Bird is expected to make a full recovery
By John Tredrea, Special Writer
After a complex operation that took more than two hours Friday night, the Pennington Fire Company and a Mercer County park ranger rescued a great blue heron that was trapped in a tree in Rosedale Park.
The bird is expected to make a full recovery from an injured wing.
The heron had been caught in a kite string that was wrapped around multiple trees. The tree in which the bird was caught, high in the air, hung directly over Stony Brook, which runs along the northern edge of the park.
After receiving a call about the bird and finding it trapped 40 feet aloft of the brook, park ranger Brandon Nitschmann called the fire company at about 9:30 p.m.
"We used our ladder tower to clear out a lot of the kite string that was wrapped around multiple trees, but the tower bucket wasn’t able to reach the bird that was hanging above the brook," said Glenn Kraemer, deputy chief of the fire company.
"We needed to cut a tree down in order for the bird to finally be freed, since we didn’t think it would last much longer in that position. Once the bird was on the ground, the park ranger was able to catch and further untangle it and put it in the pet carrier."
The exhausted bird was taken to the nearby home of Linda Mihavetz, a seasonal employee of the county’s Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, in Titusville.
"Linda provided heat and supportive care to the bird, to relieve stress," said Michael Boonin, a Mercer County spokesman. "The bird has no fractures, but there’s a lot of swelling. The injured wing has been bandaged."
Mr. Boonin said chances look very good that, after a recovery period, the bird can be released into the wild again. He noted that ranger Nitschmann rescued another great blue heron last October at Lake Mercer in Mercer County Park in West Windsor.
"A call like this highlights the wide variety of things we do," Deputy Chief Kramer said. "I remember the park ranger saying something like ‘I didn’t know who else to call, and I figured you guys would know what to do.’"
The fire company still was able to respond to other calls while the heron was being rescued.
"While we spent over two hours rescuing the bird, we kept our trucks in service and available to respond to any emergencies that may have occurred during that time," Deputy Chief Kraemer said. "We took extensive effort to not risk any personnel or equipment"