Though best-known for its Orioles and Ravens, Baltimore is apparently a pretty good place to raise baby vultures, to the chagrin of a renovation team at a local mansion.
For the second year in a row, a black vulture, one of a migratory species protected by law, has laid her eggs inside the Ruscombe Mansion, a vacant, 1860s-era dwelling targeted for renovation near the Coldspring New Town community.
So final repairs to the place - at least the part occupied by the bird - will have to wait for nature to take its course.
"She's up in the attic," said developer Marty Azola of Azola & Associates, who intends to wait until the eggs hatch and the young birds can fly before he moves ahead with the renovations of that part of the mansion, at 4901 Springarden Drive. "We call it the Vulture's Suite."
Last summer, after the mother and her one surviving chick had flown the coop, Azola boarded up windows to discourage her return. But she clearly found her way back in and laid her eggs in the same spot as before - on a flat surface, with no nest.
For now, Azola has cracked open a door to an upper balcony so the vulture can come and go without disturbing renovations elsewhere in the building. "I guess we now have to wait until August to get into that room in the attic," he said. "We can work around her."
Azola, whose firm specializes in historic preservation, said he and his son were surprised by the bird when they entered the mansion more than a year ago.
"It's big," he said. "Its wingspan is five, six feet. It stands two to three feet tall. She came after my son with a vengeance."
Azola has bumped into all kinds of creatures - bats, dogs, snakes, rats, mice and roaches - while renovating buildings, he said, but this is his first vulture.
Azola said he identified the bird's species with the help of a neighboring property owner who is knowledgeable about ornithology and who saw the bird both in and around the house.
Black vultures are protected under the federal Migratory Bird Act, according to Gerta Deterer, director of Wildlife Rescue, a nonprofit organization that takes in injured or orphaned wildlife.
The United States government has penalties ranging from a fine to jail time for anyone who disturbs or attempts to relocate wildlife without permission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Deterer said it sounded to her as though Azola was obeying federal regulations.
