Wind Over Wings Returning

For Garden Club Program

On Wednesday, March 9, The Town and Country Garden Club of Newtown will once again welcome Hope Douglas from the Wind Over Wings Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center to give a presentation at the Newtown Senior Center.

The program will begin at 7:30 pm. The public is welcome to attend, free of charge.

Wind Over Wings, Inc, is a nonprofit wildlife rehabilitation and education center started by Ms Douglas in 1990. Its goal is “to provide a personal connection with wildlife that will lead to good stewardship of the environment.”

The center is licensed by the federal government as well as the state of Connecticut, but all funding is based on donations. Wind Over Wings also has a wildlife team of licensed rehabilitators, each of whom specialize in a specific species.

Ms Douglas says her love of animals began when she saw the Walt Disney movie Bambi, which led her to an interest in helping injured animals. When she was visiting the Naples Nature Conservancy in Florida, she saw a blind red-tailed hawk that inspired her to create an East Coast bird sanctuary where people could be close to magnificent birds.

The name came while walking along the shore in Old Saybrook. When a pair of mute swans flew overhead with such grace and strength, Ms Douglas commented that the sound of wind over wings was very powerful.

Today Wind Over Wings has a wide variety of birds in residence ranging from bald eagles to the American kestrel.

Ms Douglas will be bringing some of these magnificent birds with her as part of the program. She will tell stories about some of the most memorable residents such as a mute swan that lost the top of her upper beak to a snapping turtle.

 Veterinarians donated their time to create a special prosthetic beak for the swan and she made many visits to various schools where she was a special favorite with the children.

Wind Over Wings also currently has a golden eagle that was deliberately shot and lost a wing. The eagle was rescued in South Dakota and Delta Airlines shipped it for free to Connecticut.

Newtown’s senior center is in the Multi-Purpose Building on Riverside Road in Sandy Hook.