SPIRITS HIGH AS RESCUED RENAE FLIES
A WINGED survivor of the Townsville flood disaster has successfully taken flight after days of rehabilitation.
The mature female frigatebird, affectionately named Renae, turned up in the backyard of Magnetic Island couple Rees Clarke and Marlene Bryant during the peak of the deluge, sodden and exhausted.
Frigatebirds are able to fly for weeks without stopping and have the largest wingspan-to-body-weight ratio of any bird.
“She was waterlogged so we kept her in our shed for a few days and gave her some food but she started rejecting it,” Mr Clarke said.
Deborah Carter, who runs the notfor-profit Bird of Prey Rescue Rehabilitation and Release at Kelso, took Renae in.
“She was a third of her body weight when I got her, which is very close to death,” Ms Carter said.
“I put her in an intensive care unit but because she was so big she didn’t really fit.”
For a few days Ms Carter fed Renae a fish slurry, before feeding her whole fish again to help her gain weight.
Ms Carter said there was a two-to-three-week window between rescue and release for big ocean birds, because they can’t take off from the ground and begin to lose muscle tone without exercise.
She said it was beautiful to see Renae take off from Kissing Point on Sunday morning then do a “victory lap” and glide into the wind.