Red-tailed Hawk Rescue

I used to live and work on a 40 acre ranch in the northern California foothills. It was quiet and secluded enough that we had lots of local wildlife in the area--coyote, deer, bobcat, mountain lion, bear, and hawks. It must have been mating season for the hawks because they were really loud, constantly flying over my house, calling out to each other with their high pitched screams. You might have heard this sound before on television, they often use hawk calls dubbed in for bald eagles and other birds of prey. I was walking by a large window in my home when I saw something large swoop down into my yard, it was a young Red-tailed Hawk, and it was sitting on the ground at the base of my fence.

I ran and got a camera, hoping it would still be there when I got outside. I was glad to see it was still there, and I slowly approached it to try and take a picture. As I got closer I realized it was stuck in the bottom of the fence. It must have tried to fly under it, one of its wings was stuck! I quickly ran up to my house and grabbed some pliers to cut some of the wire fencing, carefully cutting a few spots in the fence while not frightening the hawk too much.

Once the fence was cut I could see that its wing was still on the wrong side of the fence and would need to be pulled back and pushed back under so it could fly free. This part was a little scary because I didn't know if it would try and bite me if I touched it. I slowly and gently grabbed the stuck wing with one hand while lifting the fence with the other. It worked, the hawk pulled its wing free! It looked at me for a little longer and let me take another photo, spreading its wings wide before taking off into the air.

It was quite the experience, I had never been that close to a bird of prey like that. It was also very fortunate that I was home at that time, and that none of my landlords dogs were outside when it happened. It was a lucky hawk!