11-1-08

These birds are beautiful as you can see from this photograph. This picture was taken just before Dr. Deb got the bird ready to be released. Hannah, the young lady that raised mealworms for us, was going to do the release but after seeing the size of the bird, and the size of its talons, she decided that her mom would be better suited to the task.

The Red Tail Hawk is a good sized bird with large, sharp talons. You can see from this picture why Hannah was reluctant to hold this bird.

Dr Deb has had much experience handling these birds and gave Mel (Hannah's mom) instructions on how to safely hold the hawk.

After the transfer, Mel gets ready to do the release.

Here she takes the first step in the release sequence.

And away it goes...................

The hawk wasted no time getting to the woods.

On the way to being "Wild and Free".

We have a Barred Owl that should be ready to be released back into the wild just before Christmas. If things work out, we'll take the owl to Aitkin and do the release for the Rippleside Elementary School 5th graders before they go on Christmas break. Before the owl can be released it needs to grow 3 new feathers on its right wing. 3 of the big feathers near the end of its wing were broken off halfway down the shaft. That would make it hard for the owl to control its flight when its hunting for food. The way it is fixed is by pulling out the broken feathers. If that's done then new feathers will grow in. If the broken ones are left on the wing the new feathers will not grow. These feathers are attached very firmly. It was very difficult to pull them out. We used a special tool that looks like scissors but really is a type of pliers

If you look at the table near the bottom of the picture you can see the first broken feather that was removed lying on the table. You'll also notice that Dr Deb has the owl lying on its back while she holds its legs so she can control its talons. These big owls can really hurt a person if they get a chance to grab with their talons.

Here's Dr Deb holding the owl after working on its wing. As you can see, the owl is none the worse for the ordeal it has just gone through.

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