A large hawk survived an extraordinary ordeal in Northern California after becoming trapped in the front grille of a vehicle and riding nearly 200 miles before the driver noticed it during a stop for gas.
The Weed Police Department said dispatchers received a call Sunday from a motorist at a Chevron station in Weed who had discovered a bird wedged into the grille of their car.
“When the call came in I told them well just remove it, thinking it was a sparrow, the caller said no it’s an eagle. So I said don’t touch it and will send officers out,” Weed Police dispatch told The California Post.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife personnel were called to the scene and were able to carefully free the animal, later identified as a juvenile red-tailed hawk. Officials said the bird’s wings were intact, according to an ABC10 report.
Video from the rescue shows officers working cautiously around the front of the vehicle as they helped loosen and release the hawk’s wings.
Police said the hawk was apparently hit near the Interstate 5 and 505 interchange outside Dunnigan, then remained stuck in the car as it traveled all the way to Weed — a journey that lasted nearly three hours.
A witness who noticed the activity at the gas station said she initially feared the bird had not survived when she went closer to the vehicle.
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“I walked up to the car kind of thinking the worst, but the bird itself was very calm and trusting,” Wendy Wertenberger told the outlet.
“They managed to kind of dislodge the wing from the grille of the car and then very gently put it into a box.”
“I thought for sure it was a goner, but it was blinking and looking around calmly,” she added in her post on Facebook.
The young hawk is now undergoing treatment at a wildlife rehabilitation facility, per the report.
Officials told the outlet that the hawk amazingly didn’t have any broken bones on its legs or wings and that it was only suffering from mild swelling from the impact of hitting the car.
CDFW officials said the bird’s prognosis is good.
The California Post reached out to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife for more information.
