After 7 years at Hamilton's Sheraton Hotel, Lily the peregrine falcon dies
CBC
A falcon who made downtown Hamilton her home for the past seven years died on Sunday evening.
Pat Baker, a senior monitor with the Hamilton Falconwatch, says someone called animal control on Saturday about a sick falcon on street level, against a building at the corner of Bay and York in the city's core.
That falcon was Lily — the 11-year-old peregrine falcon who ruled the roost on a ledge at the Sheraton Hotel since 2015 with her mate Ossie. She was also a longtime star of a falcon webcam.
By Saturday at roughly 6 p.m., Lily was at the Open Sky Raptor Foundation in Grimsby.
Carol Ricciuto, an authorized wildlife custodian who runs the foundation, said Lily was in bad shape.
The falcon was "extremely emaciated," weighing more than 100 grams less than a healthy weight for a female.
Lily was clenching her feet and had a stiff right wing, which Ricciuto said were likely signs of hypothermia.
The falcon also had a wound on her right eye, which indicated she collided with something, but Ricciuto said she didn't find any broken bones or brain damage.
Ricciuto said she tried hydrating Lily with warm fluids and put her on a heater. She also noticed some food in the falcon's crop, a sac in the neck where the food sits and normally dissolves.
"She seemed to be stabilizing on Sunday," Ricciuto said.
Ricciuto transferred Lily to the Owl Foundation near Vineland at about 3 p.m. on Sunday. That facility is better equipped to help, she said.
But by then, Lily's condition worsened and she started drooling.
Annick Gionet Rollick, a senior wildlife rehabilitator at the Owl Foundation, said Lily had lost even more weight and was struggling to breathe.
The biggest issue, she said, was all the food in her crop.
