Lincoln residents often count themselves lucky to see a hawk or two soaring high above the local landscape or to hear the clicks that signal an owl is drifting through the night sky.

Andy McBride and Vickie Joseph have them all beat. This summer, they have had more than a dozen hawks and eight barn owls circling their property. But that’s only natural. After all, the couple — who founded and run California Foundation for Birds of Prey – recently released these fledglings and continue to feed them until they are ready to strike out on their own.

McBride and Joseph started the foundation in the early 1990s to help rehabilitate injured birds of prey.

As McBride explains, there are quite a few wildlife rescue organizations, but not many specialize in

raptors.

“We can do a good job with what we know,” he said.

McBride is a falconer with more than 30 years of experience and Joseph is a veterinarian certified in avian medicine; most of the other foundation board members are falconers with “lots and lots of raptor experience.”

This year, Joseph said, the foundation has seen a marked uptick in the number of injured or stressed birds making their way through its doors.

“We’re up to 187,” she said. “Way more than last year.”

Why?

“It’s habitat loss, all the building,” Joseph said. “It doesn’t have to be bad if we could get the farmers and the community to put up the proper boxes. If we create the habitat, the birds will be fine.”

Reasons birds get into distress vary with the seasons, the couple said.

In the spring, for example, many young birds get knocked out of trees due to high winds.

In the summer, many babies don’t get enough to eat in drought conditions. Often, too, chicks that have hatched under the eaves of a barn get stressed from unseasonable heat.

“Or people pick them up,” Joseph said. Often, she explained, it is in the mistaken belief that the bird is in trouble.

The rehab process

Once an injured bird is found, it is taken to Joseph’s clinic – the Bird & Pet Clinic of Roseville – for a complete checkup.

“Every single bird gets a veterinary workup – that’s one thing I guarantee,” Joseph said.

Joseph said she doesn’t keep track of her donated time and materials, but estimated it probably approaches the $30,000 mark.

Joseph said her dream of an expanded facility will contain a triage area so she could take care of a lot of problems without having to take the birds to the clinic.

After they leave the clinic, birds come to the rehabilitation facility off Garden Bar Road.

“This is the therapy end,” McBride said.

Once they are stable, the birds are either released or placed with a falconer.

The couple has a series of enclosures for the birds they rehabilitate. Birds whose injuries are such that they cannot be released into the wild are used for education whenever possible. One of these is a kite that was partially blinded by West Nile virus.

“I just didn’t have the heart to euthanize him,” Joseph said.

Another permanent resident is Tesla, a golden eagle that was electrocuted.

“She’s really a good bird,” Joseph said.

One of the more recent residents is a baby bald eagle that was shot. His wing, which was broken, has been pinned.

Another enclosure is home to a dozen baby screech owls; on a recent afternoon, seven of the fluffy bundles of down sat perched on a windowsill.

At the far end of the property is a series of flight chambers, essentially a large netted enclosure the size of a tennis court. Although the couple opened the door the day before to release five red-tailed and 11 red-shouldered hawks, there were three still in residence, uneasily darting back and forth between a ladder and a stump inside the flight chamber.

“They’ll leave when they want,” McBride said.

These were this year’s babies, Joseph explained, approximately 10 to 12 weeks old.

“We do rehabilitation, we do education, but what separates us is that we have a strong rehabilitation program where we use master falconers,” Joseph said.

“The falconer spends hours and hours with the bird,” Joseph said, getting it habituated to working with a human.

“It’s very labor-intensive,” she said.

“Very time-intensive,” McBride added.

Joseph explained that the foundation has a special permit that allows it to place

special-needs birds with falconers.

“We get a lot of birds in from other groups that need special handling,” Joseph said. Some of these birds have to go to a falconer, rather than undergo rehabilitation on the foundation’s site.

Peregrine falcons, for example, cannot be rehabilitated in a flight chamber because they fly too high in their natural habitat. The foundation just sent one peregrine from the Farallon Islands to a falconer. And last year, the foundation placed several Swainson’s hawks with falconers because they were blinded by West Nile virus.

“The other big thing that sets us apart is that we do big eagle work” with bald and golden eagles, Joseph said.

“We have a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Fish & Wildlife so that falconers can hunt with them,” McBride said.

That way, he explained, they can rehabilitate them by allowing them to free-fly.

“Legally, only falconers are allowed to free-fly raptors,” Joseph said.

Rehabilitators can only use flight chambers, but free-

flying really allows the falconer to evaluate the bird.

“And when they are released, we have high confidence they’re going to be fine,” she said.

McBride said one item on his wish list is a larger piece of property to fly the birds.

“As soon as you say ‘hunting,’ people say ‘no,’” he said.

“There’s no guns involved,” Joseph said. “The birds are hunting, they’re going after natural game. If you’re going to fly an eagle, you’re going to need huge amounts of open space, like 1,000 acres, away from development.”

The thing the falconer has to guard against, McBride explained, is that the raptor cannot become used to a suburban environment. An eagle, for example, is big enough that it will consider a small dog to be game.

According to Joseph, golden eagles are extremely difficult to rehabilitate.

“Golden eagles ... do not hang out, they’re very territorial, they hunt almost like a peregrine falcon,” she said. “We have a very select number of master falconers that will take on an eagle. When a golden eagle fledgling comes in, the babies will be with a falconer for two years minimum. It’s a huge commitment.”

Prior to that, she said, a baby golden eagle must spend six months with adult birds to socialize.

“They have no skills,” she said.

When a golden eagle is finally released, it is considered a sub-adult; it will not reach full adulthood until it is 5 years old.

Not surprisingly, rehabilitating a golden eagle is terribly expensive – approximately $3,000 to $5,000 to get an eagle back to the wild.

Foundation needs to spread its wings

“The demand is getting greater,” Joseph said. “One of our foundation’s goals is to find a permanent place – five acres would do it. We need to expand, we need a nature center. If it’s done properly, it would be tremendous.”

McBride said the couple would prefer to stay in Lincoln. For one thing, Joseph said, the proximity of the airport makes it easier for the couple to transport injured birds nationwide.

“Plus, it would be a great community thing,” she said. “I think Lincoln is in such a good position (to have a center). I think people are into preserving wildlife and their environment.”

The couple hopes to have the nature center up and running within five years. They estimate the cost of building and running the facility at approximately $2 million.

Currently, the couple doesn’t have the time to do much educational work.

“We’ll always give tours,” Joseph said. “People just have to call.”

For more information, call 773-6049 or go online at www.cafbp.com.