Raptors work their magic during in-flight class
BY BARBARA BENSON Barrington North February 7, 2012 5:36PM
Cooper’s hawk | Photo courtesy of Steve Barten, DMV
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Updated: February 22, 2012 12:21PM
It was a cold day Jan. 21 following our 6-inch snowfall, but it was an awesome day at Flint Creek Savanna as Pat Winkleman, board member of Citizens for Conservation, and Dawn Keller, founder of Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation, led an in-flight raptor class across the prairie and into the old oak savanna, where the 200-hundred-year-old trees are even more majestic up close, their bare branches silhouetted against the winter sky.
Offered as part of the Leave No Child Inside series, the program drew an interesting group of 15 children and 15 adults.
We gathered at CFC’s white farmhouse on Illinois 22 and after an introduction from both Pat and Dawn, we started in single file along the trail and came to our first volunteer standing quietly with a very alert Cooper’s hawk, a medium-sized bird of beautifully understated plumage, its back feathers an elegant slate blue. Cooper’s hawks are quite prevalent here, and they are ferocious, fast hunters, snatching small birds in flight. Normally very high-strung birds, this one proved to be calmer, so Dawn uses him in her education programs, although we were warned against getting too close or talking loudly. But I think he enjoyed his audience.
Further along the trail, we encountered a volunteer with Old Red, a red-tailed hawk who is about 27 years old and came to Dawn from the Willowbrook Nature Center. She was just magnificent, every so often trying to lift off, and thus showing us her huge wing span. We learned that the male raptors can be a third, or almost half as small, as females, and that mating pairs will take over an old nest to lay two or three eggs, mostly by the beginning of March. However, the mortality rate of the younger birds, including nestlings, is very high.
We walked on through the wetland and stopped by an enormous oak tree. Pat scooped up some pellets near the tree that had been found that morning, regurgitated by a raptor. And then another volunteer stepped from behind the tree. It was a total surprise and on her arm was a great horned owl. This was a male. He was magnificent and not worried by his audience. Great horned owls may already be nesting. Since they are nocturnal they are not really competitive with hawks, which are diurnal.
We walked to the edge of Flint Creek and another surprise popped out from behind a tree: an enormous and gorgeous barred owl. This bird had a very different story. She has no injuries, but was raised illegally by humans and is therefore bonded on humans, exhibiting some doglike characteristics. This is the owl with the “whooo cooks for you” call.
We headed back along the creek and upward along the trail to another glorious old oak in which a fairly large nesting box had been placed. This time we enjoyed a stellar appearance from a screech owl, a small, almost a great horned in miniature, which might, if one built such a box, just come and nest nearby.
On our last stretch of trail after circling back toward the farmhouse Dawn moved away from us, taking out a whistle. We spotted a volunteer by the old silo with a barn owl on her arm, free. After a few whistles the owl flew over to Dawn’s outstretched arm and received small pieces of meat. The free flight was repeated a couple of times, until the owl took off for a nearby small hill, where a volunteer quietly crawled along to coax him back with some raw food. Barn owls are endangered in Illinois because their main habitats, barn buildings, are almost gone. Large nesting boxes replicate the barn environment, but the birds live on the prolific rodent populations in barns.
There is so much more that could be written about these birds, but I want you to share some of veterinarian Steve Barten’s photos (he was a participant). An owl lover all my life, and now, with the hawks as neighbors too, I thought this was a magical day.
Please remember that all the work to restore Flint Creek Savanna and CFC’s other properties has been done by volunteers. And Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation (flintcreekwildlife.org) represents hours of grueling specialized care for the 2,000 to 3,000 animals and birds that the facility saves every year. Flint Creek receives no government funding, so we were pleased that CFC (citizensforconservation.org) donated our reservation money, about $300, to Flint Creek. How fortunate we are to have these organizations in our community; their achievements are quite remarkable.
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