The Hudson Valley is somewhat of a paradise for wild birds. Well over a hundred remarkable species can been spotted here, ranging from the common Dark-eyed Junco to woodpeckers, hawks, owls, and even bald eagles.
Unfortunately, the price for having these magnificent creatures in our midst is that they collide, sometimes literary, with human development. Luckily, Ravensbeard Wildlife Center in Saugerties is here to help.
Ravensbeard’s primary mission is to rehabilitate injured or orphaned animals in order to return them to the wild.
“It’s hard to remember every bird that came through our doors,” says Ravensbeard founder Ellen Kalish, “I would guess thousands, and our release rate is over sixty percent. We work very closely with our veterinarians. The national average by comparison is fifty percent.”
What is growing into a world-class center started nearly 25 years ago in a much more humble environment. While her husband was traveling half the year for work, Kalish was a stay-at-home mom who’d taken to rehabbing animals in her kitchen.
“Every night I’d have to clean up the kitchen by dinner time,” she says. “I pulled it off for years, but when we got to the point when there were portable crates in almost every room in the house, it became a challenge.”
About this time, Kalish stumbled upon an article about licensed wildlife rehabilitators in the DEC’s Conservation Magazine. Until then, she hadn’t realized a person could get a special permit and actually rehabilitate animals as a career. Certification is a lengthy process including an exam, inspection of your facility, and two years of apprenticing with a licensed rehabilitator.
Kalish, who had zeroed in on birds by this point, did her official training through the NYS Wildlife Rehabilitation Council. At the conclusion, she applied to the US Fish & Wildlife Service and was granted a Migratory Bird Permit. Ravensbeard was officially born.
“This past summer, thanks to an anonymous donor, we built a state-of-the-art 100 foot flight cage for the largest birds that come to Ravensbeard, many who may need to practice flight after a wing injury. This enables them to regain strength and stamina. It’s a game changer!”
Of the birds that have been rehabbed at Ravensbeard, the most famous is most certainly a little Saw-whet known affectionately as Rocky the Christmas Owl. One evening, a woman called Kalish to say her husband had found a baby owl in a tree at work, could she help?
“I thought maybe I could speed things up and just meet him at work. The woman told me that wasn’t possible because her husband’s job was setting up the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center—I almost dropped the phone!”
Once Rocky had been safely transported to Ravensbeard, Kalish posted a few photos on their website and the story immediately went viral.
“I was getting reporters coming to my door at 7am asking if they could take a picture and do a story.”
Eight days later, Rocky was released without a hitch into the dusky night, but the story lived on. Kalish did interviews on every network, appeared on the Today Show, and coauthored a children’s book. Rocky’s image was plastered everywhere from subway cars to airplanes, she even turned up in a Marvel movie with Jeremy Renner.
“In my opinion, this was one of the top ten feel-good events of 2020,” Kalish says.
Not every bird can be rehabilitated, and some wind up taking up permanent residence at the center. This actually supports another facet of Ravensbeard’s mission, which is community education.
“We have a few owls as education ambassadors,” Kalish says. “There’s a Great-horned owl with a broken wrist and elbow which healed, but she has never flown. Right now she is a surrogate mom to an orphaned baby Great-horned owl.”
To further spread the word about keeping the world safe for wild birds, Ravensbeard held their first ever Gala celebration this past weekend. The well-attended event kicked off with a special appearance by Hudson the Barred Owl, one of Ravensbeard’s better-known ambassadors. Attendees were also treated to an appearance by Jay Ungar and Molly Mason, co-founders of The Ashokan Center where the Gala took place.
“We’re friends with Ellen,” Molly Mason says. “She works with school groups and has been bringing her bird program to the Ashokan Center for years. Several people who’ve worked here have gone on to work at Ravensbeard. We’re so happy to support her work.”
Supporting Ravensbeard financially is one way you can help. Another possibility is becoming a volunteer at the center, Ravensbeard can always use an extra set of hands with cleaning, building, feeding, and transporting.
But there are other ways you can help wild birds everyday, such as putting decals on your windows, keeping cats indoors, or moving dead creatures to the shoulder to reduce chances that birds who feed on roadkill will be hit by cars. If you find an injured bird and are not close to Ravensbeard, you can check the NYSDEC website to find the phone number of a licensed rehabber in your area.
“Discuss the behavior and take a photo to send them, a picture is worth a thousand words,” Kalish says. “We can ID the species, and that tells us part of the story. This spring someone called because an owl was on the ground and she thought it might be hurt. When I enlarged the screen, I saw the owl was sitting on a dead duck that would take a few hours to devour. The caller was happy, I was happy, and the owl was extremely happy. We love happy endings.”
To learn more about Ravensbeard, check out their website at ravensbeard.org.
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