A day for the birds of prey

BACK BAY -- Though Isis cannot hunt, her black talons and hooked beak

are a clear sign of the power the wild members of her species

possess.

Isis, a red-tailed hawk, was one of three raptors that visited the

Peter & Mary Muth Interpretive Center on Saturday along with two

human volunteers with the Orange County Birds of Prey Center. The

Lake Forest-based group rescues and rehabilitates injured avians.

An audience of about 50 people, of which about half were children,

watched as volunteer Jeff Bartholomew displayed Isis as she perched

on his wrist. Bartholomew wore a heavy leather glove to protect

himself from Isis’ sharp talons.

“It’s really neat handling them; you can sense their temper,”

Bartholomew said.

Isis does not hunt because she was stolen from her nest and never

learned how, volunteer Denise McElney told the audience. McElney said

the bird was taken by someone who thought it would be a good idea to

have a hawk for a pet.

He was wrong.

Besides being lousy pets, owning a red-tailed hawk is illegal,

McElney said. It’s even against the law to own one of their feathers.

O’Neill, a blue and rust-colored American kestrel, and Slug, a

Western screech-owl, were the other two birds shown to the audience.

Like Isis, the other two birds cannot survive in the wild.

Most birds that are taken to the center are released into the

wild, McElney said. Slug stays at the center because he was hit by a

car and suffered a broken wing and lost sight in one eye. O’Neill,

like Isis, does not know how to hunt and imprinted on humans instead

of other American kestrels. Basically, that means the animals’

behavior was influenced by people instead of birds.

The center uses birds that cannot live on their own for

educational programs such as Saturday’s event.

“If they can’t be released, we make them work for a living,”

McElney said.

McElney’s talk went over the basics of birds of prey. She

discussed their powerful vision, strong talons and sharp beaks. One

reason the animals are important, she said, is because their

appetites keep rodent populations under control.

The kestrel was 6-year-old Sam Johnson’s favorite of the three

birds. He thought the small raptor seemed like a speedy creature.

“When I saw it jump down, it looked fast; that’s what I liked

about it,” Sam, who lives in San Clemente, said. “And I liked that

its wings were beautiful.”

* ANDREW EDWARDS can be reached at (714) 966-4624 or by e-mail at

[email protected].