A dazed falcon was found by the road near Skaftafell National Park in South Iceland over the weekend. Tour guides brought it to the deputy ranger who convinced two British volunteers to take it with them in a cardboard box on the bus to Reykjavík.
Photo: Wikipedia.
“He told us teasingly that he had a passenger that we needed to accompany to Reykjavík. We thought it was a little strange but agreed. When we arrived to the place, one of the rangers asked: ‘Are you taking the falcon?’” Gordon McKenzie, one of the volunteers, told RÚV.
The falcon didn’t seem all too pleased with the arrangement. “It managed to get its head and one of the claws out of the cardboard box so we tried to push it back in with a towel,” McKenzie recalled.
“We didn’t want to hurt it but had to get the claw—which apparently can be dangerous—back in. Then we were worried that it didn’t have enough air so we picked holes into the box. It got really mad and so I was afraid I had hit it. But all went well in the end,” he concluded.
The volunteers had to change buses twice, first in Vík, then in Selfoss. In Vík they bought tape to repair the cardboard box. Eventually they arrived at the Reykjavík Family Park and Zoo, where the falcon was to be treated.
The falcon, which proved to be a female, was examined yesterday. Its wing wasn’t broken as feared but it was wounded, possibly after a collision. After having been bathed twice, the falcon was placed in a cage with another female which had been at the park for a few weeks.
Once treated, the birds will be released back into the wild.
ESA
