It was standing room only Thursday, March 26, when the Iowa Raptor Project presented information on a number of different species of raptors at the Lester Buresh Family Community Wellness Center. Several youth were present to see and hear about the birds alongside the seniors who regularly attend.
Katherine Ibsen, associate director of the Iowa Raptor Project, and Caden Dorrance, a volunteer and environmental science major, talked about the different species.
Ibsen said one of the collaborative research projects they are holding on Wednesdays during April and May is working on banding migratory birds. Those programs are open to the public, and they are looking for volunteers. An owl prowl will also be held this fall.
The Iowa Raptor Project currently has 13 non-releasable birds at the center in rural Solon, and most those birds are used in community outreach and education programs.
Hercules, the western red tailed hawk, was one of the first birds on display.
Ibsen said Hercules has many of the attributes of a predator – sharp talons, a beak that can tear into flesh, and keen vision used to spot their prey from a great distance.
“Hercules is one of those birds who was planned to be used for falconry, but her eye was injured in the nest,” Ibsen said.
A cousin of the western red tailed hawk, the eastern red tailed hawk, is the most common raptor in the state of Iowa.
Kevin Turner noted that was one of the things he noticed when he returned to Iowa in 2008.
“I’d lived in Coralville for roughly 20 years before moving out of state in 1988, and I rarely saw eagles in the area,” Turner said. “When Leland and I moved back to the state, we were shocked to see so many hawks in the Coralville Dam area, roughly 20 in one day. It showed how much changed in just 20 years to rehabilitate these animals.”
Hawks primarily eat rodents or anything found in open fields.
“We know she had a snake try to get into her enclosure last year, and Hercules took no time to let him know that was a bad idea,” Ibsen said.
An attendee asked if you have to be licensed to have a raptor, and Ibsen said that not only do you need an Iowa Department of Natural Resources license, you need a federal Fish and Wildlife permit as well.
“Falconry is one of the most regulated sports in America,” Ibsen said.
Dorrance highlighted Omaha, the kestrel.
Dorrance said despite the small size of the kestrel, they have adaptations that let them fly superfast after they have locked onto prey.
Kestrels feed on small birds, insects, literally anything small enough they can get a hold of.
Kestrels are also fairly small birds, so they have to watch out for other birds that might predate them.
Omaha, as a male of the species, has bright blue feathers that differentiate him from female kestrels.
Omaha suffered a wing injury in 2017 and was adopted by the Iowa Raptor Project.
“One other unique feature of kestrels is they have a toe nail tooth,” Dorrance said. They will latch onto prey with their talons, but they do most of their killing blows with their beak.”
Kestrels are cavity nesters, using locations like old woodpecker nests in trees.
“If you see boxes behind signs on the interstate or highways, those are usually kestrel boxes,” Dorrance said. “As they are losing more and more trees to nest in, they love those boxes.”
A questioner asked if they have some issues with birds like redwing blackbirds, who frequent some of the same habitat. Dorrance said that is one of their territorial squabbles.
Ibsen then introduced Shiloh, the vulture.
Ibsen said there is a lot of negative connotations with vultures, because of their association with being a scavenger.
“They can’t kill prey on their own,” Ibsen said.
They also have to migrate in winter months, as their food source can easily dry up.
People will usually see vultures if they are not flying over a dead animal out basking in the sun. That, Ibsen said is to bake the bacteria off of their wings.
“They have the stomach equivalent of battery acid,” Ibsen said. “That’s how they can eat things that might have rabies, salmonella or cholera and survive.”
Ibsen said that there is a need to share the good work that the birds do, as their population has declined by 99 percent in Africa, Europe and other countries after a veterinarian drug was released that impacted them.
“When their population decreased, India also saw the number of rabies cases increase by 30 percent,” Ibsen said. “They are an important part of an ecosystem.”
A reason many people do not like vultures is they have a special defense mechanism if they are threatened. They projectile vomit when they are threatened, and the smell of said vomit is terrible.
Shiloh was found on a farm in Holland in a tractor shed and adopted by a young kid. The kid and family tried to keep the bird, feeding the bird on bird seed. After a few weeks of that, when they took the bird to a veterinarian and discovered the bird species, Shiloh had imprinted on humans.
“It’s hard to train a bird out after being imprinted,” Ibsen said. “They can get more aggressive, especially during breeding seasons, and it’s harder for them to survive in the wild.”
That’s why it is important if you find a bird in the wild, you put that bird back in its nest or call a wildlife rehabber to try and get that animal back in the wild.
Dorrance presented on Aldo, the barred owl, as the last of the presentation.
Aldo had broken his wing after falling out of a nest, and is unable to fly well enough to survive on his own in the wild.
Dorrance demonstrated the difference between other birds wings flapping in the wind and an owl. Owls wings have serrated feathers that silence the sound of their wings flapping, much so that they are almost silent hunters.
Owls as well have the ability to see in near total darkness.
Owls have 14 bones in their neck, allowing them to turn their head a much larger distance. Owls do that because their eyes are fixed in location.
They eat amphibians, frogs, crayfish and snakes, anything that’s less than a third of their body weight.
Tips to help birds
Ibsen ended the discussion with ways people can help birds.
Number one is something as simple as putting decals or items on windows that help birds know they are reflections of items, and not real items in the glass.
“The number one reason birds collide into windows is they see a reflection in the window and think a tree is there,” Ibsen said.
Turn off lights, especially in uptowns and urban areas during the months of April and May, so birds know it is night.
“That’s when we have millions of birds flying from down south back north,” Ibsen said.
Another was to stop utilizing lead in hunting. Bald eagles will scavenge on deer that were field stripped in the wild, and when they eat lead pellets, it can lead to lead poisoning.
“If you’ve ever seen a bald eagle suffering from lead poisoning, you’ll never hunt with lead bullets again,” Ibsen said.
Keeping cats indoors is also one of the simplest ways to help birds quality of life.