Wednesday brought early morning rain, but by 10:30 the rain clouds had moved on, leaving a gray sky with occasional patches of blue.

It was a good day to fly: not much wind, relatively warm and I had Baylands mostly to myself for the morning. Mike Bigby came by for a while and flew his HyperFlea. Not what I’d call a crowd.

Four batteries later, I decided to walk around the park while my charger did its stuff. Midway around the circuit, I heard honking and looked around. It was Gary in his olive truck, entering the park.

“Are they still planning to release Pickleweed Red?” I asked.

He said yes, at 1 p.m. In about 45 minutes.

“I’m finishing my walk,” I told him. “See you in about 15 minutes.”

Set for Cloudy. When I got back to the picnic site, I lugged my camera gear out of the car, set the lighting to “cloudy” and chatted with people while I waited for the Animal Control crew to show up.

First arrival was Trudi Burney, from the Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley.

Gary introduced us and she met George Kulcher and Dennis Castleman, who, along with Rick Carmichael, collaborated with Gary Saturday, Nov. 17, to rescue the red-tailed hawk wrapped in monofilament in the oh-so-tall eucalyptus which we all know very well.

Well, they didn’t rescue the bird, but they persevered in looking for help until they found people who could effect a rescue. As Gary wrote on BayRC, the heroes of the story were Lt. Stacy Hearn of the Sunnyvale Police Department and Melissa Iida of Animal Control. Plus a tree climber who sawed off a limb and gently lowered the bird to the ground, where Gary and Melissa covered her with a blanket and cut off the tangle of fishing line.

Good Condition. Trudi told us that the hawk had arrived at Animal Rescue in good condition. No abrasions, no dehydration.

She said that many animals come to the Animal Shelter in bad shape because they’re not discovered promptly after an injury. Saturday morning flyers noticed that Pickleweed Red was trapped in the tree. And she hadn’t been there on Friday.

So she had a bad Saturday, but she was freed of the monofilament that evening.

Animal Control kept her for two weeks to make sure she was eating and was able to hunt for food.

How Do You Know? Doug Traub asked Trudi how they identified the hawk as a red-tailed hawk, since Doug and I thought that she and her companions were Swainson’s hawks.

Trudi explained that red-tailed hawks don’t always have red tails. She probably told Doug more, but I got distracted and moved on.

Just before 1 p.m., Pickleweed Red arrived. She traveled in a blanket-covered cardboard cat transporter carried by Ashley Kinney.

The box was labeled “I [heart] my pet.”

Ashley deputized Gary Morgan to release the hawk, since Gary has been so involved in the hawk’s recovery.

She and Gary walked midway down the path to the field, took pictures and removed the blanket.

Opening the Box. Gary pried open the box. A second later, maybe half a second, the hawk sprang from the box and began flying toward nearby trees.

For a moment Gary looked startled, then his face opened up into a big smile.

I was standing between the hawk and the trees, so I enjoyed a few seconds of machine-gun rapid picture taking as the bird flapped toward me, then veered off to my left and sailed into a tree.

A few minutes later, a resident red-tailed hawk stopped by to check out the “newcomer.” They squabbled a bit, then Pickleweed Red flew to another tree.

So it’ll take her a while to reassert herself, but we’re all very happy to see her back at Baylands.

View a Photo Gallery of Pickleweed Red’s Return.

Tags: Airplanes, Baylands, Birds, Flying, Trees.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 at 6:07 pm and is filed under Baylands. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.