Mrs Q, a crested caracara with a permanent wing injury, gets a little exercise at the Avian reconditioning centre in Apopka, Florida. Photo: Ronen Tivony
Two of my wildlife images were featured in The Guardian’s “The Week in Wildlife: the best images from around the world,” a weekly showcase of global nature photography curated by the photo editors. One image highlights an injured crested caracara named Mrs Q at the Avian Reconditioning Center in Apopka, Florida, and the second captures spoonbills at Orlando Wetlands Park, a man-made marsh that has evolved into a thriving bird sanctuary.
These two photographs tell a shared story: how human-altered landscapes and dedicated rehab centers can become lifelines for wildlife, whether it is a single injured raptor getting a second chance or an entire community of wetland birds reclaiming a former wastewater site as home.
Crested caracaras stand out among raptors for their bold, opportunistic lifestyle and falcon-like appearance with vulture habits. Despite Mrs Q’s permanent wing injury preventing wild survival, her exercise sessions at the Avian Reconditioning Center reveal the species’ enduring predatory intensity.
Key Facts
Ground hunters: Unlike most raptors, they prefer walking or running on long legs to chase insects, reptiles, turtle eggs, or roadkill—often patrolling highways early morning.
Scavenger bullies: They eat carrion like vultures but aggressively chase them off kills; featherless faces keep gore off plumage during messy meals.
Rattling call: Throw head back dramatically while emitting a cackling “rattle” to claim food, territory, or during courtship—adults even chase juveniles away for doing it.
Nest builders: Unlike cavity-nesting falcons, they construct large stick nests high in trees; babies hatch with distinctive dark, shaggy crests.
Florida rarity: Northernmost population in open grasslands near Mexican border and Florida; hunt low-flying or steal from other birds.
Avian Reconditioning Center, Apopka
The Avian Reconditioning Center in Apopka, Florida, is a raptor rehabilitation and education facility that treats injured birds of prey and, whenever possible, returns them to the wild. Some birds, like Mrs Q, are deemed non-releasable and become ambassador birds, helping visitors understand the challenges raptors face from vehicle strikes, habitat loss, and environmental toxins.
Exercise flights, educational programs, and public demonstrations at the center create rare opportunities to observe raptors up close while still emphasizing their wild nature. For a wildlife photographer, it becomes a place where ethics and artistry intersect: documenting birds in a controlled environment while telling honest stories about injury, recovery, and coexistence.
Spoonbills at Orlando wetlands park in Christmas, Florida. Photo: Ronen Tivony
Spoonbills Fascinating Facts
Blind foraging masters: Unlike herons that hunt by sight, spoonbills feel for shrimp, crabs, and fish via nerve-packed bills, creating whirlpools that stir up food for the group.
Diet-driven pink: Carotenoids from crustaceans tint their feathers; captive birds fed pale diets lose color, much like flamingos.
Baby beak transformation: Chicks hatch with straight bills that curve into spoons as they grow, ready for sweeping.
Colonial breeders: Nest noisily in mangrove colonies with egrets and ibises, flying in diagonal lines with necks outstretched.
Ecosystem sentinels: Thriving populations signal clean water and abundant prey, rebounding after past plume-hunting threats
Orlando Wetlands Park – from infrastructure to habitat
Orlando Wetlands Park is a man-made wetland created to naturally polish and filter treated wastewater before it returns to the St. Johns River system. Over the years, careful management and time have transformed this utilitarian project into one of Central Florida’s premier birding and wildlife photography locations, attracting both migratory and resident birds.
Walk the berms at sunrise and you see the full arc of the story: engineered ponds now thick with emergent vegetation, alligators cruising the channels, and wading birds roosting in nesting trees above former treatment cells. The spoonbills in the Guardian image represent a hopeful possibility, that when designed thoughtfully and managed with care, human infrastructure can evolve into genuine, functioning habitat where wildlife not only survives, but thrives.
About Ronen Tivony
Ronen Tivony is an award-winning wildlife photojournalist and workshop leader based in Florida, whose images have appeared in The Guardian, National Geographic, The New York Times, BBC, CNN. A Certified Florida Master Naturalist through the University of Florida and Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, he combines decades of wire-service photojournalism with deep field expertise in bird behavior and ecosystems.
Through Wildlife With Ronen, he leads small-group and private photography workshops at Florida hotspots like Orlando Wetlands, Wakodahatchee Wetlands, Everglades, and Fort De Soto, focusing on real-time feedback, decisive-moment techniques, and ethical wildlife approaches for all skill levels.