Back Volunteering for His Second Year
Caring for God's Birds Delights Andrew
by Dale Fisher
Every Saturday morning, January through the en of February, Andrew gets up before dawn and drives for 30 minutes, heading east from his Escondido home to the town of Ramona (in Eastern San Diego County). There, he volunteers in a grasslands and bird conservation effort called Hawk Watch.
To get their Saturdays started, he and a few other volunteer ornithologists spend their first three hours catching hawks. They bring the hawks to the Wildlife Research Institute (WRI) where public talks about preserving wildlife are presented from 9 until 11 a.m. Parts of each presentation are divided between grassland conservation and raptors, which includes showing the hawks and banding them (as shown in the photos below).
The day I accompanied Andrew and his fellow volunteer trappers, they had caught two kestrels, a pair of red-shouldered hawks, a few red-tailed hawks, and a cooper's hawk. Each can be seen in the accompanying photos.
Before hawks and other raptors can be displayed, they must be caught. To do this effectively, trained volunteers drive along Ramona back roads. When they spot a hawk, they stop the car. A volunteer gently places a special trap by the side of the road — a trap that attracts and ensnares raptors without harming them. The car then drives on as the driver looks at the rear-view mirror intently. Usually within a few minutes, a hawk will be seen swooping down, attempting to catch a caged pair of rats (shown below). Its talons become caught in the trap's monofilament line, strung in loops on the outside of the trap's chicken-wire case. As the car returns, a trained volunteer knowingly grabs the hawk's feet, barehanded, and untangles the bird as he holds its legs. The hawk is carefully placed in a tube (also shown below) for a safe and comfortable ride to the research center. All of this is done under specific permits from the California Department of Fish and Game.
During my visit in February, Dave Bitner, the head of the Hawk Watch program, gave the talk and conducted a leg-banding demonstration with Andrew's assistance. At the end of the live presentation, Dave gave his usual invitation to the people to go on a walk with him to see some nearby burrowing owls. WRI installed artificial burrowing owl burrows to encourage owls to stay in the grasslands and breed. Each year, a few pairs of burrowing owls successfully breed and produce offspring in the grasslands.
Andrew remained at the research center, as he usually does on Saturdays, to answer questions and allow individuals to take close-up photographs of birds he holds for them. Participating at WRI for the past two years, Andrew enjoys this volunteer work very much. He loves relating to birds.
