This is a red-tailed hawk. Specifically, a really, really rough-looking red-tailed hawk.

Peter, Chase, and Derek spotted him with an apparent wing injury late on Sunday morning. When they tried to get closer, the hawk tried to fly off across the stagnant water collected at the bottom of an old gun emplacement, but was unable to take flight and fell into the water. The guys fished him out (bravely, because the beak and talons on a red-tail do not mess around) and brought him back to HQ to try to figure out how best to help him.

I had my iPhone with me, and good voice and data service I think from Orient Point, so I got busy looking for a wildlife rehabber on the mainland where we could take the hawk when our boat came that evening. I also called one of the rehabbers I used to volunteer with in Maryland to get her thoughts on triage---the bird looked shocky and dehydrated, but we didn't have the tools to treat either issue so it boiled down to "keep him warm and unstressed."

The guys got him into a storage container that Peter drilled air holes into; they put a log perch and a bowl of water there and put the whole thing out back of HQ where he could be left alone. Meanwhile I got a call back from a rehabber who would take the hawk if we would deliver.

When the time came to haul our gear to the landing beach and wait for our boat, the hawk was actually looking a little more alert, and let us know his feelings on being in that box by trying to batter his way out of it. I think the ocean voyage freaked him out right good. A storm was passing by and we got no rain but a ton of wind, and it was a pretty unpleasant ride across the open water, for me and I assume for the hawk.

When we arrived at the dock on the mainland, Peter, Chase and Derek had to put the pedal to the metal to catch the evening's last ferry home, so they left the hawk in my hands. I loaded up his container into my little car and headed down the road to the rehabber who'd agreed to take him. That's where this photo was taken. The rehabber wanted to get him into a darkened kennel overnight to let him destress before a close exam, but did think that one wing looked off-kilter. That was that, and I got back in my car and headed west.

This afternoon I got an email from the rehabber: "So far so good, he is strong, has eaten a rat on his own, has some weakness in one wing, I am very optimistic he will be fine."