A young falcon hit our window yesterday afternoon. No doubt he was hungry and the feeder outside my window, crowded with tasty song bird morsels, looked inviting. He misjudged his distance vs. speed ratio and well.. hit the house and landed in a heap on the deck…

The squirrel sat over him wondering if he was going to have a fancy bird feast for dinner. I intervened.

After spending the majority of my working years as a corporate travel agent, I am more than experienced in the heartbreak of unexpected flight interruptions. Delayed arrangements and rerouted trips are well within “my lane”. I felt I could be considered very qualified to take care of an injured hawk.

I have saved many hummingbirds, chickadees and a wren before. A hawk couldn’t be much different..

First I had to get him away from the squirrel so I wrapped him in a towel and put him in a basket outside the guest room where I could keep an eye on him.

It wasn’t long before he hopped up on to the edge of the basket. He tried to fly at one point but then just kind of dropped onto the table… He stayed like that for a few hours.

It started to get windy and cold and I worried the raccoon would stumble upon him when looking for bird seed .

So I wrapped him back up in the towel and put him inside a playpen, in the guest room. There was a log in the pen along with some water. There was a blanket laying lightly over the top and the room was cool and dark. We left him for the night to recover.

I fully expected to find him deceased this morning. But he was bright, if a little cross eyed, bushy tailed and standing up on the log. E opened the door and lifted the log toward the fresh air. The hawk flew off happily to the great outdoors..

Corporate travel agent, avian vet….all the

same thing, really