EMPLOYEES of Northumberland Ferries in Eastern P.E.I. saved the life of a young red-tailed hawk.
"The first time I saw him he was sitting on the roof of the (electrical building)," Lisa Stewart, who works at the terminal cafeteria in Wood Islands told David MacDonald of The Eastern Graphic in Montague.
"There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with him. Another employee was feeding him hamburger."
In late August employees noticed the hawk had become docile and allowed ferry passengers to take photos, pet and feed it.
When employees observed the hawk had stopped eating and had become weaker they became concerned about the bird’s survival, especially with the approaching tropical storm Danny.
Employee Cheryl Jackson enlisted her husband and son to capture the hawk and take it to the Atlantic Veterinary College in Charlottetown.
Andrea Chisholm, a medical technician with the college, said the hawk had an infestation of maggots, possibly from a wound on its tail. The vets cleaned the wound, gave the hawk antibiotics and pain medication.
"He was down and out when he came to us. The odds were not in his favour," Ms. Chisholm said.
She credits Ms. Jackson’s rescue for saving the bird’s life.
"It was not a good trip to Charlottetown but it was nice to see the results," Ms. Jackson said. "This is amazing; it’s nice to be able to do something."
She was on hand when vet student Adam Ogilvie took the healthy bird back to the country and released him.
Kip McCurdy is well-known for his hand-built canoes and saving the peregrine falcon from extinction in Nova Scotia.
Now he’s transforming his property in St. Croix Cove into a labyrinth to mirror a rare planetary transit that will happen on June 6, 2012.
"It will line up as if the sky has fallen to the earth," he told Heather Killen of the Annapolis County Spectator. "What you will see here will mirror the movements in the solar system.
Mr. McCurdy has planted 366 indigenous trees in a 900-foot circle. The spiral design of Falcon Henge, as he calls it, takes into account each planet’s orbit around the sun.
Forty species of native trees and shrubs line the labyrinth. Those who walk the mile-long path will pass endangered species such as red pine, American beech, chestnuts and green ash.
He expects Falcon Henge will take shape once the trees begin to mature.
You can explore his work online at falconhenge.blogspot.com.
Lore from the Yankee Gale 158 years ago is still very much alive in West Prince County, P.E.I.
The storm started the night of Oct. 3, 1851 and continued for two days. When the gale finally passed, 90 schooners fishing mackerel in the Gulf of St. Lawrence were destroyed and 150 crew members drowned.
Rick Hardy of Alberton told Jean Kenny of the West Prince Graphic about the ghost of the Yankee Gale, a story that goes back to his youth.
"The ghost was a fisherman who had been washed up on the North Cape reef after the gale had passed. Yet, before he could be saved by rescuers, he was swept off the reef, never to be seen again. To this day, his spirit still seeks to reach the shore."
Mr. Hardy said the story stayed with him and as a young man at military college in Kingston, Ont., he wrote the poem The Ghost of the Yankee Gale.
Thirty-five years later he found the poem at the bottom of a box of memorabilia.
