"...I am the hawk and there's blood on my feathers but time is still turning they soon will be dry. And all those who see me, all who believes in me share in the freedom I feel when I fly." One of my favorite John Denver songs paints a dramatic picture of the birds of prey. The raptor, i.e., hawk, eagle, owl, is the only animal I know that can sit in a cage with feathers ruffled, wing drooping, and still look regal and majestic. Unfortunately, the ones that we see here at the Living Materials Center are usually not in very good shape.

    Case in point, a young red-tailed hawk. The look in its eyes would just go right through you. This bird came to us via a regional animal control office. It has no apparent injury and the officer just said it refused to fly. The immediate evaluation is ADR (Ain’t Doin’ Right).

    The red-tailed hawk is found throughout Texas except for a few coastal areas. It is a large bird with a wingspan of up to four feet. If you can't guess why he is called a red-tailed hawk you most likely flunked the dot test at the eye doctor place. Experts have described his cry as an asthmatic squeal. The range of this bird extends from Alaska to Panama. He likes open country, brush, woodlands and mountains. The nest consists of a platform of sticks in a tall tree or on a cliff. Like all birds of prey the red tail depends on his talented talons to tackle tantalizing tidbits from the turf and he is tidy at that task. More and more each year I take in dead and injured birds that have been found on or near the road. It seems the birds are beginning to go in for fast food and the cars and trucks are much faster.

    This youngster will go to the Rogers Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Hutchins, Texas and hopefully will again feel the freedom when it flies.

    For something else entirely, my son Scott gave me an early birthday gift in the form of my own website. Faced with a space to fill I decided to serialize my first novel and put it online. My son did not confer with me about the web site title, which is www.jimdunlap.net