It’s quiet on the again roads of Boyds, Md., the place a small compound studded with hen feeders breaks up the monotony of the encompassing cornfields.
Instantly, a souped-up Toyota Tacoma kicks up a cloud of mud because it pulls into view on a gravel path. It slows to a halt. A determine steps out of the truck: a lady with a glove overlaying one arm and a sleeve of hawk tattoos overlaying the opposite. Reaching into the passenger seat, she pulls out a field, one which appears to be combating her again.
This one, I knew, could be headed for the I.C.U.
Nancy McDonald is a volunteer rescuer on the Owl Moon Raptor Middle, a company primarily based in Boyds that helps rescue and rehabilitate injured raptors — together with hawks, owls, eagles and ospreys — earlier than returning them to the wild.
The phrase “raptor” derives from the Latin verb “rapiō,” which means “to grab.” All raptors have 4 traits: a hooked beak, sharp talons, eager eyesight and a carnivorous food plan.
In some respects, birds of prey that reside amongst human populations have a fragile life cycle. The threats they face embrace rodenticides (pesticides that kill rodents), entanglement with fishing traces and wires, automobile strikes and collisions with home windows.
In different methods, although, the animals are extremely adaptive.
Peregrine falcons typically use high-rise buildings as their aeries; ospreys can occupy man-made platforms to lift their chicks; and committees of vultures typically take over dumpsters, stated Ms. McDonald, a 62-year-old U.S. Military veteran who started as a rescue volunteer in 2017. (And sure, “committee” is likely one of the phrases for a bunch of vultures.)
I first discovered about Ms. McDonald and the Owl Moon Raptor Middle, whose major operator is Suzanne Shoemaker, an knowledgeable in animal conduct and ecology, once I was a university pupil in Washington, D.C. Then an aspiring wildlife photographer, I assumed I’d need to journey to far-flung locations with a view to discover topics to {photograph}.
And but, on my technique to and from courses, I’d usually see hawks hovering above the cityscape. Finally I started to trace the birds in between lectures, looking for indicators of damaged branches or the carcasses of their prey. Spending a lot time in search of hints of the birds led me to surprise concerning the threats they confronted and about those that labored to avoid wasting them.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, I moved again to my household dwelling within the suburbs. However nonetheless intrigued by the birds, I posted a query in a neighborhood birding group on Fb, and Ms. McDonald answered. She invited me to go to Owl Moon and be taught concerning the threats that plague city raptors.
After my preliminary go to, I used to be hooked. For weeks I accompanied Ms. McDonald as she went about her work — on rescues, on hikes to the rehabilitation discipline, into the freezers to mince mice carcasses. We even shared a bottle of whiskey when a hen we each beloved needed to be humanely euthanized.
Not all of the work was uplifting. On one event, a red-tailed hawk named Kean was discovered to be sitting on prime of and crushing different birds within the mew, a big birdhouse designed to carry a number of raptors. (After colliding with a high-rise in Baltimore, the hen was affected by neurological and behavioral points.) Ultimately, Kean’s situation exacerbated the accidents of different birds, limiting their probabilities to heal.
It was a race towards time. Ms. McDonald tried to seek out one other dwelling for the hen, calling different rehab facilities that she thought may need the hawk as an envoy hen, or a hen used for instructional functions with college students and different guests. However nobody else had room for what some noticed as “yet one more red-tailed hawk.” (Many facilities could have made room for a extra unique hen.)
Having exhausted all different choices, and understanding that the hen’s situation was too harmful to the opposite releasable birds, the Owl Moon Raptor Middle had no alternative however to euthanize Kean.
Euthanasia is an unlucky actuality of raptor rescues. In lots of situations, it’s the solely humane method ahead after rodenticide poisonings or collisions with home windows or automobiles. Nonetheless, for the anguished volunteers, every loss is painful.
In fact, it’s the successes that drive the raptor rescuers ahead. Ms. McDonald nonetheless remembers one of many first duties she was given when she joined the group: to launch a rehabbed red-tailed hawk in Crofton, Md.
“I opened the field and it hopped out,” she stated. “The hawk simply sat there for about 10 minutes, getting its bearings — after which, rapidly, it took off.” That was the primary time she knew that she was a part of one thing helpful, she stated.
I spent a great deal of my time at Owl Moon in and across the mew, the place lots of the hawks are held. The wood floorboards creaked as I got here and went, accompanied by the rustling of greater than 20 birds of prey who had been confined whereas being rehabilitated.
I’d watch and {photograph} because the rescuers rigorously ready for his or her every day rounds. They pulled on oversize Kevlar gloves and outfitted themselves with 12-foot nets. Then they received able to duck. There was a flurry of feathers as they entered the room with the birds, the newly admitted red-shouldered and red-tailed hawks scattering to the highest of their enclosure.
To those that work at Owl Moon, every hen’s journey is a part of their very own. Each the birds and their rehabbers yearn for the day the raptors can fly free. However in providing the birds one other probability, the rescuers themselves acquire one thing, too: classes about resilience, adaptation and restoration.
As a photographer, I discovered one thing necessary from the birds, too — specifically that profound conservation tales needn’t take me to the ends of the earth. They’re to be discovered throughout us, in our cities and suburbs, if solely we’re keen to look.
Jules Jacobs is a conservation photographer primarily based in San Diego. You’ll be able to comply with his work on Instagram.