Birds outside

Releasing animals back to the nature

This story was written in a wildlife rehabilitation center called Pomorski Ośrodek Rehabilitacji Dzikich Zwierząt „Ostoja”. You can donate here to support Ostoja. The site is in Polish, but you can use the Google Translate browser plugin.

It’s been a week since I arrived in Ostoja, a wildlife rehabilitation center. In July 2024 alone they treated 636 animals (587 birds) and 216 animals were released back to nature. And in those last days of July I could help a bit with that.

Young buzzard in its day enclosure. Unfortunately it grew out of it as it started to figure out how to fly/jump out of it, and the need for a place in proper enclosure grew. Photo by me.

Yesterday we released a red kite. With every freedom granted to such a large specimen there’s usually a lot of photos and attention involved, but also a certain relief. Such a large animal cannot share the outside cage with any other species, and it’s rare to have 2 of those large birds at the same time in Ostoja. This means that one bird occupies one of the limited rooms Ostoja has.

Photo of me by me getting prepared to deep clean the emoty enclosure after all jackdaws were deemed healthy and old enough to go free.

The enclosure was being cleaned up with a young buzzard in mind, but between cleaning it and setting it up, a weakened white-tailed eagle arrived. Much larger than the young buzzard, the freshly prepared enclosure was used for the eagle instead of the young bird.

White-tailed eagle waiting to snatch the freshly prepared enclosure from the buzzard. Photo by me.

Fortunately for the young buzzard, jackdaws behaved nicely enough to be released, so another enclosure became available. The buzzard needed to wait an extra day, but I hope it understood the importance of the white-tailed eagle, commonly believed to be represented on the coat of arms of the country they are in.

Red kite just before the release back into the wild. Photo by me.

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