Wildlife Medical Clinic Resident Birds of Prey
Meet Susie, a Bay-winged (Harris) Hawk
Late in 2006, the Wildlife Medical Clinic was fortunate to welcome a new
member to our public relations team. She is a saucy beauty with glossy chestnut,
black and white coloring, and a throaty, husky voice. Her name is Susie and she is a Harris Hawk, also known as a Bay-winged Hawk.
As are all of our educational raptors, Susie is also non-releasable.
She is a human-imprinted bird which means that she identifies humans, rather
than other hawks, as her family members and co-species.
Her original owner obtained her as a mere chick to raise and train for
falconry.
Traditionally, imprinting is purposely done by falconers in order to form a tight human-bird bond and working relationship. Susie was used as a falconry bird for about seven years, but began to develop behavioral problems which led to self-destructive feather-picking. Her owner decided to retire her from falconry and donated her to Dr. Mark Mitchell for use as an educational bird.
When Dr. Mitchell joined the University of Illinois and our Wildlife Medical Clinic this year, he brought Susie to us and asked us to continue using her for our own educational programs. This was a wonderful chance to work with a unique hawk. Harris hawks are mainly found in the southwestern United States and Texas. They are fairly docile hawks and form strong family units, often with three adults per family, all cooperating to raise their chicks. Harris hawks are also very unusual in the raptor world in that they hunt in packs, as do wolves.
As Susie gets used to us, and we to her, expect to see her more and
more often at our public engagements where you can meet all six of our terrific
wildlife ambassadors: Nokomis, Odin, Penelope, Pistol, Noelle, and now
Susie.