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East Hollywood -- As he was walking his daughter Clara to school in mid-June, Asa Shumskas noticed a pile of feathers on the sidewalk near a chain link fence overlooking the 101 Freeway. Walking closer, he discovered a red-tailed hawk, alert but not moving.
Knowing something was wrong – he was only two feet from the predator – Shumskas called his wife Frances Tait who, earlier this year, enrolled be a volunteer in the annual Los Angeles Raptor Study. Tait was given raptor training and had been assigned a nest and breeding pair of hawks to monitor.
Even though this was not her nest territory, Tait quickly called the Raptor Study team coordinators who arrived on the scene to carefully transport the injured bird to the Ojai Raptor Center for rehabilitation.
“We knew the bird would be in good hands, but we were very anxious for updates,” explained Tait.
About that time, another Raptor Study volunteer from East Hollywood, Julie Drake, was wondering what happened to the raptor in the nest she had been monitoring since mid-April. She observed the adult pair raise the chick from a “big fluffy baby with a wobbling head” to a fledging hopping from branch to branch.
“It was such a busy, noisy location right near the freeway,” she said explaining how she saw the bird every day for months until it just seemed to disappear. When Drake was told about the injured hawk – probably the one she had been watching – she was relieved and overjoyed to know its fate.
The hawk wasn’t in rehab for long; in just a manner of weeks, the raptor made a full recovery. Drake and the Shumskas-Tait family were invited to witness the hawk's release at Barnsdall Park, chosen because it was close to the raptor’s birthplace.
“It was a wonderful event and thrilling to see the hawk up close,” says Tait. “This really reminds us that we are just steps away from wilderness even in the middle of the city.”
Photo courtesy Nurit Katz
This story appeared in the Good Reads Edition of our Sunday Digest newsletter. Sign up for the Sunday and Daily Digest (Monday-Friday) newsletter by clicking or tapping on the link below.
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Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
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Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.