One of the pair of red tail hawk fledglings hatched on a fire escape in Portland, OR didn't do so well on his flying practice yesterday, and Audubon Society volunteers intervened after he was seen dodging heavy traffic on Burnside Road. A pedestrian captured him by throwing a coat over him. He was taken to an Audobon bird sanctuary, checked by a vet, banded and was supposed to be returned to his nest this afternoon.
A blog accompanying the webcam feed that has been watching over this hawk family since the eggs hatched three months ago reports that if he is returned to his parents immediately, their hormone levels will be adequate to assure they continue nurturing him. It's a myth, the blog said, that baby birds handled by humans are then shunned by the parents.
The fledgling is a healthy male, who probably simply had difficulty staying aloft due to the effect of heavy street traffic on air currents at lower altitude. I'm not sure whether he's the bigger of the two surviving nestlings, that was the first to fledge, or if he's the reluctant, smaller sibling. I'll probably be watching the nest all afternoon periodically, hoping to see them both back home.
UPDATE: Oops, I missed it, but my friend Sue was watching when the Audobon volunteer carried the fledgling back in a box to the fire escape. He cleaned the nest, removing a plastic bag that had caused a lot of concern among webcam watchers, and freed the captive from the box. The fledgling hopped up on a railing and called his parents. When they arrived, the mother pecked the volunteer on the head, drawing blood, and knocked off his Audobon baseball cap. When the guy posted on the webcam blog, he called her "a good mother." Now that's a serious bird lover.
