Rescue, Rehabilitate & Educate

Pacific Wildlife Care

19 hours ago

Freedom Friday! This Anna’s Hummingbird came into our clinic very lethargic after being trapped indoors. She was given a formula designed for hummingbirds and warmed up. She then started to improve dramatically. After a day in our care, she was ready to go back to her wild home.
Hummingbirds are fascinating animals with even more fascinating metabolic demands. Their wings can flap around 70 times a second and their heart can beat over 1,000 times a minute. In order to sustain all of this, they need to eat almost every half hour which is why most people always see them feeding. In times when they can’t feed, like at night or during a storm, they will go into a state of torpor which is essentially an energy saving mode where their temperature drops and their metabolism decreases.
We wish this female hummingbird a second chance at life and many more nectar filled flowers. 🌸🌷🌺

Thank you to volunteer, JoAnn S., for releasing this bird and to Sarah R. for the video. 🙂

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Pacific Wildlife Care

1 week ago

Freedom Friday! A special wildlife release and story by one of our volunteers...

Extraordinary Hawk of an Extraordinary Age

On a cold winter morning, four PWC volunteers gathered at the edge of a field for a big event in the life of Red-tailed Hawk 2681: release back to the wild. We set down the carrier, opened the gate, and stood back, silent, excited, and tense. This bird was enormous, the 747 of hawks, and there wasn’t the slightest breeze to help with lift.

On arrival at PWC two months earlier, this bird was far from enormous. The gender couldn’t even be determined. At only 890 grams, was this a male or a very skinny female?

Another mystery: the federal band on the hawk’s leg. Following regulations, veterinarian Shannon Riggs reported the band information to the USGS Bird Banding Lab at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center through their website. The lab responded with information that the bird had hatched in Solano County in 1999. From then on, everyone at PWC referred to #2681 as “our elderly bird.” However, given the extraordinary age of the bird based on the band information, the lab was initially dubious about the correctness of the information provided. Official recognition of the band’s information as legitimate was received recently on March 19.

The bird was emaciated, severely dehydrated, and depressed. Test results revealed parasitism and and liver dysfunction, but little information about the cause of the bird’s poor health. With so little evidence, Dr. Riggs says, it’s “hard to know what’s right for the bird,” but it was important “to give the bird a chance.”

Two weeks later, after fluids, medications, a blood transfusion, and a healthy diet, the hawk was “still very thin” but “snippier,” Dr. Riggs reported. In a raptor, snippy is good.

Three weeks after that, the bird had gained weight and responded well to treatment. Dr. Riggs called in the Creance Team to check flight ability and provide conditioning. (The word creance, from French, refers to the line to which the bird is attached for exercise.) Now at 1,680 grams (clearly a female), Red-tailed Hawk 2681 would have been challenging to handle out on the exercise field if she hadn’t been so cooperative. On all ten flights in this session and two subsequent sessions, she flew beautifully, with strength and perfect form. Our elderly hawk was cleared for release.

On the cold, windless day of her release, she weighed 1,740 grams. The huge bird emerged from the carrier . . . and stumbled. There was a sharp intake of breath from four anxious humans. But then the bird planted herself firmly on the ground and paused before lifting off. She flew low across the open field. Nearing the far side, like a 747 reaching the end of a runway, she pulled up just in time—and rose to the top of the highest tree.

Story by Pam H.
Video by Morgan N. and Kathy S.

#freedomfriday #redtailedhawk #wildlife #backhome #elderlybird #homesweethome #wildliferelease #wildliferehab ... See MoreSee Less

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