As I was sitting in Union Square Park, enjoying the sun after lunch today, I noticed a rather large bird, kind of the size of a chicken sitting over in an area by itself. This was a rather surprising and peculiar behavior, so I went to investigate, and sure enough it was a juvenile who had hurt it's foot and seemed a bit dazed.

It started attracting a lot of attention and I noticed there was another lady on the phone with someone who seemed to give her instructions of some kinds. She asked around for a box and I went to get one for her. Fortunately, there were some farmers at the market, and I was able to charm a box from one of them, to put over the bird. I was also very fortunate to remember some of the training we had gotten in Salt Lake City last year with the Peregrines. (Thank you Bob and crew).

So back I went with the box, turns out my co-rescuer (I never got her name unfortunately) had been on the phone with the Wildlife Resource (or some such thing) and they were on their way to meet us. She had been instructed that we capture the bird in the box and kept it until they could come pick it up...

We had a fun few minutes chasing the poor stressed thing around, before we finally got her under the box, and we attracted quite the crowd. All wanted to see the bird, know what was going on in general, and a good portion of them had ideas of how to handle the situation... But we held our ground and finally a Park Service Maintenance man came over and made some phone-calls. Then all we had to do was wait for the Park Ranger who was coming to take the bird and deliver it to the Rehabilitation People. She came equipped with a cage and thick gloves, and after a little struggle, got hold of the bird and was able to show her/him off to the waiting crowd. We all got a round of applause, and after a short photo session, the bird was off to get checked out.
 
A happy ending to a most exciting afternoon. Again thanks to the SLC Falcon volunteers and the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, for all you do in taking care of our wonderful, majestic, feathered co-inhabitants! :) My tiny "wealth" of knowledge came in handy today, largely because of you! And it was a pleasure for me to use what I had learned in watching you!!