‘We All Adopted Him’
One fledgling raven, only a few weeks old, hadn’t been flying for long when a storm rolled into Baltimore in late April. It was an especially windy night, and Martin noticed the young birds were having troubles.
“The wind was catching the ravens underneath their wings,” Martin said. “It was throwing them into the underneath side of the seating bowl.”
After she saw one bird hit and fall to the upper concourse, Martin and others scurried up to check on it. When they saw it perched on a water spigot, they thought it was OK. But when it tried to take flight and floundered instead, they realized it wasn’t.
Martin kept an eye on it for a few days to see if it would recover. She made wellness checks and found it walking around the same area, trying to find shelter. When she checked on it, the other ravens circled overhead, yelling at her.
After a while, the raven glided even lower, perhaps looking for food. It was down in front of gate C, where fans going to an Orioles game took notice and approached the bird. Martin, a security professional, didn’t like people messing with her bird friend.
Martin knew it was time to take action, so she started calling around to rescue services. After one call was brushed off as a prank, she handed the search over to John Hesselrode, a longtime S.A.F.E. security coordinator, who founded Owl Moon Raptor Center in Boyds, a town in northwest Montgomery County.
They sent out experienced wildlife rescuer Billy Rios to get the bird, but he didn’t find it at M&T Bank Stadium. The flock’s other ravens also didn’t like people messing with their friend.
Hesselrode saw the other ravens provide a security escort away from the stadium and into the construction zone of the Ostend Baltimore concert venue across the street, which had shut down for the day.
“You see like three or four of them flying around and one came down and actually was walking with it,” Hesselrode said. “They were trying to get him off the property.”
Rios shimmied his way into the construction area and, within five minutes, captured the bird. On May 1, it arrived at the Owl Moon Raptor Center under the care of executive director and founder Suzanne Shoemaker. Since she started the rehabilitation center in 2002, they only had maybe a half dozen ravens. They’re tough birds.
They found that the fledgling raven had pain and reduced range of motion in his left wing. They gave him some medications and physical therapy. His feathers were still a little messed up from the ordeal, but after a couple weeks, they tested him out and deemed him ready to come off injured reserve.
Last year, the Owl Moon Raptor Center had more than 700 birds come into their facility. They often aren’t able to take flight again, but this raven was resilient.
“We all adopted him,” Shoemaker said. “He was very cute. He was a fixture here for two weeks.”
On May 16, they brought the raven back to M&T Bank Stadium. Martin insisted that they release him back up in the upper deck, near where they were roosting. The other ravens weren’t around during the day, but they were hopeful they would reunite that night.
When Rios opened the box, the bird briefly looked around, then flew up to perch atop the sign for Section 533/532.
“As soon as he flew up, he landed on the [word] kickoff,” Martin said. “It was like, ‘Alright, now it’s go time. Let’s get back in this game.'”