A year and a half ago or so I had to call animal control. I was trying to check the collar on a wayward husky, and I got bitten hard enough to draw blood. I was reticent about calling because I didn’t want anything to happen to the dog and I hate bringing attention to myself as a falconer. However, I’ve also been bitten by domestic animals, had to go to the doctor when the bite got infected, and have had enough rabies shots for both professional and nonprofessional reasons to never want any again. Also, I don’t want other people, especially children, being bitten.
So, I weighed my options and then met one of our local animal control officers. She was young by my terms (early 30s maybe) and was both kind and whip smart. She didn’t want any harm to come to the dog either and as one does when they meet another true animal person, I told her more than I probably should have. I explained that I was a falconer. I told her about the years I had spent working in zoos. And then I told her that although I wasn’t a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, if she ever found herself in a bind with a raptor or a corvid, I always have a freezer full or carnivore and omnivore food. I was so charmed by her and her obviously huge heart, that I told her to call me if she was ever in a pinch. And I gave her my number.
Flash forward to this May. I was sitting in the dentist’s office 20 miles aways and I got a text that said, “This is Officer Grant. I have a crow and my rehabber isn’t answering. Can you help?” I said, “yes” and asked her what time she got off. Then I tried to meet her before 5pm, but we passed each other on my street because she was on her way to pick up a rattlesnake at the middle school football field.
Officer Grant did not get off at 5pm like she was supposed to and instead showed up at my house with a corvid who was not quite fledged. I recognized the complaint of a raven as soon as she pulled it out of the back of her truck in a collapsible cage.
I think everyone can guess how hard it is to be an animal control officer, and I live in a particularly difficult town for animal control. We’re a little rural in places, very much a melting pot of cultures, and the census proclaims us economically depressed. Loose dogs on my street are an everyday occurrence. Honestly, I’m shocked that animal control has time for a raven, even if it has been sitting in someone’s backyard for three days. This decision spoke more to the person that delivered the raven than it did to system. And that’s why I took it. I took the raven for Officer Grant.
I gave the nestling raven a once-over before I popped her in the crate and proclaimed her in good condition, perhaps a little thin, but it’s hard to tell with young birds. Then I gave the raven a couple of mice I had thawed while I waiting and covered the crate on my porch for the night.
The truth is that I hate spring. I always get at least a handful, if not dozens, of requests to help with baby birds. I almost always say “no” and try to direct people to someone who is licensed, which is increasingly difficult in my region. Part of this is the heartbreak that comes with not being able to save every animal I would love to save. I have no idea how wildlife rehabilitators have the fortitude for this.
The other part is because I am licensed to be a falconer and California Department of Fish & Wildlife wardens can show up at my door and demand an inspection at any time. (And they have simply because someone on social reported me for illegalities the reporter fabricated.) It’s not fun to have wardens show up on your doorstep in flak jackets and fully armed demanding an inspection you can’t refuse, no matter how nice they are about it. I don’t own my hawks, the service does, and they can take them away at any time they decide to do so. No matter how good you are, you’re always being judged.
I didn’t follow Mikayla Raines of Save A Fox Rescue, but my social media has been flooded with tributes to her life and work doing rehabilitation for fur trade foxes after her suicide. I understand how horrible animal people can be to another. I acutely feel the pain of the judgement of others who know better and assert they could do better than me even after 40 years of caring for the raptors, corvids, and parrots I know best. I wish we could do better for each other.
Still, I took this raven. I took her because of someone who was doing a job that would break my heart, and was still doing it with a smile and hope. I took the raven for Officer Grant.
I have a perfect screened-in porch for birds to grow up in. When they are ready to leave the crate, they can view the world, talk to their “people” and learn to fly without hurting themselves. I also completely renovated this porch for myself two years ago with new stucco, paint, curtains and furniture, swearing I would never raise a bird on it again, but along came Margaery, the raven. You’d think I’d know better by now.
I fed Margaery well and figured I had two weeks before she was flying and could join the other raven parents in the neighborhood. So, I could help Officer Grant and get this bird back to the wild potentially before I ran into any trouble. I also had something we didn’t have years ago, which was access to falcon medication developed in Saudi Arabia and now for sale in the states. They work for ravens too. I could run her through a round of Vet-All-In-One, worm her, and treat her for body parasites. Which I did.
And while she loved me while she was sick and I thought we were friends, things changed once she was fattened up and healthy. She was happy to jump on my hand to go back in the crate, but happier to poke me in the forehead with her monstrous beak. I have never felt less appreciated by a bird. So, I gave her distance and food.
However, the truth is, I wasn’t doing this for Margaery. I was doing it for Officer Grant who I texted updates while I sighed at the raven who was more interested in hanging out with my dogs through the porch window than she would ever be hanging out with me.
Eventually, I texted Officer Grant that if she needed a bright spot in her day she could drive by my house and likely see Margaery on the window sill of my porch staring out at the world she would soon own. I told her that I would be opening the door to the raven’s new world in a couple of days. Officer Grant’s response was that I could have no idea how much she needed that text. The thing was that I needed even more.
Yes, I made a difference for one raven, but I did it for a person. And when Margaery left two days later, she joined up with the local raven pair and never looked back. I’m so glad she had a good ending, but that wasn’t my sole or even my most important reason for helping her. I did it because I could make a difference for a person I admired in a world where I feel like I make little difference. I did it because if we can’t help and care about each other, we will never be able to help the natural world.
Also, Margaery, wherever you are. You’re an ungrateful cow. And I wish you the best.
I needed that this morning! Thank you!
Thank you for all that you do for our wildlife.
~ D. W. Orr Photo & Poetry