The Raptor Rescue Read online

  Faisal grinned. “That’s quite all right. I have enough for my article.” He strode to the door. “My first big story!” he mentioned on his way out.

  The children joined Carmen. “Have a lot of bad things been happening?” Henry asked. “Other than the ones we already know about?”

  “I’ve already told you about everything,” Carmen answered. “That man seems to think the situation is worse than it really is though.” She lowered her voice. “He said he got an anonymous tip about problems here. I think someone has been causing trouble on purpose. They’re trying to make us look bad.”

  “But you do such good work!” Violet said.

  Carmen gave her a sad smile. “I think so too. I hope we can keep doing the work. Now we’re getting bad news coverage though. Our reputation is on the line. We barely get enough funding as it is. What if people start saying the center should be shut down?”

  “If the center got shut down, what would happen to all the raptors here now?” Violet asked.

  “I hope we’d have time to make plans for the birds,” Carmen said.

  “Could it be hunters who don’t want the raptors released?” Jessie asked. “Maybe they think you’re making it harder for them to hunt game birds, like you said.”

  “It’s hard to believe someone would go to that trouble,” Carmen said. “I’ve tried to educate people about raptors and game birds. I thought I’d done a good job.”

  She pulled out some files. “Let’s go to that larger table. We’ll write new cards matching the intake information in the files.” Carmen explained what to do. The children copied information from the files to the cards, and Carmen checked each card. The work went quickly with everyone helping.

  “Is it lunchtime yet?” Benny asked after a while.

  Carmen glanced at her watch. “It’s only ten thirty.”

  “I bet Pierce is hungry,” Benny said. “He’s a big bird. He must need to eat a lot.”

  “Hey, that gives me an idea,” Henry said. “You have the eagle cam in Pierce’s cage. Sometimes it shows the helpers feeding him. Are there other cameras? Do you have security cameras that might show who moved the cards?”

  Carmen looked up from her paperwork. “No security cameras. We do have other cameras pointed at birds, but they won’t show anyone in the hallway.”

  Jessie pulled out her notebook. “When did these suspicious things start happening?”

  “It’s been about two weeks,” Carmen said.

  “You said the bird cards were right last night. Have you been having a lot of problems overnight?” Jessie asked.

  Carmen tapped her pen on the table. “I hadn’t really thought about it. We found the problems at different times of day. The events could have all happened at night though. We might not have noticed until later the next day.”

  “If things happen at night, the person must have a key,” Henry said.

  “Unfortunately, that doesn’t narrow the field much,” Carmen said. “All full-time workers have keys. Someone might need to come at night to take in an injured bird.”

  “But volunteers don’t have keys?” Jessie asked.

  “Not usually,” Carmen said. “A longtime volunteer might get a key if they’re filling in for staff on vacation. They have to give the key back after that.”

  “Could someone make a copy of the key while they had it?” Henry asked.

  “Goodness, I’d never even thought of that,” Carmen said. “In the last year alone, we must have had thirty part-time volunteers. That’s in addition to the three full-time staff members, the vet, and a weekly cleaning crew. We have extra keys in the reception desk. I never thought to count them or keep track of them.”

  Carmen sighed. “Maybe that reporter was right. We really don’t have good security. I assumed everyone here cared about the raptors as much as I do.”

  Daisy called out, “We do care! That’s why we want to make things better. I hope now you’ll think about my suggestions. With digital keypads, you wouldn’t need keys at all. You could give people different codes and track who went through each door.”

  “Great idea, but do you know how much that costs?” Carmen said.

  “That’s your answer to everything,” Daisy grumbled.

  Jessie and Henry exchanged a look.

  “We need to find answers fast,” Henry whispered.

  Jessie nodded. “If we don’t, this place is in trouble.”

  Bad News

  The following morning, the children watched Daisy give an educational program for visitors. Daisy put on one of the thick leather gloves that came up to her elbow. Then she opened an enclosure containing one of the birds who was a permanent resident. The great horned owl climbed onto her arm as she addressed the crowd.

  “This is Al,” Daisy said. “He’s one of our ambassadors. We call him an ambassador because he represents us and all the raptors.”

  The big owl swiveled his head, looking at the crowd.

  Daisy explained what a raptor was. She pointed out Al’s huge talons and talked about his good vision and hearing. “Owls have special feathers. When they fly, they’re basically silent. This is a big help when they hunt.”

  “Is Al your pet?” a little girl asked.

  “No,” Daisy said. “He is still a wild animal, even though he lives here at the center. He came here five years ago with injuries. He couldn’t be released again because his injuries were too severe.”

  “What hurt him?” a man asked.

  “He flew into a power line,” Daisy said. “He probably didn’t even see the wire. Collisions are the biggest cause of injury to raptors. They can hit cars, trains, airplanes, and wind turbines. They might even fly into a window because they see the reflection of a tree.”

  “Is that why most of the raptors are here?” the man asked.

  Daisy nodded. “It’s not the only danger though. Maybe a person puts out poison for rats or mice. If the raptor eats the poisoned animal, it gets poisoned too. Sometimes a tree gets cut down or blown down in a storm. If a bird was nesting in the tree, it could be hurt.”

  “What can we do to help?” Henry asked.

  “Avoid poisoning rodents if you can,” Daisy said. “If you need to cut down trees, do it outside of nesting season. Birds can also be poisoned by eating lead. A raptor might eat a fish that swallowed a lead sinker a fisherman lost. Or the raptor might scavenge meat from a deer a hunter shot with lead bullets. Then the lead can make them sick. People can use gear that isn’t made with lead instead.”

  “Wow,” Violet whispered to Jessie. “I didn’t know how dangerous the world is for birds.”

  “It’s sad.” Jessie took notes. “I can hardly keep up. At least we’re learning about the dangers, so we can help. We can take what we learn back home to Greenfield.”

  “Habitat loss is a problem as well,” Daisy said. “We have to protect nature, from grasslands to forests. Fighting climate change is one of the best ways to help birds and all wild animals.”

  “What should we do if we find an injured raptor?” a boy in the audience asked.

  “Call us,” Daisy said. “We’ll try to come get it. We don’t recommend that you move the bird yourself. Keep your distance so you don’t cause the bird more stress. If you have to move a raptor because it’s in danger, be careful! Put a towel or some paper towels in a box. Try using a broom to gently sweep the bird into the box. Close the box and put a towel over it to keep it dark and quiet. Keep the bird warm, but don’t give it food or water.”

  “Why not?” Benny asked. “Won’t it be hungry?”

  “Raptors have special diets,” Daisy said. “You can’t give it regular food, not even meat. Also, if the bird has been sick for a while, giving it food or water could kill it. Get it to a veterinarian or to us as soon as possible.”

  “She sure knows a lot,” Benny said.

  “She cares about birds a lot too,” Violet said.

  At the end of the tour, Daisy encouraged everyone to donate money t
o the Raptor Rehab Center. “We want to give our birds the very best care. Some things need to be updated. I’d like to install a new system to keep the birds safe.”

  “Like a security system?” The man who asked the question laughed. “Are your birds in prison?”

  Daisy smiled. “Enclosures keep the birds safe. Just last week, one of the volunteers accidentally left an enclosure unlatched. It turned out okay; the hawk didn’t get out of the enclosure. But what if it had? What if the bird flew outside when someone opened the building door?”

  A woman shrugged. “Well, it flies back to the wild. That’s okay, right?”

  Daisy’s smile turned into a frown. “No, it’s not. The birds are only released when they can successfully hunt. Some of our permanent residents can fly but don’t see well enough to hunt. They’ll die out on their own. Other raptors might need time to fully heal. If they escape, they could hurt themselves worse.”

  “Okay, okay.” The man pulled out his wallet. “Here’s five dollars.”

  A car pulled up. Sebastian Hawkins, the man who’d brought Hoots to the center, got out. He waved a newspaper over his head. “This is terrible!” he called as he marched over.

  “Uh-oh,” Henry said. “That guy looks ready to complain some more. Let’s head him off before he stops people from donating money.”

  The children gathered around Mr. Hawkins. “What’s wrong?” Henry asked.

  “This article describes all kinds of problems at the rehab center,” Mr. Hawkins complained. “I shouldn’t have brought that owl here.”

  “You’d better come talk to Ms. Fernandez,” Henry said, leading Mr. Hawkins away from Daisy’s presentation.

  Inside the main building, the children stood back and watched as Carmen tried to calm down Sebastian. He kept asking questions, but he didn’t seem to trust her answers.

  “He acts like it’s his own owl,” Jessie said. “It’s not a pet. He doesn’t get to decide what kind of care Hoots needs.”

  “He wants to know Hoots will be all right,” Violet said. “I would care about an injured animal I found.”

  Henry drew the others farther away. “He knows a lot about how things work here.”

  “Maybe he went on a tour,” Benny said.

  “He’s talking about the daily schedule and feeding routines,” Henry said. “I don’t think that is part of the tour.”

  “Volunteers would know that.” Jessie spread her notebook open on a table. “But if he’d been a volunteer, Carmen would know him.”

  Finally Sebastian left. Carmen put a hand over her eyes for a moment before joining the children. “What a day. We’ve been getting phone calls all morning. I’m generally in favor of publicity, but that newspaper article tore us apart. People who had never even heard about us before want to complain.”

  “Maybe some of them will donate money to improve things,” Jessie suggested.

  Carmen’s smile was sad. “That would be the best-case scenario. I’m afraid some of our regular donors will stop giving money. Other people might try to get our license revoked.”

  “License?” Benny frowned. “Like a license to drive a car?”

  Carmen chuckled. “Not quite. You can’t keep raptors without a special license. Some people keep raptors for hunting. That is, they use the raptors to hunt other birds, like ducks. Some people breed them and sell the chicks. And then there are groups like us, who take care of them. We need our license to keep doing that. Otherwise, all our good work disappears.”

  “How can we help?” Violet asked.

  “I’ll probably be busy on the phone all day,” said Carmen. “Daisy or one of the senior volunteers can let you know what needs to be done.” Carmen headed down the hallway.

  The children sat around the big table. They were alone in the room for the moment.

  “It seems like the center could really be in trouble,” Henry said. “People are paying close attention to everything bad that happens.”

  “There are problems, but they don’t seem that bad,” Violet said. “Could someone be trying to make things seem worse than they really are?”

  Jessie bit her lip as she scanned her notes. “Isn’t it strange that Sebastian showed up again? He said he’s worried about Hoots, but what is he going to do? He can’t take the owl back unless he has a license.”

  “When we met him, I thought of something,” Benny said.

  The others waited. Finally Henry said, “Well? What was it?”

  “I’m trying to remember.” Benny stared at the ceiling. “Oh, I got it! It was his name. It reminded me of something, but I don’t know what. I wish I could figure it out.”

  “We said Hawkins was a good name for someone who rescued a raptor,” Jessie said.

  “But Hoots is an owl.” Benny laughed. “That man’s name should be Sebastian Owlins!”

  “Maybe he got interested in birds because he had a bird name,” Henry said. “I don’t think it matters for our investigation. I wonder about that reporter. Why would he write such a negative story? It’s like he wanted the Raptor Rehab Center to look bad.”

  Jessie looked over her notes. “When he left, he said something about this being his first big story.”

  “I guess he’s pretty young,” Henry said. “Maybe he wants to write a big article that gets attention, so he gets attention. He got lucky showing up in time to hear Carmen talk about the cards. She wouldn’t have said anything if she knew he was a reporter.”

  “Daisy would have,” Violet said. “She kept talking about the problems even after Carmen tried to pretend everything was okay.”

  “I wonder if that reporter wants a story bad enough to make one happen.” Jessie found the newspaper Sebastian Hawkins had left behind. She opened it to the story on the Raptor Rehab Center. She copied down the name of the reporter: Faisal Raad. “Maybe he’s behind the problems,” she said.

  “That makes sense,” Violet said. “I can’t believe someone who works here or volunteers here would try to hurt the place. But wait. How could the reporter have mixed up the bird cards? He wouldn’t have a key to the building.” She slumped in her chair. “Maybe an insider is causing trouble after all.”

  “We have to help Carmen,” Benny said. “And we have to help Pierce and Hoots and all the birds.”

  The others nodded.

  “One thing is for sure,” said Henry. “All these strange events can’t be a coincidence. Someone is out to get the Raptor Rehab Center.”

  Eagle Escape

  “I need to check messages,” Carmen said as she handed Henry her keys the next morning. “Please visit the other buildings. Since you helped yesterday, you kids know what should be on the bird cards. Make sure they haven’t been moved or changed again.”

  “We’ll make sure everything is right,” Henry assured her. He led his siblings outside. It felt good to get such responsibility.

  First they checked the building for birds with recent injuries. Benny rushed to the cage where Hoots sat on a branch. “Good morning, Hoots,” he said, greeting the bird.

  The owl stared back with her big, yellow eyes.

  Jessie checked the card. “This is right. There are new checkmarks for the feeding and medicine schedules. Everything else is the same as yesterday.”

  Benny looked at the card. “She got a frozen mouse. Yuck. But I guess she likes them.”

  They checked the other cards. A tiny northern saw-whet owl fluffed her wings and hopped along her branch, limping a little on her injured leg. A red-tailed hawk was much slimmer than the owls. It had tiny black eyes and a sharp, hooked beak. Its wing was bandaged to its side. The largest bird was an osprey. It was about the size of a goose, but it definitely looked like a bird of prey with its sharp beak and talons.

  A great horned owl had soft-looking brown, tan, and white feathers. Its tall ear tufts stood up from the top of its head.

  “The feathered ear tufts help with hearing, but they’re not the owl’s actual ears,” said Jessie. She had done extra re
search the night before. “Many owls have ears at different heights on their heads. With one ear higher than the other, they can tell where a sound is coming from.”

  “That would be cool, I guess.” Benny grabbed his ears. He pulled one up and one down.

  Violet giggled. “It would look funny on us.”

  “Everything seems okay here,” Henry said. “Let’s go to the next building.”

  Benny ran to the door. “Let’s go to Pierce’s house next! I want to say good morning and make sure he had a big breakfast.”

  They went out a back door into the courtyard formed by the other buildings. In the courtyard, an enclosure housed Pierce and the eagle cam. A roof and three wooden walls protected the eagle from wind and rain. The other wall of the enclosure was made of thick wire mesh so Pierce could feel the outside air.

  Benny ran to the mesh and looked in. “I don’t see Pierce. Is he hiding?”

  The girls stopped beside Benny. “I don’t see him either,” Jessie said. “Where could he be hiding?”

  “An eagle is huge,” Violet said. “We’d see him.”

  “His card will say if he’s been moved.” Henry went past them to check the bird card in a plastic sleeve next to the cage door.

  The cage door was not closed.

  A padlock hung from the door latch. Had Pierce gotten out? The enclosure door wasn’t standing wide open, but it might have swung closed after the bird escaped.

  Henry looked around the courtyard. No eagle. “This door is open,” said Henry. “I think Pierce escaped.”

  “Oh no!” Tears popped into Violet’s eyes. “He’s still healing from his wing injury. If he tries to fly, he could hurt himself.”

  “Who could have left the door open?” Jessie asked. “You can’t get to Pierce’s enclosure without going through one of the buildings. Only staff and senior volunteers should ever open the enclosures. Someone had to get into the courtyard, unlock the door, and leave it open. That’s either very careless or…” She trailed off.

  “Or it’s the saboteur,” Henry said. “We’d better let Carmen and Daisy know.”