Rehabilitated loon returns home

WILLOW — While a handful of people on the shores of Crystal Lake watched, a common loon floated on the clear water near the shore, preening, flapping its wings and calling softly to another loon across the lake.

“Cheddar is a happy bird,” said Kent Briske, executive director for the Alaska WildBird Rehabilitation Center in Houston.

Kelly Boitz lives near Crystal Lake and found “Cheddar” sitting in the middle of the road one day about a month ago. As soon as she saw the water bird sitting on dry land, she said she knew something was wrong.

She said the bird was still able bodied enough to hiss at her and try to get away when she got out of her truck and tried to capture it by placing her coat over it.

Boitz and her father then drove the bird to the WildBird Rehabilitation Center in Houston.

When Tyler Strode examined the loon at the center, she found it was emaciated, dehydrated and had puncture wounds on its head and neck.

“Everything I’ve learned medically, I’ve learned from Kent,” she said. “It’s always been a dream of mine to help animals.”

Briske said the center sees similar situations with puncture marks from raptors’ talons two to three times a year. Raptors knock birds like loons out of the sky to make easy meals of them, he said.

In most cases, the birds are treated and released a few days later, Briske said.

But not with Cheddar, who was so named by staff at the Seward SeaLife Center who also helped nurse the bird back to health.

Volunteer Anna Ouzts said she drove the bird to Anchorage a few weeks back to meet up with staff from the Seward SeaLife Center and was thrilled to see it released back into the wild.

“It’s only the second release I’ve seen,” she said. The other was a swan released back on to Big Lake earlier this summer.

The Houston center is six years old and operated entirely by volunteers, Briske said. But it doesn’t do blood work, which is why the loon was transferred to the SeaLife Center. Blood work there showed the bird’s white cell count was low.

So Cheddar was given antibiotics and had added weight, gaining about four pounds, before being released Friday back to the lake nearest where the bird was found.

“Birds always do better when they are released back where they came from,” Kent said.

That’s because they know where the food is and where the predators are.

Two of Boitz’s children, her grandson and her father were there Friday with her to watch Cheddar released back into her native habitat.

“She was not well at all when I found her, ” Kelly said.

Briske said center volunteers care for about 350 birds a year. Of those, about 55 percent are released back in to the wild.

Boitz is now among that group of volunteers. She said she came back to the center the day after she dropped Cheddar off and has volunteered there two days a week since.

For more information, or if you find an injured or sick bird, contact the center at 892-1670.

Contact Heather A. Resz at heather.resz@frontiersman.com or 352-2268.