A day for the birds of prey
BACK BAY -- Though Isis cannot hunt, her black talons and hooked beak
are a clear sign of the power the wild members of her species
possess.
Isis, a red-tailed hawk, was one of three raptors that visited the
Peter & Mary Muth Interpretive Center on Saturday along with two
human volunteers with the Orange County Birds of Prey Center. The
Lake Forest-based group rescues and rehabilitates injured avians.
An audience of about 50 people, of which about half were children,
watched as volunteer Jeff Bartholomew displayed Isis as she perched
on his wrist. Bartholomew wore a heavy leather glove to protect
himself from Isis’ sharp talons.
“It’s really neat handling them; you can sense their temper,”
Bartholomew said.
Isis does not hunt because she was stolen from her nest and never
learned how, volunteer Denise McElney told the audience. McElney said
the bird was taken by someone who thought it would be a good idea to
have a hawk for a pet.
He was wrong.
Besides being lousy pets, owning a red-tailed hawk is illegal,
McElney said. It’s even against the law to own one of their feathers.
O’Neill, a blue and rust-colored American kestrel, and Slug, a
Western screech-owl, were the other two birds shown to the audience.
Like Isis, the other two birds cannot survive in the wild.
Most birds that are taken to the center are released into the
wild, McElney said. Slug stays at the center because he was hit by a
car and suffered a broken wing and lost sight in one eye. O’Neill,
like Isis, does not know how to hunt and imprinted on humans instead
of other American kestrels. Basically, that means the animals’
behavior was influenced by people instead of birds.
The center uses birds that cannot live on their own for
educational programs such as Saturday’s event.
“If they can’t be released, we make them work for a living,”
McElney said.
McElney’s talk went over the basics of birds of prey. She
discussed their powerful vision, strong talons and sharp beaks. One
reason the animals are important, she said, is because their
appetites keep rodent populations under control.
The kestrel was 6-year-old Sam Johnson’s favorite of the three
birds. He thought the small raptor seemed like a speedy creature.
“When I saw it jump down, it looked fast; that’s what I liked
about it,” Sam, who lives in San Clemente, said. “And I liked that
its wings were beautiful.”
* ANDREW EDWARDS can be reached at (714) 966-4624 or by e-mail at
o7andrew.edwards@latimes.comf7.
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