Larry, the Coopers Hawk

We had an exciting day today: Church, setting up for VBS at church, lunch with friends, back to church to finish setting up for VBS, finding a Hawk at church, VBS, quickly tearing down VBS before the rain storm, oh, and did I mention FINDING A HAWK AT CHURCH?????

Mike and I had returned to church after lunch to finish setting up for VBS and I saw a bird setting on the fence post that's near our playground, and where VBS was going to take place. I figured that the closer I walked towards the bird, the more likely he would be to fly away. Well, when I was about a foot away from him, I started to wonder if something was wrong with him because he wasn't flying away. I called Mike over to the fence so he could take a look at him, and of course, grab the camera!

Here are some shots of him on the fence:




I started to feel bad for the little guy because his feet were pretty big and the fence was pretty small. He hadn't tried to fly away at all, which made me believe he might be injured. A bird of his size would not casually sit on a fence post and let humans get that close to him.

Mike ran and found a pretty round (and long... safety first!) tree branch and we were able to get the bird to perch on the branch. It looks a little more stable for him than the fence.



Once he was on the branch, we were able to get a good look at his feet and talons. WOWZA! Those things looks wicked! Here's a close up shot of his talons:


After seeing his feet and knowing we'd have 50+ kids between the ages of 3 and 5th grade running around the playground where he was within an hour, I figured we needed to relocate him for not only his, but also the kids' safety until we could figure out what to do with him. We moved him behind the shelter house on our church property and gave him some other branches to blend in with.

We tried calling the zoo, two different wild life rescues (who wanted to charge us anywhere from $165 - $200 to come and get the bird!) and animal control to see if any of them could pick him up or at least tell us what to do with him. Finally, a friend from church saw my updates on Facebook about the bird, called my cell and told me she had a friend who worked for the DNR and was going to call him. Soon there after, I got a phone call from a lady who works with the DNR on rehabilitating injured birds. She and her husband were going to drive out to the church to take a look at the little guy.

While we waited, Mike, in all of his cleverness, decided to name the bird "Larry." Why Larry? Who knows. But it stuck. We had a number of onlookers at this time, and they all thought Larry was a good name.

Here's another shot of Larry while he waited for the DNR to arrive.

While we waited, Mike and our friend AJ were walking around the playground where we found Larry, and heard other birds. They looked up into the tallest tree in the playground (of course it had to be the tallest - so tall a firetruck ladder wouldn't even reach) and found this nest. Its a little blurry, sorry! You can see another birds tail sticking out of the nest.

The lady with the DNR showed up and said what probably happened was Larry's Momma "kicked" him out of the nest so he could start learning to fend for himself. She just picked the wrong week to kick him out - the week of our VBS. Normally, the DNR would have left Larry be so he could learn bird habits, but because of all of the kids that are going to be around all week at church, they decided for everyone's safety, to take Larry to a Avian Rehab location in Westfield, IN.

We're going to keep in touch with them, and they mentioned to us before leaving that when Larry is ready to be released back to the wild, we could drive up to the facility and watch them release him.