After spending the winter in the care of wildlife rehabilitator Bill Trautman, a red-shouldered hawk that was hit by a car in Forest Hill in the fall was released this month at the Harford Glen Environmental Education Center in Bel Air.
"These are wild animals, and our mission is to get them back in the wild," Mr. Trautman told a group of nearly 100 Harford County fifth-grade students who watched as he loosened his grasp on the bird and it flapped skyward, settling into big, lazy circles above the treetops.
"It was good to see an animal go to freedom," said 10-year-old Lisa Swindell of William Paca Elementary School in Abingdon.
Mr. Trautman cared for the hawk for about six months at his residence in White Hall, where he has 15 flight cages for injured eagles, hawks, ospreys and owls and a trailer filled with reptiles. After observing the stunned and slightly injured bird for several weeks, he decided to "winter it over" until spring to increase its chances for survival.
A handful of veterinarians in the state provide free medical care before turning the birds over to him, said Mr. Trautman, 46, who has cared for hundreds of birds -- handling basic first aid, providing housing during recovery and raising orphaned animals.
"We try to get them better so we can release them," he said. "These are not pets, and the greatest pleasure is being able to let them go. This is the part that people need to see."
When injured or orphaned birds cannot be released because they have become too tame or have failed to recover enough to survive in the wild, they become environmental "stewards" in a program called Scales & Tales, which Mr. Trautman, who is also a park ranger/naturalist, developed in the early 1980s for the state.
He and as many as 20 employees take the animals and their Scales & Tales wildlife presentations on the road across Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Delaware. They give about 4,000 programs each year for school groups, Scout troops, community clubs, seniors organizations and the public at festivals and malls, providing education about wildlife and what can be done to protect it.
Mr. Trautman's visit to Harford Glen was one of the highlights of a weeklong residential experience at the outdoor education center for students from William Paca, Dublin and Fountain Green elementary schools.
"It was cool when he let the bird go," said Jennifer Calvin, 11, a fifth-grader at Fountain Green. "I think it was happy because it got to be free. I had never really seen a hawk before."
