Horus Update

Ok, I’m very delinquent in giving this update.  I apologize.

The day after my post about finding the little hawkling I went ahead and took him to the wildlife sanctuary/rehab place.

You ever just know something isn’t right?  That’s how it was with Horus.  After 24 hours of my care (such as it was) it just seemed to me he was going the wrong direction.  My 24 hour count went from when I first saw him at 10:00 in the morning to the next morning.  Something wasn’t right.  He was quieter.  Not really attempting to eat.

So we went for a drive.

Once we got to the wildlife rescue they fed him a chicken liver which they told me he promptly scarfed down.  Good job for having an appetite still.  I left the place thinking good thoughts for the little guy.

The next day I got the following e-mail:

Hello Liz,

Once again, thank you for taking the time to rescue the red-tailed hawk chick and bring him to Safe Haven.  Unfortunately he did not survive the night.  In the late afternoon he began vomiting, a sign of dehydration.  We administered oral fluids immediately and once more in the evening.  For a chick his age and size, once dehydration sets in it is very hard to recover them. We are sorry that we could not have done more.

Safe Haven Rescue Zoo

Pretty much broke. my. heart.

So I played the shoulda, coulda, woulda game for a bit.  If I had taken him in the day I found him, would it have gone better for him?  Was there something wrong with him in the first place that caused him to fall out of the nest?  The gal that took him at the rescue thought he might have had an injury to his left wing and foot.  Most likely from his 20-foot plus fall.  But maybe from something else?  Was tuna the wrong thing to feed him?

After beating myself up for all the things that I might have done differently plus a few things that were beyond my control, I let out a big sigh of resignation.  My bottom line:  I did what I could, what I thought was best.  I don’t know if my actions helped or not.  Maybe it all just prolonged the inevitable.

Which brings me to a deeper thought.  We are all on a road to our inevitable demise.  What matters in our journey?  Who matters in our journey?  To me that latter question is the more important one.

Back to the hawks though.  There are still two fledgling hawks in the nest.  They are definitely not Red Wings.  No idea where that concept came from.

Hawk Parent. Not a Red Wing. More like a Chicken Hawk. On one of it’s usual perches.

Horus’ siblings. One is pretty well centered in the frame, the other is off to the right side of the picture – pretty well hidden.

It seems the hawks will go on.  Just like the rest of us.