Bird-loving lawyer helps injured raven

After rehabilitation, raven settles into new home at nature center.

A large raven had been shot by a pellet gun and was found hobbling around the parking lot of a used car dealership in Chantilly, Virginia.

Civil rights lawyer Catherine Sevcenko got a call about the 2-foot-tall, injured bird. People seem to find her in situations like this.

Sevcenko has cared for injured and orphaned songbirds over the past 10 years at her home in Alexandria, Virginia, as well as other places.

She took the raven to two veterinarians after she got the call about a year ago. They both told her nothing could be done to help the bird because it had been shot in the shoulder and had a severe rotator cuff injury.

“One of the vets advised euthanasia,” Sevcenko said, explaining the bird — nicknamed King Kong because of its large size —would never fly again.

Sevcenko had other ideas for King Kong.

“I just looked at this beautiful bird — the largest raven I’d ever seen — and I thought, ‘He doesn’t seem to be in pain. Maybe there’s something we can do, even though his injuries are permanent and he’ll never fully be a raven again.’”

Sevcenko, who for years has been a licensed rehabilitator at her home and for various sanctuaries, formalized her small bird rehab facility in 2020 and named it Diva Crows. She said her mission is to release as many birds as possible back into the wild, but she knew that wouldn’t be possible for King Kong.

Sevcenko and one of her volunteers, Sam Sparks, wrapped the bird’s wing to provide support as it healed. They brought

King Kong berries, nuts and dead mice, as well as fresh water so the bird could take a bath every morning.

“We did our best to supply enrichment, but he wasn’t very responsive to interaction,” Sevcenko, 60, said.

Ravens are highly intelligent birds, capable of holding grudges, stashing food and using gestures to communicate. King Kong was no exception, Sevcenko said.

“He’s muscular, weighs almost 3 pounds and runs like the wind,” she said. “He’s truly an amazing creature.”

Last summer, when King Kong had sufficiently healed from his injuries, Sevcenko and her staff looked for a new home for the bird. They thought the Cayuga Nature Center in Ithaca, New York, might be a good fit.

It took several months to get the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to approve the transfer across state lines because birds are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Sevcenko said. But last month, the move finally happened.

“I was relieved, because I could tell he wasn’t happy here — he thought I’d done him wrong because I’d wrapped his wing and pried open his mouth for medications,” Sevcenko said.

In mid-january, Joe Capone, a Diva Crows volunteer, drove the raven three hours to a Starbucks in Harrisburg, Pa., about halfway to Ithaca. He was met by Shyia Magan, director of live animals for the Cayuga Nature Center. Magan transported the bird another three hours to the sanctuary.

“Ravens are beautiful, intelligent and social birds, and this was the best possible outcome,” Capone said. “There is a lot of sadness in this business — lots of birds don’t make it. So it’s always a happy moment when you can save one.”

After King Kong arrived at the Cayuga Nature Center, one of the first orders of business was to give him a new name, said Magan, 26, noting that the sanctuary provides a permanent home for a variety of animals and four other birds — a turkey vulture, a red-tailed hawk, a great horned owl and a collared dove.

“We decided to allow him to pick his own name,” she said, explaining that staff members wrote five names — Indigo, Eolas, Tarot, Renwykon and Bertrand — on small pieces of paper and a dead mouse was placed on top of each name.

He selected the dead mouse that was on top of the name Bertrand.

“Bertrand means ‘bright raven,’ so it was perfect,” Magan said. “It suits him. Everyone calls him Bert for short.”

It took Bertrand a few weeks to warm up to new surroundings, and he spent several days looking for a way to escape the outdoor enclosure, she said. But Bert is now chatting with crows that fly by, and seems more open to having people around, Magan said.

“Every day, we’ll feed him fruit, vegetables, dog kibble and some kind of prey item like an egg or a mouse or rat,” she said. “We’ll wrap his food in newspaper or hide it in a box, and he’ll figure out how to get to it.”

She and other staff members hope Bertrand will be open to learning new behaviors, such as perching on command, so they can bring him out of the enclosure when school groups visit for educational programs and summer camps, she said.

“He’s so smart and so present, and we all enjoy watching him hop around,” Magan said. “He’s a genuine character.”

‘He’s muscular, weighs almost 3 pounds and runs like the wind. He’s truly an amazing creature.’

COURTESY OF SAM SPARKS This raven was shot by a pellet gun; it was sent to a wildlife rehab center in Alexandria, Virginia, because it could no longer fly. The bird was recently taken to a permanent home.