|
Flies buzz around an open wound on the injured bald eagle found yesterday morning near eastern Stafford's Accokeek Creek.
Kent Knowles (left), chief rehabilitator
This injured American bald eagle turned up in a yard along Accokeek Creek in eastern Stafford County and was rescued |
Wearing elbow-length leather gloves and clutching a long-handled net, Kent Knowles slowly made his way up to the big, brown-and-white bird perched on a log in a yard overlooking Accokeek Creek in Stafford County.
Knowles, chief rehabilitator with the Raptor Conservancy of Virginia, and volunteer Paul Balun got to within two feet of the bald eagle, which stared intently at them but made no attempt to fly. Knowles quickly scooped the bird into the net and--avoiding two sets of sharp talons and a fish-tearing beak--carried it over to a waiting plastic transport box.
"Do you think he's OK?" asked Patricia Kurpiel, whose home overlooks the creek, and whose yard the injured eagle had chosen for refuge yesterday morning.
Knowles shook his head. "No."
Gently untangling the bird from the net, he examined the wings and paused at a gash along one leg.
"There are no fractures. There are definitely wounds here," Knowles said. "And there are flies all over. That doesn't look good. Holy smoke."
After a moment, Kurpiel asked quietly, "Can he be saved?"
Knowles shrugged. "I really can't tell you right now. It's extremely weak."
The avian drama began Sunday on the scenic creek, a tributary of the Potomac River to the west of Marlborough Point.
The bird first was spotted sitting in an open boathouse next door owned by Kurpiel's sister, Jane Gallagher. Gallagher's husband, John, saw it and told Kurpiel, who found the eagle sitting on the shore next to her dock yesterday morning.
She called the conservancy, and as she was waiting for rescuers to arrive, the eagle managed to hop up the shoreline to the bank just below her deck. "He opened his wings, and it looked like his beak was hurt."
Kurpiel added, "We see eagles here maybe once a month. We don't see them that often, but when you do, it's a thrill."
She knew there was something terribly wrong with this eagle, and hoped rescuers would arrive before it was too late.
"I rounded up all the cats and the neighbors' dogs" so the bird would not be further traumatized. Kurpiel had called the raptor conservancy two years ago for help when a hawk crashed into her window.
Kurpiel, her husband, George, and a friend and bluebird watcher, Anne Little, kept an eye on the eagle with binoculars through her back window.
Knowles took the bird back to the conservancy in Falls Church for emergency care.
"We need to get this guy rehydrated, put something on that wound and do X-rays," he said. He estimated the bird was probably a male, at least 5 years old, and somewhat underweight. Eagles don't develop the signature white head and tail features until they are about 5.
Last year, the nonprofit conservancy took in about 250 raptors, including several eagles. More birds are running into trouble as development shrinks their habitat, Knowles said.
So far this year, six eagles have been rescued by the conservancy.
Two weeks ago, he picked up a dead eagle after responding to a call near Quantico. An autopsy determined that the bird had ingested lead. Eagles sometimes eat waterfowl or deer carcasses killed with lead shot, and fish with lead sinkers attached.
Before the Quantico incident, a young male eagle was recovered after it was blown out of its nest in the Northern Neck.
"It hadn't eaten--I thought it was dead when they handed it to me," Knowles said. The bird recovered and was released.
The Raptor Conservancy does rehabilitation and release, education programs and aims to increase the wild population of endangered and threatened species.
Kurpiel hopes that if the bird found here recovers, it can be released on Accokeek Creek.
"We hope they can get him fixed up. We'll check in on him," she said.
Jeff Cooper, a wildlife biologist with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and coordinator of the state's eagle management and monitoring program, said he frequently gets calls from rescue organizations such as RCV to pick up injured eagles.
Under federal law, licensed rehabilitators can render short-term first aid. But seriously ill or injured birds requiring surgery are sent to the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro. Cooper will make that decision.
Occasionally, he picks up dead eagles. "If the cause of death is not apparent, we send it to a federal lab in Wisconsin," for analysis, he said.
One of Cooper's most memorable eagle pickups came from Knowles last winter.
"The bird had been sprayed by a skunk," said Cooper, who rode almost four hours with it in the cab of his truck. It was raining and his windows were down. "My eyes were watering and I was nauseous" by the time he delivered his charge to the Wildlife Center.
Until about a decade ago, eagles were a relatively rare sight here. Their numbers were decimated by the effects of pollution and pesticides during the 1950s and 1960s. Now it's not unusual to see the majestic birds soaring over the Falmouth Bridge and Fredericksburg's City Dock.
Researchers at the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William & Mary have found that the tidal reaches of the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers produce more bald eagle chicks than other areas of Virginia, possibly because of the rivers' runs of migratory fish.
On the Potomac, prime eagle habitat runs from Mathias Point in King George County, upriver to Mason Neck in Fairfax County.
In its 2003 survey of eagle breeding success, the center found that 435 eagle territories were occupied throughout Virginia, a 19.8 percent increase over 2002.
Once listed as an endangered species in Virginia, the national bird is still protected under threatened status.
To reach RUSTY DENNEN: 540/374-5431 rdennen@freelancestar.com
