- [Bea] Picture this, you're walking along a wonderful wooded trail near the river in Mecklenburg County.

So peaceful, so calm, and then you hear this, (birds chirping) then you look up and see this.

Welcome to what could be termed a safe space for avians.

For the rest of us, you can just call it the Carolina Raptor Center.

- Hi, okay, we're very excited.

- [Bea] More than 40 years ago, it began as a rehabilitation hospital to aid injured birds.

Today, the work has expanded to include programs for the public on local birds and birds of the world.

- So it's a really cool thing that we can do here at the Raptor Center is have birds from all over the world so that we can showcase what birds all over the world look like.

Because there are people that may not ever have the opportunity to go to Africa or Australia.

So we can show them those birds.

- [Bea] The Raptor Center takes part in international efforts to help save rare bird species.

While here, birds can be observed in natural settings, and because the center provides rehabilitative services for avians from all around the world, the facility tries to mimic their environment while they're in the Carolina woods.

- When you walk on our trail, you might notice that some of our birds have these little lights in the back.

Those are heat lamps.

Birds are really good though at self-regulating, thermoregulating.

They grow in extra feathers in the winter to keep themselves nice and warm.

But if they are naturally from a different place that stays pretty warm, we will give them that supplemental heat.

- [Bea] Moving around the heart of the center, the rehab facility and hospital, you see the staff working to aid the recovery of birds from feeding them to keeping a watchful eye on them.

And for many staff members, the story of getting here is similar.

It starts with a love of animals.

- Rehabilitation is a little bit of medicine, it's a little bit of art, and it's a whole lot of passion.

- [Bea] Meet Sunny Cooper, whose job it is to oversee the operation of the animal hospital.

- We have birds that come in that are injured that we do full exams on when they come here.

We assess whether we think that their injuries are things that would allow us to re-release them back to the wild because here at the Raptor Center, we focus 100% on release back to the wild.

- [Bea] Which for some birds means close observation by those staff members checking on not only their recovery but potential injuries.

Here, birds with injured wings, well, they get x-rays.

- [Sunny] And we do all of our x-rays here in-house.

So we have our x-ray machine downstairs, and we can see here that this bird has a broken wing.

So this bird probably was a bird that got surgery.

He's a good candidate for it.

- [Bea] But you may ask, how do you set a bird's broken leg?

Simple, a pool noodle.

- The same ones that you would float in Lake Norman on, we use on birds.

We use them as boots on their feet.

- [Bea] Staff perform normal care for birds from intake assessments to minor wound care, while two volunteer veterinarians, handle orthopedic surgeries on those birds.

And when your patient load of birds runs from 800 to 1,000 annually, that adds up to a lot of bird feed.

But avians, in particular, Raptor avians, don't simply eat bird feed.

- We do feed quail here, and that's kind of seen as a more exotic food that people may eat.

So we feed quail, we feed chicks and mice.

We try to make sure that their diet is really varied 'cause it would be out in the wild.

You know, raptors not gonna go out and catch mice day after day after day.

- [Bea] You may be surprised to learn Joe's town, many variety varieties of raptors are found in this region.

- Red-shouldered hawks are probably gonna be one of the most common, but we also have barred owls.

We have great horned owls, we have red-tailed hawks, we have black vultures, we have Turkey vultures, and then you go down to the water, we have osprey.

Sometimes we'll even see a bald eagle down there and- - [Bea] And All of those are native to here.

- [Kate] All of those are native to here.

- [Bea] 90% of the birds that come in have some sort of human-based injury, whether it's been hit by a car or it flew into a window, tangled in barbed wire or fishing line.

Yet, what may be the biggest danger for those birds, what you toss from your car.

- Well, what's happening is that you know, things are on the side of the road, litter.

Apple cores, banana peels, you know, sometimes trash, and that's going to attract little rodents to the side of the road, and what eats little rodents?

Raptors.

- [Bea] It's a lot to learn, it's a lot to see, yet the staff want you to know it is a wholly different world to explore.

- You take a step in that front door, and we'll handle the rest.

We'll make sure that you fall in love with birds, and that you leave feeling good about the environment, about our future.

You just get here, and we'll take care of the rest.

- [Bea] It's just a jewel in the woods of Northwest Mecklenburg County.

But if you look closely, you just might see a bit of fluff and magic high in the Carolina Pines.

For Carolina Impact, I'm Bea Thompson.