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Center Keeps Eagle Eye On Needy Hunting Birds

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By KAREN HAYMON LONG

The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 23, 2007

MAITLAND - How fitting that the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey is just a mile from where Florida's first Audubon activists helped halt bird hunting in the Everglades in 1901.

Until then, hunters made fortunes selling plumes for women's hats. Horrified by the slaughter, Florida's Audubon Society, which first met on March 2, 1900, at Maitland's L.F. Dommerich estate, joined other Audubon members from across the country to save the herons, egrets, ibises and other endangered birds.

Their legacy lives on. Today, the staff and volunteers of the Audubon center welcome visitors to get an up-close look at American bald eagles, owls, falcons, hawks, kestrels and other birds of prey that cannot live in the wild.

All 50 resident birds were either injured or can't fly, or they can't hunt for food because they were raised by humans and lack natural instincts. Bird experts call that condition "imprinting."

Since it opened in 1979, the center's vets and staffers have treated more than 12,000 injured or abandoned birds of prey, more than any other bird rehab center east of the Mississippi River. About 40 percent are returned to the wild. Most of the rest are adopted out to bird rehab or educational centers across the country.

The center's birds live in large enclosed areas or are tethered behind fences.

On our visit, after hearing a sharp cry, we rush over to see which bird is making such a racket. An American bald eagle is squawking away and looking very regal as it faces us in profile, as if posing for a portrait.

An osprey perching close by turns its head away from us, as if jealous that the eagle is stealing the show.

Then, we notice the owls: a napping barn owl named Daisy, who looks like a calico cat; a barred owl hooting in a staccato warble; and a great horned owl named Bogey, who injured its wing when it fell from its nest as a chick, so it can't fly.

Bogey is 15, and, like most birds of prey, doesn't like loud noises, staffer Robert Veal tells home-schoolers on a field trip to the center.

We trail the children as they wind their way around the center looking at a giant eagle's nest, weighing a couple of thousand pounds, and at eagles named Paige and Trouble. Paige fell from her nest as a chick and then developed an avian pox that made her very sick, Veal tells the children. Trouble's beak is deformed, which made it impossible for him to eat on his own.

"Females like Paige are bigger than most male eagles," he says. Asked why, he explains that it could be because females have to defend their young in nests, so bigger is better.

Lynda White, who coordinates Audubon of Florida's Eagle Watch Program, says bald eagles are making a spectacular comeback.

"There are 1,200 nesting pairs in Florida," she says. "In 1963, there were just 417 nesting pairs in the lower 48 states."

Polk and Osceola counties have the densest concentration of nesting bald eagles in the world, White says.

She attributes that to the area's numerous lakes and historically rural development.

Among the prettiest birds in the center are Lester and Godiva, both crested caracara, the national bird of Mexico. There's a pretty healthy population of them in Florida, White says.

They live mostly on ranch- land around Lake Okeechobee in the Kissimmee River area. They are in the falcon family and have black heads, white necks and orange-red beaks, and they spend more time on the ground than most falcons. They also mate for life, which made us take another affectionate look at Lester and Godiva.

By contrast, we weren't thrilled to see Jeff, a black vulture who feasts on roadkill in the wild. Vultures are in the stork family, White says. "You can really see the family resemblance."

Down a path, we meet bald eagles T.J., missing his left wing, and Prairie, whose wing was injured when she was hit by an arrow.

"They came in within a year of each other," White says. "They sat in adjoining cages, and she started laying eggs, but they were never fertilized. In 1992, someone brought an eagle egg to us, and we put it in her nest with another egg. A baby eagle hatched. At first, Prairie was scared, then instinct kicked in."

Center workers named the chick Seminole Wind, and, when it was 8 weeks old, placed it in a pine tree with two other chicks the same age. They hoped the mother eagle would accept the new chick and raise it so it could live in the wild, White says.

She did.

"Eagles make wonderful foster parents."

White doesn't know what happened to Seminole Wind but figures, "No news is good news."

On the porch of Audubon House, a bungalow built in 1924 that houses the center's gift shop and offices, White introduces us to an American kestrel, the smallest falcon and the only one that nests in Florida. It is perched next to a falcon named Merlin, who had been imprinted by humans, and a tiny burrowing owl named Bobby, who's missing part of both wings.

"He was attacked by dogs as a chick while he was burrowing in the ground," White says of the owl. "He's 12, which is extra old for a burrowing owl."

After their field trip, the children thank Veal and White and tell them how much they love seeing the birds.

Lana Gill, who brought four of her five children to the center, calls it a "home-schooler's dream" and says she learned a lot on their visit.

"All the birds have such unique features so they can do what they need to do," she says. "Don't tell me there's no God out there."

IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE: The Audubon Center for Birds of Prey is at 1101 Audubon Way in Maitland, north of Orlando. Take Interstate 4 to Exit 88 (Lee Road) and turn right, then left at Wymore Road. Go to Kennedy Boulevard, and turn right. At East Street, turn left and go a few blocks to Audubon Way.

HOURS: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays

ADMISSION: $5; $4 for ages 3 to 12

CONTACT: (407) 644-0190; www.audubonofflorida.org

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