There’s a red-tailed hawk that likely owes its life to Stu Davidson, and maybe to another hawk, as well.
Davidson, 59, of Snohomish, was taking photos on Fir Island near Conway in Skagit County on Presidents Day when he saw a red-tailed hawk sitting in a field.
He got out and began tak
ing photos. The hawk then took off and flew, close to the ground, until it lit on a fence-like trellis erected to support raspberry bushes.
A few feet to the right of the hawk, Davidson saw what looked like a dark plastic bag fluttering in the breeze.
As Davidson got closer, he saw it wasn’t a bag, but another hawk hanging by its foot from a strand of twine on the trellis.
“The thing was fluttering and twisting and trying to get loose and hanging by one leg. It was exhausted,” he said. “I thought, ‘How long had it been like that?'”
Then Davidson realized that the hawk in the field might have led him to the injured bird.
“I swear it gave me a chill that that bird guided me over there.”
Davidson approached the injured bird, took out his pocket knife and cut at the line until the hawk fell to the ground.
“I thought right away he’d just take off,” he said. The bird, however, was tired. “We just sat looking at each other,” Davidson said.
He saw that the twine was still embedded in the hawk’s foot.
Davidson has a cockatoo at home. “From my experience with birds, you cover them up and they settle down right away,” he said. So he put his coat over the hawk, and it laid down with its foot up in the air. It was a defensive position, he said, but the foot was in perfect position.
The twine was wrapped around the foot at least 10 times and it took him several minutes to unwind it. Afterward, the hawk would not put any weight on the injured leg.
“I just wrapped him up and put him in the passenger seat of my truck and he didn’t move a muscle,” he said.
Davidson bought a cage on the way home and kept the bird overnight. The next morning, he called the Sarvey Wildlife Center in Arlington, which cares for injured wildlife.
Alycia Leonard, who works at Sarvey, said the hawk had a dislocated joint on its foot and an open wound. The joint easily slipped back into place, she said.
It won’t be known for a couple of weeks whether the hawk can be released back into the wild. Hawks use their feet and talons to hunt, Leonard said.
At the center they’re not sure if the hawk is a male or female but are referring to the bird as “he.”
If Davidson’s bird can’t be released it will be given a home at Sarvey.
Leonard said Davidson did all the right things in rescuing the hawk. Normally, Sarvey encourages people to call the center before taking action.
Davidson, a retired software engineer, said he lost track of the other hawk.
He hopes the injured bird can be released into the wild and that he’ll be there to help.
“I want to do it right there on Fir Island,” he said.
Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439; sheets@heraldnet.com.
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