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http://republicanherald.com/news/kestrel-donated-to-hawk-mountain-shows-...
SCHUYLKILL HAVEN — Red Creek Wildlife Center recently had a rare winter visitor.
The center worked with the state Game Commission to rehabilitate a snowy owl and released it back into the wild last week. The owl suffered a concussion and eye injury several weeks ago when it flew into the window of a school building in Harrisburg.
Snowy owls rarely visit Pennsylvania, showing up from the Arctic tundra mainly from November to January, according to the Game Commission.
“This was our first snowy owl in 23 years,” Peggy Hentz, executive director of Red Creek, said. “They are that rare.”
Not all rescued birds are able to return to the wild. Hentz said it does not take long for juvenile birds to imprint on humans.
“It is a biological condition that can happen in a short time,” Hentz said. “The birds believe they are human, which can be very confusing for them.”
Imprinted raptors do not know how to hunt and are not afraid of humans, making them unable to survive in the wild.
Red Creek took in about 2,000 animals over the year, Hentz said. A few of them have imprinted on people that kept them for too long, like the American kestrel that Red Creek recently gave to the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary to be used for educational programs.
“A person enjoyed having that animal for a few days and stole that animal’s freedom,” Hentz said.
The juvenile female kestrel was found abandoned.
Hentz said that anyone who finds an animal, especially a juvenile, should contact Red Creek as soon as possible by calling 570-739-4393. The facility is open every day, Hentz said.
“The longer it takes, the less chance we have of a successful rehabilitation,” Hentz said.
The kestrel was put with a pair of foster parents when she arrived at Red Creek. The kestrels used as foster parents suffered injuries to their wings and claws and could not be released into the wild, Hentz said.
“They are excellent foster parents and raise dozens of babies every year,” Hentz said. “We keep dozens of animals for the sole purpose of raising their own species. That is why we are so successful.”
Hentz said the center also keeps large numbers of animals together and use puppets and mirrors to keep them from imprinting on humans.
“Although imprinting is very sad, they make for great education because they don’t fear people and can be handled,” Hentz said. “Fortunately for this kestrel, it is going to be an ambassador. But not all animals that are humanized get that lucky.”
The kestrel went to her new home at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Kempton, earlier this month where she will be part of a variety of educational programs.
“She is a great ambassador for a lot of the programs we have,” Erin Brown, director of education at Hawk Mountain, said Thursday. “She is a really good fit for us.”
The female falcon is not even a year old yet.
“She is an imprint, meaning she has bonded with people,” Brown said. “She doesn't really know how to hunt and doesn't mind people.”
The kestrel is not the first live bird to be used for education at Hawk Mountain. The sanctuary also has a red-tailed hawk, red-shoulder hawk, screech owl and a great-horned owl.
“They are all birds you would see migrating through Hawk Mountain,” Brown said. “They are all local birds.”
Hawk Mountain has an adopt a kestrel nest box program. People can sponsor a box and receive information about the nestlings. There are also live webcams in the nest boxes streaming video to the Hawk Mountain website.
“We have a lot of video footage and we are using that and creating a curriculum about kestrels for middle-schoolers,” Brown said.
Brown said students in the program are shown clips and keep journals. Then, at the end of the program, a live kestrel will visit the classroom.
The female kestrel will also be used to promote Hawk Mountain’s farmlands raptor program.
“A kestrel is a falcon that you would see in a farmland habitat because they are seeing a lot of mice, garter snakes, grasshoppers and other small insects, small birds, rodents that would affect the farmers’ crops,” Brown said. “So having a kestrel in the area is a good thing for the farmer because they are eating a lot of those pests.”
The American kestrel is one of the best known, most frequently observed and readily identified raptors in North America as well as being the smallest and most widespread falcons on the continent, according to Hawk Mountain’s website. Kestrels are about the size of a mourning dove.
Hawk Mountain counted 378 kestrels visiting the sanctuary this fall, dropping below the 10-year average for the species of 430.
For more information on the variety of bird species at Hawk Mountain, visit the sanctuary’s website at www.hawkmountain.org. For more information on Red Creek Wildlife Center, follow them on Facebook or visit www.redcreekwildlifecenter.com.