Birding

We love to travel to find new birds and participate in a lot of bird counts. We also created a Guide to Birding Field Guides and host a collection of over 300 birding links from all over the globe.

Conservation

While our main focus continues to be birds, we are working to promote other areas of conservation. Conserving land not only benefits wildlife, but is hugely beneficial to people as well.

Outdoors

We love all sorts of outdoor activities, especially hiking and spend a lot of time outside with dogs and horses. We are working to produce more articles on all sorts of outdoor fun!

Photography

Every week we bring you Bird Photography Weekly. We periodically talk about our adventures in digiscoping. Feel free to browse our photo lifelist.

Phoenix the Red-tailed Hawk Injured From Plane Crash

January 29, 2010
Article in: Birding

On January 23rd, 2010 a small plane crashed in Sugar Grove, Illinois killing two Florida men. The explosion from the crash torched a tree where a raptor was roosting for the night. Unbelievably, the bird was alive and taken to Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation where her outlook is positive for a full recovery.

The raptor was so badly burned that a positive identification wasn’t originally clear. They now believe the bird to be a female Red-tailed Hawk and have named her “Phoenix”. Nearly all the bird’s outer feathers including her tail were burned. Her talons and outer eyelid were also burned so much so that she couldn’t see when she first arrived at Flint Creek.

The following photos were taken by Phil Hampel of Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabiliation and speak for themselves how badly this bird was injured.








Get updates from Flint Creek at their blog. Special thanks go out to the sheriff’s deputy who first spotted the bird and Kane County Animal Control and of course to Dawn Keller who is the president and founder of Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation. We badly need more people like Dawn.

Video from WTTW 11 – Chicago Tonight

Please donate whatever you can to help this bird and others being cared for at Flint Creek! Thanks to Phil Hampel for permission to use his photos for this post!!

4 comments

Simple Lesson From a Red-tailed Hawk

February 10, 2009
Article in: Birding

Red-tailed HawkFor most people (birders and non-birders alike) Red-tailed Hawks are a common sighting. Even if they aren’t referred to by name, the presence of a large, often semi-tame raptor is thrilling. And while we are far away from being experts on the behaviors of birds of prey, we learned long ago an important fact.

Red-tailed Hawk

When approaching a raptor that is uninterested in flying, do not stand directly behind the bird. While this may seem like a sneaky way to get a better look at the bird, this is a dangerous spot to be if the bird ruffles his feathers and fires.

Red-tail projectile fecal matter… onto the patio
Red-tailed Hawk Poo

This would qualify as a “sheepishly” looking Red-tail
Red-tailed Hawk

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Screeing Red-tailed Hawk [Skywatch Friday]

October 23, 2008
Article in: Photography

This week’s Skywatch is a Red-tailed Hawk that was busy making his presence known. Gotta love their screeeeee!!

Red-tailed Hawk

Check out more Skywatch photos!

14 comments