Placerita Nature Center Cares for Wild Birds That Fall Prey to Injury

A quiet Friday afternoon at the Placerita Canyon Nature Center in Newhall was interrupted by a telephone call from a woman working at Castaic Lake. A lifeguard there had spotted a bloodied baby eagle, and the woman asked if someone would retrieve it and mend its wounds.

Skeptical but still hopeful that the bird was indeed an eagle, Lisa Peach, 25, and Harold Mountan, 27, climbed into their van, even thoughthey would not be permitted to treat the federally protected creature.

Peach returned to the center clutching a towel-wrapped bird in her arms.

“The eagle turned out to be a sea gull,” she said, breaking into a grin. “You never know what you’re going to get. That’s what makes it fun.”

She quickly cleaned the bird’s broken bones with a Betadyne ointment, then wrapped them in gauze, explaining, “If a bone is exposed and not kept moist, the bone will die in a short period of time.”

The raptor (bird of prey) rehabilitation program at the Placerita Canyon Nature Center is one of three such programs in the county. The other two, also run by the Department of Parks and Recreation, are situated at the Whittier Narrows Nature Center in South El Monte and the San Dimas Nature Center in San Dimas.

Peach and Mountan treat injured birds of prey such as hawks, falcons and owls, and return them to their habitats. The center also has a baby songbird program to care for displaced birds such as jays, finches and mockingbirds until they develop feathers and are mature enough to survive independently.

Last year, an estimated 200 injured and immature birds were cared for, and about 85% of those birds were later released, said Kathleen Ritner, supervisor for Placerita Canyon Natural Area Park.

The program, in its third year, is run by Peach, a zoology major at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She is a former owl and eagle trainer at Magic Mountain in Valencia and began working at the center as a volunteer when she was 9. Peach is assisted by Mountan, who has a degree in animal physiology from the University of California, San Diego.

The two have treated birds from as far away as Long Beach (house finches), Lake Los Angeles (a raven) and Santa Barbara (an American kestrel, a small falcon). Private parties or state Department of Fish and Game wardens usually bring in such birds.

Peach speculated that the young sea gull may have become entangled in an angler’s fishing line or been hit by a boat. After treating the bird with an antibiotic and a steroid, she called Dr. Kim Joyner, one of four veterinarians who donate services to the center.

“Usually, the only time we call a vet is if the bird needs to be put to sleep or has a broken bone,” said Peach, who under a state license may perform minor surgery. “They always get the really horrid cases.”

‘Pride and Joy’

Spring is the season for finding baby birds that have been abandoned or fallen from nests, Ritner said. “Yesterday, we got five birds in. Probably this week, we’ll get 10 or 15,” she said.

Peach’s “pride and joy,” she says, was an assortment of baby barn owls into whose beaks she had squeezed drops of a mixture of chopped dog food, egg yolks, vitamins and minerals. The tiny birds had been brought in by game wardens.

Another favorite is a red-tailed hawk named Thumper. Pulling out slides, Peach recounted how the hawk came to the nature center in November sporting dark growths over its talons. Since it was unable to capture prey, it weighed only about a pound. Tests showed it had a viral pox. Sheltered and fed a diet of rats and a bird-of-prey chow, the hawk now weighs three pounds and has clean, strong talons.

Another success story is that of Little Shot, a red-tailed hawk found with broken ribs and bullet holes in its chest.

“He had been on the ground for days. His feet were torn up. He was so skinny he could hardly stand,” Mountan recalled. After intensive treatment, the bird was released, strong and healthy, a few months ago in the mountains.

“You get the ones through that you can save, but there are some that are so far gone that, no matter what you try, it still doesn’t work out,” he said.

He recalled treating a young turkey vulture last year that had suffered several broken bones. It did not survive. “Usually, by the time something like a turkey vulture or a hawk is on the ground and somebody can actually catch it and call us to come get it, it’s in such bad shape that we may not be able to save it,” he said. “Things like songbirds and fledglings, they are pretty easy to catch, but a bird of prey will fight until it drops in its tracks.”

Although some who call the center would like to keep birds of prey they find, most bring them in. “It isn’t like keeping a parakeet, where you just throw some seeds at it and everything will be all right,” Mountan said.

Bird Fed Hamburger

He described one bird that was brought in with greasy feathers. “He had been fed hamburger all his life.” The bird died of intestinal problems. A falcon that later joined the nature center’s resident birds, “had rickets so bad his legs were starting to bow,” he said.

While recuperating, most of the 18 current “patients” are housed indoors. Some songbirds and several barn owls are kept outdoors. Six volunteers, several of them trained as docents, have taken baby birds into their homes for several weeks until they are strong enough to fly.

Volunteer Suzanne Charboneau of San Fernando, an artist, cares for a starling and three English sparrows that fell from nests. She feeds them every two hours using a syringe. “I guess there’s a lot of mother in me,” she said.

The nature center recently joined a nationwide program called the Non-Releasable Wildlife Program, which uses a computer to match zoos with specific types of birds being cared for at nature centers.

Although the Placerita Canyon Nature Center is on state land, it is operated by the county and is dependent on private donations. The Placerita Canyon Nature Center Associates, a nonprofit group, donated about $3,000 last year to care for the center’s birds and assorted reptiles.

Mountan said they group hopes to expand, enclose the outdoor aviary and build a hawk “flight,” or cage. Because of their size, hawks need L-shaped flights about 25-feet wide and 85-feet long.

But building a small-bird hospital is a major goal. Center staffers plan to solicit donations through the Nature Center Associates to build the hospital, which is expected to cost $10,000 and be completed in December. A retiring veterinarian recently offered to donate X-ray equipment and an operating table.

The objective of the raptor rehabilitation program is to return birds to nature, but occasionally, as when a wing has been amputated, birds are kept at other county nature centers for public display.

Exercised on Tether

Before larger birds such as hawks are released, they are exercised at nearby Golden Oak Ranch, owned and used as a film set by Walt Disney Co. The hawks are tethered to a 300-foot nylon line and flown over a field to improve their strength. Peach explained that, when a bird is in captivity for as little as six weeks, its breast muscles can atrophy and the bird won’t be able to fly.

“You throw them in the air and see if they maintain that height and fly out,” Peach said. “Then you bring them down slowly, maintaining gradual pressure so you don’t hurt their legs, and gradually bring them to the ground.”

And when the time to free them arrives?

“You just get big tears in your eyes as you watch them fly away,” she said.

“And then your heart sinks as you wonder, ‘Did I do everything I could?’ ”

Educational shows featuring resident birds of the raptor rehabilitation program are held at the Placerita Canyon Nature Center, 19152 W. Placerita Canyon Road in Newhall, on Saturdays and Sundays at 1 p.m. Admission is free. The nature center is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.