Good Deed for the Day

[Tiercel]

After getting to sleep very late this morning, I was rudely awoken by my brother. "Luke, Dad found an injured red-tail on his way to work." A hawk that needs my assistance? Three hours of sleep be damned!

Sure enough, Dad was parked out front with a hawk in his truck; he found it on the side of the road. So my brother got his back seat ready while I grabbed some old towels and an old shirt. First I put on some winter gloves, then put the shirt over its head. It's right wing looked a bit messed up, so it took me a while to delicately shove my thickened fingers under it and pick it up. About 35 minutes later we dropped it off at a wildlife rehabilitation place, and that was that.

I apologize for the large size of this relatively short video (42 MB for 38 seconds), but I had more pressing concerns than the recording quality setting on the camera. I also apologize for my father, who talks a bit like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. And since this video gives the best look at the bird compared to it's size, I decided to post only this one. If you don't want to wait for my video, there are plenty of pics at the Wiki link above.

YouTube - buteo01.mod

And while I did a good deed, I can't help but think it was a futile one. The poor guy was pretty young and pretty passive. So either he was too young to know he shouldn't be putting up with humans or he was in a pretty sorry state. And I'm interested in hawks, so I know about the high first-year mortality rate. But I think I'm just tired and getting ahead of myself.

So I helped a young male red-tailed hawk today. How do I know all that? Well, his size and weight lead me to believe it was a he. His eyes and his tail showed that he was still very young, as in hatched this year. I'd get more technical, but I don't want to bore anyone with the technicalities of buteo identification.

I can proudly say that Tiercel finally held his first tiercel, even if it's technically not correct to say so (technically, a tiercel is a male falcon, not a hawk). I wish the circumstances were a bit different, but I still wish him the best of luck.

So what good deed did you do today?

 

[mrb]

thanks for doing that mate , most people would just have walked past , dammn there are nice people in the world after all you matey have just restored my faith in the human race

 

[coyote]

Nice work, Tiercel!

Let's see,....hmm...today...

Well, I did put my empties in the recycling bin.

 

[Tiercel]

thanks for doing that mate , most people would just have walked past , dammn there are nice people in the world after all you matey have just restored my faith in the human race

Don't forget that my dad is the one who picked him up in the first place. And he stopped because another guy stopped in the middle of the road because of it. To anyone who might have to help a hawk in the future: don't be afraid of them biting you. Worry about their feet. Their beaks may be sharp, but their feet are sharp, strong, and leave nasty puncture wounds (which get infected more easily than a beak's slice). You've been warned.

And hawks to me are what cars are to most other guys. So while it was a good deed, it was also a bit selfish. Usually when I see a red-tail it's in a tree on the side of the highway or up in the sky. So it's like looking at one of your favorite cars all the time, and finally getting the chance to drive one.

The human race still has a long way to go. But baby steps can work wonders.