My Hawk Story - From Capture To Release...

It all started when Carie & I were taking a liesurely
convertible ride, rounded a corner and there in the middle of the road stood a
hawk. We were quite close so I knew something was wrong with it. I got out as
did another motorist and we approached it capturing it in his jacket. Long story
short, Carie & I drove off with this big hawk in hand and got home and put it in
one of our cat carriers. The bird felt thin and I could feel it's keel which is
not good. A woman back at the scene said to call the local Raptor Inc. group she
had heard about once upon a time, which I did, after getting NO help from the
state (DNR, etc.). I then delivered the bird to the group who determined it
probably got hit by a car and was unable to hunt and was starving to death. By
the way, a side note - I used to raise all kinds of birds such as geese,
ornamental pheasants from all over the world, Peafowl (peacocks), pigeons,
quail, etc., etc. you get the idea. Anyway birds are something I know alot about
so this event wasn't too strange to me. Back to the story...This was all back in
September, well I got a call from the lady at Raptor, Inc. this March and she said
they had succesfully rehabilitated the bird and were releasing it today and
asked of I wanted to join them. "Heck yes"! LOL And turns out they let ME do
the actual release so that was really cool!

-Alan