The Carolina Raptor Center

By: Mark Rogers

What is a Raptor???

A raptor is a bird that has a sharp, curved beak , and sharp, curved talons and uses this equipment to kill and eat its prey.

My SAE

• The Carolina Raptor Center is an educational place where we take care of different kinds of raptors like owls, hawks, eagles, and my favorite, the American Kestrel, also known as a Sparrow Hawk.

• I work as a Resident Bird Care specialist. I chose this work for my project because I love raptors and I might become a zoologist or vetinarian someday.

Behind the Scenes

• Aside from just showing our birds to educate the public, most of them are here because they were found hurt or someone has imprinted them and they cannot survive in the wild (imprinting is when someone finds an animal and takes care of it, and the animal thinks it’s human).

• When the birds come to us hurt, we take them to our medical section of the center.

Check-Ups

X-Ray of a Hawk

Broken Wing

All new birds are given a complete health checkup. The birds are examined carefully to determine their state of health.

This examination process includes weighing the bird and taking a complete set of x-rays which become part of the birds health record.

My Part at the Raptor CenterI volunteer in RBC (Resident Bird Care). We have raptors that will never be able to go back into the wild on their own and its my job is to take care of them like making sure they have food and water and after 100 hours I will be allowed to handle the birds.The center also takes care of injured birds that are only staying until they are healed and then they are released back into the wild.

FeedingEach bird has his/her own chart with their weight, any

health problems, and food amount.

For their feed it depends on what kind of bird they are Hawks, Owls, and Eagles eat dead rats and Ospreys get fish.

The feeder is responsible for cutting the dead rats in pieces with scissors. A little snip there and a little snip here. It is important that each bird get the correct amount of food they need.

When feeding we use the “Rule of Thirds”. The Rule of Thirds is a way to trim the rat to be closer to the weight necessary to feed the bird.

Snip Snip

• Weight of whole rat equals 100 grams

• Weight of head equals about a third of the total weight (33 grams)

• Weight from neck to below front legs equals one third of total weight (33 grams)

• Weight from front legs to rear (including tail) equals one third of total weight (33 grams)

If bird’s feeding chartspecifies that it needsto eat 64 grams of food (+/- 2 grams),then you need to cut the head off (because thisHas the least nutrition) and the weight of theremaining rat shouldbe just about the rightweight required for thebird to eat.

EXAMPLE

Cleaning of The Cage The cleaning of the cage is can be boring, but every job

has its boring parts.

• 1st you have to collect all the uneaten food

• 2nd you get all the leaves off the top of the cage and clean the perch, walls and gravel with a hose

• 3rd you rake and pick up all the leaves, sticks, etc. (Owl Cages – we collect the owl pellets because CRC sells them to school for science experiments)

• 4th you clean and refill the water bowl

• Just never corner a raptor or you’ll get an arm taken off…

Pixs of Our Birds

Well this is where it comes to an end.