Perfect day for a raptor release on Pack Monadnock. NH Audubon freed two broadwing hawks, both young females, after their recovery from injuries. It was such a joy to watch them burst from their transport boxes and take off into their natural habitat--the wide sky. A very moving experience, no matter how often I see it.
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| (c) Nikki Andrews |
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| (c) Nikki Andrews |
This handsome fellow is a 15 year old red-tail hawk who did not recover fully from an encounter with a car. He will remain a shelter bird because he cannot fly well enough to make it on his own in the wild. He helps Audubon teach the public, especially school kids, about wild birds.
Pack Monadnock
September 19, 2015
She
hesitates, confused.
The
world has been so wrong.
First
pain, then suffocating blindness,
The
sensation of movement though she moved not a muscle.
More
darkness, odd smells, odd sounds.
She
woke in a strange place, but she could move and see.
Food
came, dead food she had not hunted.
But
she hungered, so she ate.
Pain
departed and strength returned.
She
took wing, but the sky was fenced.
She
could not rise to seek natural food,
Nor
cruise the spiraling thermals.
Days
passed, and nights,
And
then this place of semi-darkness in daylight
And
once again movement though she moved not.
She
hesitates, confused.
Noises
around her like those of her captivity,
Light
and air and open sky before her.
The
moment is right. She launches,
Takes
flight, finds the rising air.
Head
up, wings strong,
