At 11:40am this morning I released TRISTAN, a rough-legged hawk born last year above the Artic Circle in Northern Canada. Because they have no concept of what humans or vehicles are they frequently find out the hard way when they come this far south for the winter. This beautiful female was hit by a car back in December 2009 and suffered a severely broken wing.
Altho she was flying when the birds started their migration north in March of this year, she wasn't strong enough to make the distance. For that reason the Wyoming G&F gave me permission to keep her over until they came back. On my way to Cody from Powell yesterday I saw one sitting on a power pole alongside the road. That was enough for me to take this bird to a wonderful habitat south of town and release her.
As you can see, she's in excellent condition and never hesitated a moment when I opened the door to her travel crate.
You got great pictures !!
ReplyDeleteI was just thinking about your roughlegged hawk yesterday when Gary said he may have seen one around our area. Hopefully this bird lives a long life.
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