Downtown air battle (Statler)
When a young red-tailed hawk flew by the nest of the famous peregrine falcon pair nesting on the Statler Building, it was all-out war.
"It was like the U.S. vs. Russia," said Statler owner Mark Croce. "The peregrine just took it out."
While bigwigs below were wrapping up a news conference outside late Wednesday morning, the falcons overhead were busy driving a hawk into the ground. It smashed full-speed into the middle of Delaware Avenue and would have been struck by a car had the street not been closed to traffic at that moment.
An extraordinary set of factors -- including a construction worker who just happened to know how to handle wild birds and some emergency help from the Erie County SPCA Wildlife Center -- will allow one very luck red-tailed hawk to live to fight another day.
The scene unfolded Wednesday with top city officials, including Mayor Byron W. Brown, standing in front of the Statler to announce the removal of a sidewalk barricade as improvements to the historic building's exterior get under way.
As the news conference was wrapping up, two construction workers from the federal courthouse project across the street were hauling debris outside. One of them, Jack Malecki, turned just in time to see a hawk driven into the pavement.
Croce saw Malecki crouching in the middle of Delaware Avenue. He called over a police officer.
"It just looked like he was acting suspicious," Croce said.
By this time, Malecki had picked the hawk up and set it down on the courthouse sidewalk.
Malecki, a foreman with DeSpirt Mosaic and Marble Co., was working on the courthouse building's terrazzo stone floor. He also happens to keep a peacock and pea hens at his home near Newfane and has plenty of bird-handling experience.
He asked a friend for a shirt, covered the hawk and held it by the legs while the DEC was contacted.
Croce and the police officer questioned Malecki and were relieved to hear the injured bird wasn't one of the two Statler falcons. Croce said he was equally thrilled that Malecki had gone out of his way to save the downed hawk.
"It was such a beautiful bird," he said. "This hawk was fabulous. It was big. It was gorgeous. I'd never seen anything like it in my entire life."
Minutes later, Connie Adams, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Environmental Conservation, had the wounded hawk in a carrier she'd brought with her and drove it to the SPCA Wildlife Center. She didn't hear any movement inside on the way up.
"I was like, 'Oh my God, it's dead,'" she said.
But when SPCA officials looked inside the carrier, the hawk was breathing.
The animal suffered from spinal shock from hitting the street, leaving it temporarily paralyzed, said Assistant Wildlife Administrator Beverly Jones. SPCA employees infused the bird with anti-inflammatory medication, gave it fluids and left it in an oxygen chamber overnight.
By Thursday morning, the bird was standing.
Jones said the hawk is a female and only about a year old -- it's missing the signature red tail feathers that the mature hawks get when they are two years old.
The SPCA probably will keep the bird another week or so to make sure it's truly fine before they attempt to release it back into the city.
"She's going to be OK," Adams said. "What that teaches you is, you don't want to be a red-tailed hawk flying near a peregrine falcon's nest."
Erie County SPCA doctor Karen Moran gives a Red Tail Hawk an examination and administers fluids and food Thursday, one day after the peregrine falcons on the Statler Building drove the red-tailed hawk from the sky and into the sidewalk in front of the Federal Courthouse building.
