THE STORY OF YANG 
     
    
   
   
    
     WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY CANDY GALLANT 
     
    

    
     "Hello?" 
     
    

    
     "Yes, it is....” 
     
    

    
     "Yes, I promise I won't laugh or think you are strange.” 
     
    

    
     You have an orphaned hawk looking for a 'foster mother'? 
     
    

    
     "Say no more: I'd love to adopt him." 
     
    

    
     That is how my relationship with 'Yang’ began. Apparently he had fallen from his nest in the eaves of a cot- 
     
     tage in the Bedeque area. His finders, a family from Ontario, first tried several times to replace him in his nest 
     
     without success. Then they placed him in a box up near the eaves with the hopes the mother hawk would come 
     
     back and care for him in his artificial nest. After two days they gave up hope and called the local humane socie- 
     
     t - me! 
     
     y He arrived in a beer box - a tennis 
     
    

    
     ball sized pom-pom of white with huge 
     
     eyes, feet and beak. He was cold, damp 
     
     and moved only slightly. I was disap- 
     
     pointed to see his poor condition and ful- 
     
     ly expected him to die within hours. i 
     
     placedhim under a broader bulb and 
     
     within five minutes he was sitting on his 
     
     bottom, feet in the air, head outstretch- 
     
     . ed, eyes sparkling and 'killying' his little 
     
     heart out. I happily offered him 
     
     beefheort strips dipped in egg yolk and 
     
     he wolfed down enough to fill his crop 
     
     tightly, Cuddled into his basket-nest, 
     
     began to ’purr' and went to sleep. That 
     
     was how it went for the next three 
     
     weeks - eating, sleeping and eating 
     
     some more - every fifteen to twenty 
     
    

    
     minutes. 
     
     By the time he have lived with us a 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     c. ' ' 
     
     IKK§ ‘ 
     
     o 
     
    

    
     \\ 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     week, he had enough feathers to iden- 
     
    

    
     u  tify him as a kestrel (my nestling book 
     
    

    
     1: {f1 . kgé ‘ described him as being five days old 
     
    

    
     I“ _‘g;;,,;}3-‘;f_. Amman " when he come to my place). Upon learn- 
     
     J‘))‘. a 
     
    

    
     ’ in”)? 30H”: 8‘” ing about his predominantly insect diet, I 
     
    

    
     5’: weeks old began trying to feed him some insects as 
     
    
   
   
    
     well as his growing beefheart meals. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Yang was absolutely terrified of bugs and remained frightened of them for the next three weeks. Then one 
     
     day I offered him a semi-alive fly. That changed everything! Once he found he was tough enough to eat a fly, 
     
     he- was ready to conquer small crickets (preferably maimed ones) and he slowly progressed up to the flying 
     
     grasshoppers he dearly loves now. My biggest food problem was how to get enough calcium into his system to 
     
     allow proper bone growth. No matter how sneaky l was putting a supplement on his beefheart, he would 
     
     refuse the 'contaminated' food. i only hoped he was getting enough granules in his mouth to keep him healthy. 
     
    

    
     When he was a week old he began to practice the art of walking on the feet instead of the knees as he had 
     
     done previously. He acted very much like a human baby at this time, often sitting quietly on his back studying 
     
     (or chewing on) his feet, as though he didn't realize they belonged to him. He also began to practice 'attocking'. 
     
     This consisted of laying as though he were asleep until something moved close to him, at which time he would 
     
     throw himself feet-first at the victim, 'killying’ over his capture. At times his attack would fail and he'd land on 
     
     his back, feet clawing the air, which turned blue with the outraged screams only a baby kestrel can produce. 
     
    

    
     ‘ At three weeks he began to practice the art of wing flapping and the sport of long-distance leaping. This 
     
     was his dOwnfall (no pun intended). He didn't seem to realize that leaping and flapping w0uld go together to 
     
    
   
   
    
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