The Passing of Ezra

2013

 

I'm pasting this from the Cornell website:

 

The devastating news is now posted on the Cornell Webcam page - Sad News From The Bird Cams: Ezra, Beloved Red-Tail At Cornell, Is Dead March 21, 2017

 

As some of you may know, Ezra has not been seen on the Cornell Hawks cam or on the Cornell campus for the past several days, and worries have been mounting. We are extremely sad to have to share the news with you that we learned this evening that Ezra has died.

On Saturday, March 18, the Janet L. Swanson Wildlife Health Center received an injured Red-tailed Hawk who we now know was Ezra, and who had been found near the A. D. White House on campus. After examining him and taking X-rays, veterinarians determined that the severe wing fracture could not be repaired and flight would never again be possible. They made the difficult but humane decision to euthanize him on Sunday. Meanwhile, “Birders on the Ground” (or BOGs) Cindy and Karel Sedlacek had grown increasingly concerned about Ezra’s absence and contacted us here at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

We reached out to the Wildlife Health Center to ask whether any hawks had been brought in, and were able to confirm through his leg band numbers that this bird was Ezra. We will share any other updates we receive after a final necropsy is completed. Ezra has touched our lives and the lives of millions of people of all ages ever since we started watching him and Big Red in 2012. He inspired us with his beauty and personality as well as his devotion and success in working with Big Red to raise 15 nestlings in just the past five years.

I've been watching Ezra and his mate, Big Red, since 2011 or 12.... Their nest has been up on an 80 foot iron floodlight tower on the soccer field at Cornell.  Each year they have mated and hatched and raised at least three young ones.  The excellent cameras on those towers have provided me, and thousands of others, a view of a wild family "up close and personal."

This beautiful bird was at least 12 years old.   How we will miss him!