State-endangered Northern harrier rehabbed by McHenry County Conservation District

A state-endangered bird of prey got a second chance at life after the McHenry County Conservation District stepped in to help him recover from a concussion.

The district was called in early last month when a man walking in a conservation area found a bird standing in the snow. He noticed the bird didn’t look well, Wildlife Resource Center Specialist Beth Gunderson said.

The male Northern harrier was taken into the Wildlife Resource Center in “pretty bad shape” and underweight, Gunderson said. Based on examinations and his symptoms of lethargy and disorientation, the team was able to determine that the harrier suffered a concussion or head injury.

The next day, the bird started to eat on his own. From there, the team only needed to give him time to recover and gain back some weight. About three weeks later, they successfully released the harrier back into the wild.

“He just started flying and went over the tree line,” Gunderson said. “In a cage, you can only see so much with their flight ability. So once when you release them, and you see him just take off across the prairie, then I really know that, ‘OK, he’s good, and we’ve done the best we can for him.’”

On average, the conservation district rehabilitates an estimated 150 to 200 animals each year, Gunderson said. About 20 to 30 of those rescues are birds of prey, but this was the first Northern harrier that came into the district’s care.

“A lot of them get hit by cars,” Gunderson said. “We see them with broken wings, all kinds of different injuries that they can get.”

The Northern harrier is described as a medium-sized hawk with a “narrow body and wings and a long tail,” according to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

The state-endangered bird can be found in prairies, marshes and wetlands. One way to distinguish them easily from other common hawks in the area is that they hunt by flying about 10 to 30 feet above the ground, rather than from high in the sky, Gunderson said.

“You can potentially see a harrier any month of the year, if you’re in the right habitat,” she said.

Sightings of harriers and similar birds like the short-eared owls have been reported in McHenry County Conservation District areas, especially in the winter months.

Anyone interested in supporting the conservation district’s rehabilitation efforts can donate to the McHenry County Conservation Foundation. The foundation has helped fund an outdoor cage and a turtle pen for the Wildlife Resource Center.