Looking back- Part 1

With the migration season upon us, I have very little time to catch my breath before I become very busy with rehabilitating raptors that have not made the migration successfully. Already, we have received in our rehabilitation program two peregrine falcons, three red shouldered hawks, one cooper hawk, one merlin, and one american kestrel.

As I was browsing through my pictures from this last year, it occurred to me that we were blessed with some amazing experiences and some tremendous outcomes that are worth remembering.

Baby season began this year in a rather usual fashion, but quickly progressed to include orphans that we usually don't see at our center. Screech owl orphans always come in by the dozens and this year was no different. We are however ready for them as usual. We are fortunate to have a foster mom that is able to raise the youngsters and provide a necessary role model for them as they grow and develop into adults.






The "teenagers" then progress to hunting school and are offered a variety of live prey to assess their hunting skills. When they have successfully completed this stage of their rehabilitation, they are placed with a group of screech owls to develop and continue their hunting skills before the final stage, hacking.


This "hack box" provides a safe place for the young screech owls to survey their surroundings for a few days before the doors are opened to allow them to fly out at their leisure. They are given food and water while inside the box, but human contact is kept to a minimum to allow them to fully identify with their new surroundings.



Our first challenge came in the form of a notoriously difficult patient, the osprey. Fresh from a rehabilitation conference, I was ready for this challenge. I had attended a class which spoke of the advantages of reuniting young raptors with their parents instead of raising them in captivity. I saw this young osprey as a perfect candidate for this technique as ospreys have rather complex tactics in learning to hunt. They are the only raptor that specialize in catching fish as the main source of their diet, and to do so they must learn hovering skills to hone in on the fish before diving down feet first to snag their catch.

After a week of treatment at our center, the young osprey was ready for his journey back to the wild, but we were unable to locate the parents. The nest had been abandoned due to a band of marauding crows and the fate of its sibling was unknown. The finder, Rebecca was an avid watcher of all the ospreys in the area and knew the location of several other nests, so we set out for the next best thing, an attempt to foster this young bird into another nest.





We picked a location close to the original nest with only one chick to reduce the chances of impact on the established family. The entire "neighborhood" was already enjoying their morning catch. We placed our youngster in a nearby tree so that he could survey the area. After much consideration, he took flight, flying all around the area. I held my breath as he soared over the trees, then returned back to land softly on the nest and welcome himself to his new family. The adult carefully considered her new arrival, then bent down and ripped off a fresh piece of fish to offer to her new family member. It was an awe inspiring moment to realize that our young bird had been accepted into this family and fed by the adult. As we continued to watch, it became more and more evident that this bird would have the opportunity to learn from these foster parents thereby increasing his chances for survival in the wild. I am happy to report that after watching for a couple of days, Rebecca continued to see our young bird in the nest and the adult continued to feed our bird as well as her own chick.

There is much more to come. Stick around for part 2 of this non stop account of spring with the raptors in Miami.