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Visitors to the Center for Birds of Prey enjoy daily flight demonstrations featuring a variety of raptors, such as the yellow-billed kite (pictured).
Photo by Mic Smith
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Trained handlers like Meghan Sparkman, shown with a Harris hawk, ensure the safety of the birds and the spectators during public tours.
Photo by Mic Smith
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Medical clinic director Debbie Mauney (left) and avian care specialist Magenta Kline (right) treat a female bald eagle for lead poisoning.
Photo by Mic Smith
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A Eurasian eagle owl thrills the crowd before landing safely on the gloved arm of educator Natalie Grosser.
Photo by Mic Smith
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Natalie Grosser educates visitors about the habits and benefits of raptors, including this Eurasian eagle owl.
Photo by Mic Smith
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Rehabilitating injured birds also allows the staff to study rare hybrids like this cross between a gyrfalcon and a prairie falcon.
Photo by Mic Smith
When Jim Elliott first started the Charleston Raptor Center in 1991— as an amateur bird enthusiast, in his own house on Broad Street, while moonlighting from his job as a commercial real estate broker—he never envisioned what it would become.
His Avian Conservation Center and the Center for Birds of Prey is now a 152-acre campus in Awendaw, complete with an avian medical clinic.
His focus, as it’s always been, is solely on healing raptors injured by run-ins with automobiles or irresponsible hunters.
“I’m still very much a student of birds,” he says while watching a female bald eagle receive chelation therapy at the clinic. He keeps his voice hushed so as not to distract Magenta Kline, an avian care specialist administering a chemical compound that helps eliminate toxic metals from the bird’s system. The likely cause of the eagle’s suffering: lead shot, perhaps even just a few pellets worth, left errantly by hunters in waterfowl or skinned deer carcasses.
“The fact that these birds show up with these issues is the fundamental reason we do what we do,” Elliott says. “There’s no better window on ecological health than wild birds.”
This eagle was the 24th bird admitted to the center since the beginning of 2014 and the 6,438th since its inception. Last year, the staff treated 580 birds, mostly from South Carolina, but also from neighboring states such as Georgia and North Carolina. The term “bird,” however, might be a bit broad. The center’s primary focus, as its name implies, is on large raptors— eagles, falcons, vultures, owls, kites and hawks.
“Historically there’s been animosity towards these predators,” Elliott says. “But they just have a charismatic nature. They’re very compelling birds because of the niche they occupy in the food cycle. Over the past few years, I’ve been able to witness a tangible, measurable shift in people’s attitude toward birds of prey.”
That shift could, in part, be attributed to the center opening to the public in 2008 and hosting up to 10,000 visitors a year.
To get to the Center for Birds of Prey, you wind down a dirt road between pine trees and ponds until you reach the well-manicured grounds of the campus. The place is alive with the sound of cawing, hooting and chirping, and it’s not unusual to see dozens of vultures and eagles banking and wheeling in the sky above.
On the Thursday that the bald eagle was receiving treatment, staff member Natalie Grasser led the first of the day’s two educational tours. She stood in front of about 20 people, discussing the various birds perched in shelters behind her. The tour was a mixture of interesting bird trivia—that all birds can rotate their heads 270 degrees; that peregrine falcons often nest in cities in order to perch on tall buildings and feed on pigeons—and ecological insights.
The tour then segued into the 11:30 a.m. flight demonstration led by the director of education, Stephen Schabel.
“Training birds is like teaching children,” he says, standing in front of a set of bleachers and monitoring the sky. “You give them positive reinforcement and rewards when they do something good.”
For the birds in the flight demonstration that day—a falcon, a hawk, an owl and a kite, all in turn—the incentives were small bits of raw meat at the end of the handlers’ protective gloves. The birds would circle, land in trees, swoop down, perch beside the spectators, and then hop into carrying cages, exhibiting “recall behavior” that seemed nearly flawless.
At one point, Schabel picked out Tad McCord, a young boy visiting for a home-school field trip, to run out into the field while holding a string attached to a stuffed animal. When McCord ran full-speed into the field, dragging the mock prey, the falcon swooped down and snatched it up with exceptional precision.
“Now I can tell my friends I’ve officially been chased by a hawk!” McCord says.
The day seemed to be another good one for the center—the bald eagle’s prognosis for returning to the wild was estimated at two to three weeks, and the tours had educated visitors on the importance of protecting raptors from human impact.
“Admittedly there’s a moral problem,” Elliott says. “If we’re the ones causing the problem, then we’re the ones who ought to mitigate it.”
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Get There
The Center for Birds of Prey is located at 4872 Seewee Road in Awendaw.
HOURS: Thursday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tours are offered at 10:30 and 2 p.m. Advance purchase of tour tickets is recommended.
ADMISSION: $15 per person.
DETAILS: Visit The Center for Birds of Prey website or call (843) 971-7474.