Theo has been found!
The aplomado falcon, flew away from The Raptors on Herd Road on Monday, but was recovered on Wednesday thanks to a tip from an alert Norcross Road area resident.
“Someone saw him and called us and described him, and I knew it was him,” The Raptors general manager Robyn Radcliffe reported. “She called us at 5:39 p.m., we arrived at 5:50, and he found us at 6:14.”
Needlesss to say, Radcliffe was thrilled to find the falcon.
“Over the moon happy!” she said. “We were so worried. So many eagles right now, he’s so vulnerable. But it seems he held his own.”
Theo — short for Theoden — took off over the Cowichan Rugby Football Club field around 3 p.m. on Monday. The Raptors asked folks to keep an eye out in a post on the FLED – Find Lost & Escaped Dogs Vancouver Island Facebook page.
“While our birds fly daily and adventure all around, they usually have transmitters on in case they get lost and then we can usually find them,” the post stated. “However, this guy does not have a transmitter. Theo is little and vulnerable to other raptors and has not been outside of our flying field before.”
Aplomado falcons are not native to Vancouver Island, and are a little smaller than a crow — similar in size to a dove or pigeon. In flight, Theo resembles an American kestrel or Cooper’s hawk. The aplomado falcon’s natural range covers most of South and Central America, ranging into the southern U.S.
