And even a glimmer of hope for her recovery?
Last week I photographed an immature, presumed female Red-tailed Hawk with an injured left leg and I posted some of those photos a week ago today. As some of my knowledgeable readers pointed out the outlook for her eventual recovery is guarded at best.
But at the time those photos were taken I didn’t realize that I’d photographed the same hawk the day before as she struggled with her injured leg to establish a stable perch in a tree and then take off.
Before I got my lens on her I’d seen her land in this tree and even from a distance I could tell she was having a difficult time stabilizing herself because she continued to flap her wings long after she should have established a stable perch. It probably took me about 15 seconds to drive closer and get a better light angle on her and she was still struggling when I took this photo.
She was clinging desperately to a branch with her right foot with her injured left leg hanging down uselessly. She was in quite a predicament as her body hung down far below her right foot that was grasping the perch and all of those branches and twigs prevented her from using her wings very effectively to pull herself up.
Using her right leg and wings she kept trying to pull her body up to establish a proper perch on the branch but because she couldn’t use her wings effectively or her left leg at all she was having a very difficult time.
But she’s a tenacious young bird and she didn’t give up. Eventually (it took a while) she pulled her body up far enough…
to get all of her weight above the perch which allowed her the leverage required to…
push off with her right leg in the only direction available to her through the tangled mass of branches and twigs. I love how creative the contrasting positions of her left and right wing are which allowed her to mostly avoid hitting branches on both sides.
I had decided I wasn’t going to post any of these photos because I’d already posted photos documenting her injury and I didn’t want to have another “downer” edition of Feathered Photography. I don’t think some of my readers appreciate bad news with their morning coffee and these days there’s more than enough of that kind of news in our daily lives without me contributing to the burden.
In the hundreds of photos I took of this bird over two days I never once saw her put any weight on her left leg but yesterday good friend and blog follower April Olson provided what I interpret as a glimmer of hope. April photographed this bird yesterday and posted one of her photos on Facebook. In that photo the hawk’s left leg is actually on the perch and she’s putting at least some weight on it.
So maybe, just maybe, her leg is finally beginning to heal. April says she’s still “struggling” so full recovery may be a long shot but her photo still gives me hope I didn’t have before.
Ron
PS – If you’re on Facebook you should be able to see April’s photo here.
Perseverance, tenacity, hopefulness – none of these are downers. Love the last shot!
I am cautiously heartened by April’s photograph of “Derecha.” I hope that it is a relatively minor or soft tissue injury that can heal. She sure seems to be trying to make it! I hope she does!
As for you and Judy, the Coliseum in LA and the Rose Bowl in Pasadena are overwhelming even to this SoCal gal who has been to both several times! (And Ron, glad you were a javelin thrower and not a catcher. 😉 I threw shot and disc.)
Marty, twice I saw people come very, very close to becoming “javelin catchers”. One of them never even saw it coming. Both events seemed to play out in slow motion and were terrifying to watch.
Is there any chance April can get her into rehab/vet care? My GUESS is either a BIG soft tissue injury OR the leg is broken. But she’s able to clasp her talons at least a little bit. But either way, she’s going to have a helluva time hunting. That said, she is a tenacious redtail!
Sorry I’ve been absent (although I am watching in the background). I’ve got a lot of difficult things going on now that are limiting my computer time. At the top of the list is my beloved Jack Russell TERRORIST is struggling with blindness and dementia. The dementia is just awful. There’s more, but this isn’t the place.
Oh Laura. Sending cyber hugs and well wishes to you and to Jac,
I’m sorry about your pupper, Laura. Canine Cognitive Dysfunction is so difficult to have to go through. ❤️
I’m so sorry, Laura. I can’t imagine what that would be like for both of you. Best wishes.
Billy Fenimore, manager of the Wildlife Center, says this red-tail is hunting successfully. He’s seen her capture multiple voles behind the Center.
Ah, just getting around to your blog. I had a busy morning today.
I hope she does recover, even if she comes into rehab my guess is she is not saveable. Old breaks are not very repairable, even if so I doubt she would be releasable and lastly retails are abundant and hard to place as ambassadors.
Ron, you can use my photo on the blog if it is easier for your readers. Can I send you one?
April, I keep hoping her leg is only injured and not actually broken. I didn’t see any conclusive evidence that it was broken in my photos or in the field. Did you?
Thanks for the offer of the photo but the link to it on FB seems to be working fine so folks can see it there if they want to.
Hope is a fragile essential in my heart and head. I was thrilled to read this post this morning (and to see April’s photo despite not playing FB).
And yes, I do hope this tenacious little beauty continues to beat the odds and survive – and thrive.
EC, I suspect a lot of us have our fingers crossed.
To the contrary, not a downer edition at all.. It’s an upper, although that term has had other connotations at least since the 60’s.
Here’s to April, to you, and, of course, our heroine. May you all live long and prosper (the 60’s again).
The sun came out here yesterday for three minutes and 49 seconds. I can sense your envy.
Envy indeed, Lyle. I don’t believe we’ll have a single ray of sunshine during the entire day today. It’s gloomy and depressing.
Nice to see these and April’s photo. Hopefully the healing process continues. It’s always encouraging to see healing follow-ups of an injured bird. Occasionally there will be one at the feeders that sports an injury and it tugs at my heart; but then seeing how it adapts and survives is heartwarming.
Kathy, thanks for confirming that the link to April’s photo is actually working for readers. On my end I never know for absolute sure, especially when Facebook is involved.
“downers” we’ve got a-plenty- but –reminders of hope and healing and possibly
better conditions if we can just hang on and keep trying–those are precious,
and I welcome your and April’s follows-on pictures of this hawk’s courage–inborn
and unconscious it may be, but I still admire and welcome seeing it.
“I still admire and welcome seeing it”
So do I, Kris. Now there’s at least SOME hope for this bird I can cling to. Those hopes may be dashed in the future but for now I’ll take them.
Judy’s professor’s quote is certainly accurate. We see it so often in military history and in all the survivor documentaries we see on TV. Unlike us our birds and animals have no one to complain to nor anywhere to go to seek help, they just have to adapt and improvise and continue to try to survive.
Excellent post, and rather than being a “downer”, I find them to be inspirational.
“Unlike us our birds and animals have no one to complain to nor anywhere to go to seek help”
Good point, Everett. And we think OUR lives are tough…
It may be a downer, but I prefer it to the other news. I tend to skim my email deleting a lot. I look for your email to read first. THEN I open up CNN 5 Things email. It’s a good mix of what’s wrong and what’s right with our world. Thank you for being part of what’s right.
Arwen, I do it the other way around. I visit CNN etc. as soon as I sit at my computer at o’dark o’clock and get the bad news out of the way before I begin composing the text of that day’s post. Different strokes…
🙂 true!
It DOES appear she’s able to use it some……😀 Hopefully, if the winter isn’t TOO severe, she’ll make it. Many years ago a Biology Prof I had at San Diego Mesa noted that “anything that’s alive will fight to the death to remain alive” – one of those things that’s stuck with me even if I don’t remember his name…..
Judy, for the 1966-67 school year I attended Palomar Junior College (since then it’s been renamed) in San Marcos so if you were at SDM at that time we were almost neighbors. But I suspect my time was before your time…
Probably – this would have been sometime between 70 and 72 – I was 24 maybe? That Prof was excellent as he related everything to ones everyday life…
I was on the track team at Palomar (javelin) and we competed with what we called Mesa College regularly.
One of our competitions was at the Coliseum in LA. That place blew the mind of this Montana farm boy…
That WOULD have been mind blowing at the time! All of CA in the late 60’s/early 70’s was mind blowing to this MT girl…….😳😀
Thank you for these wonderful photos of the young Red Tailed hawk. She is certainly tenacious. I have great hope for her full recovery. One aspect that is in her favor is that there are no flies to cause her harm during her recovery. If there had been an open wound the flies would have taken full advantage. I will be searching FB for April’s post with optimism. I hope you will be able to get out and photograph this beauty again soon.
Melanie, the weather will have to improve before I get out again. We’ve been mostly socked in for days and there isn’t a lot of relief in the short-term forecast.
With the new Facebook I am unable to find April Olson. I can’t even find you. I have no idea how to overcome that issue. Would April permit you to share a photo or two of the RTH that she captured yesterday?
Melanie, did you try using the link in my postscript? That should take you to her photo. I’ve been following the usage of that link in my blog stats and so far (as of 7:43 AM) 28 people have used it successfully.
I did use the link! Thank you! (I had not noticed it earlier) I am enjoying getting to know April on FB and definitely enjoyed April’s photo of the young RT with her left foot gingerly placed on her perch. Fingers crossed that she will continue to improve.