Rare bird flew off from Fresno zoo 15 months ago. He was found and brought home

For more than a year, Fresno Chaffee Zoo has been on the lookout for Ripley, a Harris Hawk that went missing from the Winged Wonders Bird Show in April 2024.

The zoo fielded dozens of calls a day from community members who thought they’d spotted the bird, but none of the tips paid off. Until last month.

Twenty-five miles northeast of Fresno in the foothills town of Prather, a woman spotted an unfamiliar bird in her yard. It was a Harris Hawk, not native to the area and identified by its tail: dark with fluffy white feathers close to the body and another white band at the tip.

This hawk also had a golden band on its left leg.

“All depictions matched our Ripley,” an animal manager with the Fresno zoo said in a video message to media on Tuesday, the same day it announced the homecoming on the FCZ blog.

Zoo staff responded to the home, identified the bird and was able to bring him voluntarily, though it took them wading into a pond.

“Remarkably, he recognized his caretakers,” the zoo wrote.

“After about 20 minutes of navigating his way down, Ripley flew directly to the team and was safely recovered.”

It was “a testament to the relationships built between our animals and zoo staff.”

Since his return, the bird has undergone several veterinary health checks and appears to be in “fantastic health” save for some mild concerns that can be easily addressed, according to the zoo.

“He also seems to be pretty happy and comfortable to be back in a familiar space.”

He is currently separated from the other bird show animals and won’t be seen back at the Winged Wonders Bird Show for the forseable future.

The team will be readdressing his training plan, but “whether he returns to the bird show will depend entirely on his comfort level,” the zoo said.

Hawk was chased out of Roeding Park

The birds in the Winged Wonder show are free flying, which means they can sometimes go of course into nearby trees. Typically, the birds know to fly back home.

Ripley happened to stray into the territory of some Red Tailed hawks that were nesting in the zoo. Those hawks chased him off the zoo grounds and ultimately out of Roeding Park. It was “an extraordinarily rare occurrence,” Chaffee Zoo general curator Nicole Presley said at the time.

It is unclear why the bird ended up in the foothills or how long he had been in the area before being spotted.

This story was originally published August 12, 2025 at 3:08 PM.