Watching Them Fly Away Is the Best Part

 

Most birds, when you release them into the wild, take off like rockets. Owls at night, hawks and songbirds by the day — all the same. 

Not this young red-tailed hawk. Yes, he came straight up out the box, brushing my face, but then he landed nearby. It's like it took a moment for him to realize there was nothing above him but the clear blue sky of southern Colorado's Wet Mountain Valley.

Another volunteer wildlife transporter had brought him to the Raptor Center early this summer. He had only minor problems, recovered successfully, and had been exercising in the big flight cage (a.k.a. flight barn), which is about two stories tall and . . . barn-sized.

Now he stood in the grass for a few seconds, then bounced up, caught the wind, and swung out in a low circle (the "line-control model airplane moment"), gained more altitude, circled past our Jeep and a county Road & Bridge truck (hawk life includes vehicles), and went where I knew he would go.

That was a large, mostly leafless cottonwood by a creek. He is only a dot in the video at the point, but when M. and I drove away, there he was, perched on one of the highest branches

I like to think that he was building a new mental map: mountains, creek, lake, forest farther away. Was he already scanning rodents with his 8-powered eyes?