As hawks go, the redtail is one of the most common.
You know it by its rusty, brick colored tail plumage. Its white-breasted raptor form is often perched atop poles, haybales and fenceposts scouting for food. The male predator can be up to 22 inches tall and weigh close to three pounds. The female comes 25 percent larger.
Most unique is the redtail seen hopping across Herr’s Ridge Road, west of Gettysburg, while being tailed over the snow by a blonde woman in pajama bottoms.
Yes, the lady was thinking clearly at the time.
From her window a couple of Sundays ago, Carol Ecker found a redtailed hawk sitting on her porch railing, unusually close to her house. After half an hour of her taking pictures and trying to be inconspicuous, and him flexing his wings in non-flight, she went out to greet him.
The bird took off for the roof of her Cape Cod, but didn’t make it. Obviously unable to fly, the redtail took to the ground and into the neighborhood, with Carol in pursuit. In t-shirt and PJs, she followed him across the road to a low pine branch.
Getting behind him, Carol was able to able to cover his head “so he would not freak out and shred me,” and get him off the branch. She took him home and started looking for medical help.
Picture a woman sitting in her living room, bird of prey underwraps in her lap, with the Hallmark channel on the tube. All the while, her four cats having NO CLUE what is going on.
Anybody who’s had a sick animal on a Sunday knows that vet help is hard to find. After hours on the phone, much with a colleague at the National Park Service, Carol talked to the Opossum Pike Vet Clinic in Frederick, Md.
Carol has been a Park Watch volunteer on the Gettysburg battlefield for five years and recently earned her 500-hour pin.
Birds of prey rehabilitator Suzanne Shoemaker told Carol to pack the bird into a box and put it in a dark closet to keep it calm. The hawk gave her a couple of talon punctures to her stomach as she tried to juggle the blanketed predator and empty a cardboard box. That done, she bid the redtail goodnight, sweet dreams and named him Rhett.
Carol took Rhett to the clinic the next day for an Xray and exam by Dr. Barb Stastny. Shoemaker took him from there.
She treats only birds of prey at her Owl Moon Raptor Center at Boyds, Md., Montgomery County.
Shoemaker has a Master’s in wildlife biology. and worked as a veterinary technician. She rehabbed about 30 birds last year and is working with a bald eagle right now at the Center, on her own property.
“Fracture of the radius in his wing. It had started to heal and was in good alignment,” the doc said analyzing Rhett’s injuries. Vets can talk freely about wildlife conditions, not encumbered by HIPAA restrictions.
After close inspection, Shoemaker found Rhett to be a juvenile, immature hawk, hatched last summer and exceptionally marked.
Exceptionally lucky too.
The bird’s injury was serious. Being unable to fly and therefore hunt, he’d have been one dead red had Carol not rescued him.
Recuperation time was short. The break didn’t require surgery or a pin, so the prescription was cage rest. Suzanne rehabbed him in her flight cage and flew him on a creance line with anklets to keep him around.
Last Saturday, after about three weeks, the redtailed hawk was back at Carol’s house. Suzanne and Ken Smith, a licensed bander of raptors, gave her the honor of releasing Rhett back to the wild.
Smith’s most recent 15 minutes of fame came at the Library of Congress. It seems a Cooper’s Hawk had gotten trapped in the dome of the main reading room and perched for a week.
A news segment on the dilemma ran nationally on NBC.
After others tried to no avail, Smith built a trap and used as bait a couple of European starlings, “Frick” and “Frack” he captured a year ago. Smith had the Cooper’s within 25 minutes of setting the trap.
The hawk hadn’t eaten or drank for a week, other than some frozen quail that had been used as bait.
“No animals or humans were harmed during the rescue,” Smith says. Guess Frick and Frack survived.
The Cooper’s was rehabbed and released last Tuesday.
As for Rhett, he showed up, for his own protection, wearing a taped tail. After being unwrapped, he flew across Herr’s Ridge Road and landed in a pine tree, to get his bearings.
As for pajamas, the rescuer this time, was more suitably dressed.
RHETT IS READY - Carol Ecker prepares Rhett, a redtailed hawk, for his release back into the wild last Saturday. After Ecker rescued him, the bird was rehabbed for a broken wing.
Gettysburg Times
