Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 13, 1995 TAG: 9507130016
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
What they found, however, changed the intended course of their evening.
The two Maryland residents saw something floating in the water. As they approached, they saw it was an osprey whose left wing was severely broken.
Hutson pulled within five feet of the bird, also known as a fish hawk. Not quite knowing what he was going to do, but knowing that ospreys have razor-sharp talons, Hutson took his shirt off and wrapped it around his hand.
``It was so weird, it was just like the bird said, `Thank God, somebody's here,''' Hutson recalled earlier this week. ``He actually swam over to the boat, he just literally beat his wing over.''
Hutson plunged his hand into the water and underneath the bird, which latched on to and stood up on Hutson's hand.
``He didn't squawk, or move,'' Hutson said. ``He was bleeding from the tip of his wing. He was blind in his right eye.''
The couple steered to a nearby house and, with the help of the homeowners, began calling around to find help. They called local veterinarians, 911, the police, and finally located the Virginia Maryland Veterinarian Emergency Service in Alexandria.
It had been three hours since they plucked the bird from the river. They wrapped it in towels and, as Plunkett held it on her lap ``like a baby,'' Hutson drove to Alexandria.
``They took him immediately,'' he said. ``That was the last I saw of him. It was a very, very earthly experience.''
A few days later he got the number for the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro, where the osprey had been taken. He called and offered to take the bird if it lived, but was told he would need a raptor's license, which are all but impossible for ordinary citizens to get, Hutson said.
The center's director of vet services, Phylis Rayner, operated on the osprey Friday, inserting a metal pin through the series of fractures.
The operation was successful and the bird was put in recovery. It was fed antibiotics and perch caught by local volunteers specifically for the center's fish-eating birds.
However, on Monday, the osprey died from massive infection.
``He was pretty beat up,'' said Sarah Snead, the center's licensed vet technician. The bones had poked through the skin and were exposed to germs, which led to the infection.
On top of that, ospreys don't take well to cages. Though graceful in flight, the birds are clumsy on the ground, she said. This bird weighed about four pounds and had a wingspan of about five feet, Snead said.
Over the weekend, Hutson had lined up an environmental education center in Maryland that had agreed to take the osprey.
He found out Monday the bird had died.
``I was pretty depressed,'' he said. ``I was so positive - he could eat, and he didn't bleed to death. Oh well. They tried. I tried.''
by CNB