The large bird was discovered ill with West Nile Virus last fall at the Wisconsin Dells, Wis., property and taken to the Four Lakes Wildlife Center for rehabilitation. The female hawk has since recovered and was released on the property on January 20.
A large, female red-tail hawk was released near the Wild Rock Golf Club maintenance building following her rescue at the Wisconsin Dells, Wis., course last fall and her subsequent recovery from a case of West Nile Virus, the Portage, Wis., Wisconsin Dells Events reported.
Her rescue came courtesy of golf course superintendent Mike Blazich, his colleagues at the golf course and the staff and volunteers of Dane County Humane Society’s Four Lakes Wildlife Center, who took on the job of the bird’s recovery, the Events reported.
“I’m happy to see her back,” Blazich said, admitting that he got a lump in his throat at the site of the now-recovered bird in flight.
The hawk was discovered on a sunny, late-September day near a cart path last fall by course employee Yuliya Haidukevich as she made her rounds in the beverage cart. Upon spotting the creature just off the path, Haidukevich could tell that something was ailing it, and she immediately called Blazich, who came out to take a look for himself, the Events reported.
“She was sitting on a rock close to the cart path, she didn’t really fly, she just sat there, which is just not normal for a big bird like that,” Blazich said. “She was able to open up her wings and glide away toward the woods to get away from me, but I pursued her down the hill into some brambles, and she wasn’t able to get up and out.”
Knowing a thing or two about handling birds because of the domesticated avian pets he has owned over the years, Blazich gently put a towel over the bird and placed it in a small box. After making a few phone calls he located Four Lakes, and within a couple of hours he had driven the bird, still in its box, to the center in Madison, the Events reported.
The initial diagnosis for the bird was grim, a “2” rating on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the worst of health, Blazich said. The Four Lakes staff thought West Nile might be the cause, a diagnosis that ultimately was confirmed after the bird had been further examined, the Events reported.
As the hawk continued to recover throughout the fall, Blazich kept tabs on her progress. He found out until early this week that the bird was headed back to its original habitat. “I’m just happy they’re willing to bring her all the way back up here,” Blazich said. “They could have released her in Madison, there are red-tail hawks down there, but they decided to bring her back up here.”
Four Lakes volunteer Mary Sobol and her daughter Sarah did the honors, driving the bird back up to the course and arriving to a welcoming party of a half-dozen or so Wild Rock employees, armed with cameras and video recorders. The gathered crowd stood raptly as the bird took flight, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief once she alighted on a limb high above a nearby tree on the edge of the woods that surround the maintenance building just off the course, the Events reported.
The bird has been tagged by the center, Sobol said, so her progress can be monitored, and the bird’s rescuer did not seem worried about her fate, the Events reported.
“That’s for nature to figure out—we’re humans, we just do the best we can,” Blazich said.
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