Marines release a few good birds

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A red-tailed hawk is soaring somewhere above the Marine base at Twentynine Palms after being nursed back to health at the Coachella Valley Wild Bird Center.

The hawk took a direct hit from an errant golf ball at the Combat Center’s Desert Winds Golf Course. Marine Corps employees took it for emergency care at the Coachella center. In this photo, Twentynine Palms biology technician Steve Selser holds the red-tailed hawk before release.

After some weeks of recuperation, the hawk, along with a cowbird and three great-horned owls, were released and are now thought to be flying above the desert stretches where Marines are training for Iraq and Afghanistan.

-- Tony Perry, in San Diego