Hawk crashes through screen into porch (CT)

[Donna]

RIDGEFIELD -- Keen-eyed and fierce on the attack, red-tailed hawks are becoming a familiar part of the state's environment.

For Michele Toia, too familiar.

On Tuesday, Toia heard a crash, looked out onto the screened porch on the side of her house, and discovered a red-tailed hawk had flown through the door screen, turning the porch into an impromptu aviary.

"I didn't know what it was at first,'' she said. "They are big birds.''

And in this case, lucky. An hour after the accident, Craig Lewis, a nuisance wildlife control expert from Danbury, was able to safely net the bird. Seeing it was uninjured, he took it outside and let it go.

"It flew off into a tree, rested for about 15 seconds, got its bearings and flew away,'' Lewis said. "It's much better to release a bird right away if you can, rather than send it to rehabilitation."

The hawk crashed the porch of Toia's home on Peaceable Street at mid-day Tuesday.

"I have no idea what happened,'' she said. Lewis' best guess -- based on squirrel prints in the snow near her porch -- was that the bird, intent on the game afoot, miscalculated its flight path.

The bird first began flying around her porch, she said. After banging into the screens a few times, it settled down, perching on a table and chair on the porch. Toia called the town's animal control officer, who put her in touch with Lewis.

Lewis said it took him two tries to net the bird. Once, he said, the bird grabbed onto his gloved finger with its talons and would not let go.

"The grip was incredible,'' he said.

Although Toia and Lewis got to view the red-tailed hawk much closer than most people, the birds are an increasingly common sight throughout the state, the United States and North America.

Red-tailed hawks now nest on city buildings (Central Park's Pale Male is a metropolitan celebrity), in the suburbs, and out in the country.

They're generalists.

They have learned they can live in different habitats and eat a variety of food, from rodents and rabbits to other birds, large insects and fresh carrion. They earned the common name "chicken hawk'' for their raids on backyard coops. They've also learned to coexist, warily, close to humans.

They're easy to sight, perched in trees bordering interstate highways, looking for prey in the medians.

Such birds do well in places like Connecticut, which offers a mix of habitats and foods. Specialists -- like American kestrels or harriers, which live in open fields and which were common when the state's landscape was largely pasture -- are mostly gone from the scene.

Tuesday's encounter with nature left Toia with a torn screen door that needs fixing. It left Lewis with a thrill.

"It was a privilege to see that beautiful, majestic bird so close,'' he said.