Jonina Turzi was driving home from work the other day when she spotted a mysterious figure in the middle of the road and quickly stopped her car. Up ahead, a large bird stood listlessly in the middle of the busy thruway, desperately in need of help.
“The
hawk appeared dazed and was limping, unsure of what to do,” Raven Ridge Wildlife Center (RRWC) wrote on Facebook.
Just as Turzi hopped out of her car with a blanket in hand, another Good Samaritan stopped and offered to help. They knew they needed to capture the grounded bird, but they weren’t sure how she would react to their presence.
The pair of helpers swiftly covered the bird with the blanket, and then Turzi carefully scooped her up. To her surprise, the hawk didn’t get agitated as expected. Instead, she seemed grateful that someone stopped for her.
“I scooped her up and held her in my arms like a baby,” Turzi, cofounder of Lancaster Farm Sanctuary, wrote on Facebook. “She looked directly into my eyes. I feel like she was asking for help.”
You can watch the moment Turzi stops to help the hawk here:
Turzi contacted Tracy at RRWC, who immediately agreed to take the hawk in. The other driver who’d stopped to help offered to drive the hawk to RRWC’s headquarters and soon arrived with the injured girl.
After a thorough checkup, the folks at RRWC discovered just why the hawk was so subdued.
“She was severely dehydrated, emaciated and had sustained injuries from being hit by a car,” RRWC wrote. “Our team approached her care with caution, as she was very guarded and had numerous challenges to overcome.”
The hawk was in critical condition. And while it’s impossible to know exactly what happened to her, the experts at RRWC have sadly come across similar cases with young birds in the past.
“Juvenile hawks often leave the nest before mastering the complex skills needed to spot, chase and capture fast-moving prey …” RRWC wrote. “Inexperienced juveniles frequently hunt along busy highways … making them prime targets for car strikes.”
The hawk undoubtedly had a long road of recovery ahead, which worried the RRWC staff, as “restoring a hawk from such a critical state can be tricky …” But they refused to give up on her.
They first gave her fluids multiple times a day to keep her comfortable, then slowly started to introduce formula into her diet. After a while, she regained her strength and was finally able to eat fresh food again.
The RRWC staff was thrilled when, several days after her rescue, the hawk started eating on her own. And she even began using the leg that had been causing her to limp before. Finally, it was time for the next step of her rehabilitation.
“She has now been moved outside to a small outdoor enclosure where she can improve her leg strength by perching on varied perches and logs,” RRWC wrote.
While the hawk still has some healing to do, her friends at RRWC are confident that she’ll soon be strong enough to return to the wild. She may not be the first young bird they’ve treated after a car accident, or the last, but her story is a special reminder of the difference a pair of caring strangers can make.
“[N]ow she has a second chance at life,” RRWC wrote.
