Dawn Keller and Journey the Ferruginous Hawk by Tom Cruze

A Ferruginous Hawk got stuck in the front plow of a train after being hit. The bird then traveled over 1000 miles before it was rescued!

The hawk was discovered by a railroad worker at a train yard near Chicago last summer. Dawn Keller from Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation was called in to help.

Keller said she found the bird contorted like a pretzel and stuck between two pieces of metal. Keller said she didn’t think it was alive, but when she touched its tail feather, it moved.

Dawn couldn’t get into the small area where the hawk was with gloves on.

“It was crazy. I didn’t think we were going to get him out. I had to reach in bare-handed, push his head down then go in a second time to get his left wing out.”

The Ferruginous Hawk is not normally found in Illinois so the bird’s true identity wasn’t immediately known.

“I thought we had a red-tailed hawk, then I was like, ‘Oh my gosh!’,” Keller said. She did some research and determined it was a Ferruginous Hawk. They spend winters in the western United States and Canada and summers as far south as central Mexico. The largest hawk in North America, it’s considered “at risk” by Canadian authorities and endangered or threatened in several states.

The hawk was stuck in a Canadian Pacific Railway train. Based on this train’s path and the range of the bird, it was determined that the hawk got stuck in the train somewhere in Alberta or Saskatchewan!

Today the bird is doing great, but unfortunately it will not be able to fly again and cannot be released back into the wild. Dawn plans to give the bird a new life by using it for educational purposes.

They chose a perfect name for the bird too, Journey!

[Bird nursed back to health after being stuck in train plow]