Bird Man *REPOST*

*I am reposting this post, that I had up last year, for no particular reason other than I really like it!*

When I was growing up, my father's hobby was rehabilitating birds of prey. For instance, if someone found an injured hawk or owl, they usually brought it to the humane society, and then they would contact my Dad. He built, with his own hands, enormous cages in our backyard for the birds to stay in until they were better. He had a room in his laboratory (he was a science professor at a midwestern university, now retired) where he could xray, reset any broken bones, remove any bullets, and fix up any sort of injury. Amputations were sometimes necessary for mangled claws, and I remember an owl that lost it's eye (I can't remember the circumstances).




"Peg Leg Pete"




The birds would then stay in these cages and recover, and when he deemed them well, he would put a band on their leg and release them back into the wild. But sometimes they were not able to be released. They simply wouldn't survive in the wild with their type of disability. So he would find a bird sanctuary to take them to. I think there is one in Kalamazoo, MI (or, at least there was one when I was a kid).

I remember when I was a kid wishing that I had a "normal" home - the neighborhood kids thought we were weird (the "Adam's family" is sometimes how they referred to us) but now I know how cool it really was. I got to see birds up close like snowy owls, peregrine falcons, great horned owls, red-tailed hawks, and even birds like storks and turkey buzzards. One time we had a South American Black Hawk - I think someone had it illegally in Texas, and the authorities confiscated it and sent it to my Dad. I am not sure what ever happened to him, but his name was Zeke and he was magnificent. He had a high-pitched call that made you think you lived in the jungle. Needless to say, some neighbors didn't appreciate that!

You may be wondering, "what did these birds eat?". That was the one thing that I was uncomfortable with. My Dad would feed them rats which he got from his lab, I think. I would be taking the laundry downstairs and would walk past a rat lying there thawing. It became normal after awhile, but still weird. Also, the birds would sometimes eat meat from the meat market. One time, my Mom and I went to the market because she needed to get a cow's heart for my Dad to feed the buzzard. So she ordered it, and the guy behind the counter gave her a look (after all, how many people order cow hearts?). So she said, "Oh, it's not for us. It's for our buzzard." As if THAT was a "reasonable" explanation. I was so embarrassed.

During the winter, sometimes my Dad would bring birds into our basement (there were cages set up there too). One time my mother went downstairs to get the laundry, and there it was, a buzzard sitting there on the table looking at her. Apparently, it had escaped from it's cage. So she called my Dad to come get him. She wasn't even fazed at all. Doesn't EVERYONE have a buzzard in their basement?