immature for flight, Grace’s mom Valerie called their neighbor, Elyse Salamon, for some advice. Elyse put them in touch with another Daniel Island resident, Joe Kowalis. As programs director for the International Center for Birds of Prey, he was the perfect man for the job.
“The top of that tree moves back and forth a lot in the wind,” said Joe. “I have a feeling the bird just fell off…Being on the ground is especially bad because of cats and dogs.”
By the time Joe arrived on the scene, Daniel had hopped back into the woods. Following the sounds of the bird’s squawks, Joe trekked into the woods and found him on the low branches of a tree.
“I kept him in a special box, covered him and kept him quiet and warm,” said Joe. “The next morning, I drove him out to the (International Birds of Prey) medical clinic and he was examined right away.”
“We took fluids and did a blood analysis and also checked to see what physical condition the bird was in just by feeling his muscles,” he added. “Then we gave him some subcutaneous fluids and started to feed him three times a day. And the bird ate voraciously from the very beginning!”
To feed him, caretakers dressed in camouflage use a “puppet” technique by holding a stuffed red-tailed hawk next to the food.
“The whole idea is to not have them think that the only way they get food is from a human,” explained Joe.
The bird, nicknamed “Daniel” by Grace, will likely be released back into the wild in four to six weeks, when he is flexing his wings to fly and will have the ability to go and find his own food. Joe is thankful for the steps that Grace and Valerie took to get Daniel to safety.
“It kept this bird alive and might have saved him!” he said.
“I’m really happy,” added Grace. “Because I think he might have died out there without Joe.”
“It’s been such a learning experience,” Valerie said. “You see the birds flying around on Daniel Island. You see the osprey. You see the hawks, but you don’t really think about how many chicks there are or how long it takes for them to be able to fly.”
Grace’s second-grade class at Daniel Island School followed Daniel’s story up until the last day of school last week.
“They’ve been studying animals at school,” added Valerie. “So I think it just really helped Grace see a real bird instead of just in pictures on the Internet. And because it was in her own backyard, it made it even more exciting!”
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