The Environmental Journal of Southern Appalachia

Displaying items by tag: happinest wildlife rehabilitation and rescue

Wednesday, 10 July 2024 13:55

‘Cute little falcons’ fly free in Wildwood

kestrelKatheryn Albrecht holds a juvenile American kestrel just prior to releasing it into the Wildwood area of Blount County as part of the Farmland Raptor Project.  Thomas Fraseer/Hellbender Press

Farmland Raptor Project takes wing to expand raptor populations on private properties

WILDWOOD — She felt the bird in her hand in her heart as the kestrel strained toward freedom.

Elise Eustace, communications director for Foothills Land Conservancy, blessed the bird and let it go, free to make a home somewhere on the 300-acre Andy Harris Farm or elsewhere in the Wildwood area of Blount County. “I’ve never gotten to do something like this,” she said. “So exciting.” 

Two other juvenile kestrels joined their kin on the warm summer afternoon, lighting into nearby oaks and atop a telephone line above the red and yellow pollinator gardens and dry pasture and cornfield and copses that punctuate the property in the shadow of smoky knobs that rise gradually to the Smokies crest beyond the blue-green hollows of the Little River watershed. Resident sparrows, bluebirds and kingbirds voiced displeasure at the new arrivals. 

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Restoring wings to rise above the Earth again

I think the most amazing and rewarding thing about raptor rehab is taking a bird that's literally at death's door to a full recovery and then releasing her back to her wild home.” Alix Parks, Wildlife rehabilitator

Alix Parks became a certified wildlife rehabilitator 25 years ago. Her new career was sparked by a class in wildlife rehabilitation at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga taught by Debbie Lipsey.

Parks also counts Lynne McCoy and Katie Cottrell of the Clinch River Raptor Center as early mentors. At first, she prepared food for the animals and worked with any animal brought to her. She is now a certified rehabilitator and has specialized in birds of prey for 16 years.

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