Like many of the injured raptors brought to the California Raptor Center, Phoenix the Peregrine Falcon was in bad shape when she first arrived.
A hatch year juvenile at the time, Phoenix was brought to the California Raptor Center in October of 2017. A Good Samaritan first spotted her alongside a country road in Woodland as he drove past but was unable to stop and investigate. Days later, passing the same spot again, he saw the falcon still down on the ground. At that point, able to help and recognizing that something was wrong, he picked the bird up and transported her to the California Raptor Center.
During examination, staff and volunteers found that the falcon was incredibly emaciated and showed signs of an injury to her left elbow. Volunteer Joleen Maiden, who helped handle Phoenix during the intake examination, described the bird as being so thin that “you could have picked her up by her keel”—the keel being the bird’s breastbone, which would normally be surrounded by densely packed muscle but was instead sharp and protruding because very little muscle remained on the starved-down falcon’s body.
The injured, emaciated Peregrine Falcon was quickly sent to the UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital for medical care. Considering how starved and weak the bird was, CRC staff were not optimistic that she would survive her ordeal and return to the CRC for further rehabilitation. Even with medical intervention and supportive care, severely emaciated birds are not always able to overcome the extreme physiological damage caused by starvation.
Defying expectation, the young falcon made it through her near-starvation and was returned to the CRC for continued rehabilitation of her wing injury. Radiographs of Phoenix’s left wing showed no overt breaks, but the wing continued to droop, suggesting permanent damage to tissue or nerves. Staff suspected this injury would render Phoenix non-releasable: Peregrine Falcons are aerial hunters that dive at high speeds, and in order to do so, their flight ability has to be uncompromised. It was clear that with her elbow injury, Phoenix would never be able to fly sufficiently enough to hunt wild prey.
Phoenix faced further challenges when she developed pododermatitis, more colloquially known as “bumblefoot”. Bumblefoot, a generic term for irritated wounds on the bottom surfaces of the feet, is a common complication in falcons living in captive settings. Phoenix’s case of bumblefoot added more time to her treatment and rehabilitation process, and to make applying ointment to her feet easier on her and her caregivers, CRC volunteer (and falconer) Mark Moore began working with her to train her to the glove and help calm her during treatment. Phoenix proved to be very calm for a falcon; falcons are notoriously stress-prone, but Phoenix quickly adjusted to working on the glove.
After Mark got Phoenix’s training started, Operations Manager Bret Stedman and volunteer Larry Guenther took over the process of "manning" the falcon. Later, Volunteer & Outreach Coordinator Julie Cotton used Phoenix's food motivation to begin training her with operant conditioning, offering tidbit rewards to encourage Phoenix to learn new behaviors. Phoenix now appears in front of audiences at the California Raptor Center and is learning to fly short distances to her handler’s glove. Though she will never fly well enough to survive in the wild, Phoenix, like her mythical namesake, has risen from adversity and been "reborn" into a new life as an ambassador for her species.