The state of Wyoming limits the number of birds you can have for an educational program to five individuals, and they steer you toward having one bird from each “family” of raptors. So, basically, you can have one owl, one hawk, one eagle, etc. Since we are showcasing raptors that you would find in the Yellowstone area, that meant we had a choice of about nine species for our “hawk.” Five of those species are not ideal for a captive program because they are just too difficult to keep safe and healthy, which meant our options were: Red-tailed hawk, Swainson’s hawk, Ferruginous hawk, and Rough-legged hawk. Technically, Ferruginous hawks aren’t ideal for education either, so now we’re down to three. Surprisingly, our area doesn’t see a lot of Swainson’s hawks so they were at the bottom of my list of choices.
Armed with this information, I kept perusing the rehabilitators site looking for the perfect hawk for our program. Normally, rehabbers have a very hard time finding homes for Red-tailed hawks because they are so common and everyone seems to have one already. Of course, when I’m looking for one there aren’t any to be found.
On May 4, I was ecstatic to see the following ad: “Male Red-tailed Hawk. Wings and feet ok, missing one eye, trained.”
It couldn’t be more perfect! A bird that has already been trained to stand on the glove and who has been used in programs before. This would mean we could get birds in front of the public much faster! When birds arrive straight from a rehabilitation facility they take a few weeks to get trained and acclimated to all the changes and the sudden appearance of an audience. With a bird who is already manned (that’s the falconers’ term for a bird trained to stand on the glove), we would only need a short period to let him acclimate to his new surroundings. The appearance of an audience would be nothing new.
With a few quick e-mails, we had ourselves a beautiful hawk lined up for the program!
