Pennsylvania licensed wildlife rehabilitator Amber Treese offers "Ash," a juvenile Red-Tailed Hawk at Wildbird Recovery, a dead mouse to eat. Ash was found with a permanently injured right wing and would be unable to survive in the wild.

Beth McMaster has lived on her 14-acre farm property in Valencia since she was 6 years old.

She, her husband, David, and her daughter, Melissa McMaster-Brown, have devoted countless volunteer hours to taking care of rescued and injured birds at the rehabilitation center they built around their home: Stormy Oaks Nature Conservancy, home of Wildbird Recovery.

“This is a Butler County resource that nobody really knows about,” Beth McMaster said. “It started from just rehabbing birds, and it grew from there.”

Wildbird Recovery was founded in 2000, and has a number of bird enclosures on-site. It is the only wildlife rehabilitation center in Butler County that offers bird rehabilitation care.

The pandemic removed many funding sources, and COVID-19 concerns made it impossible to hold in-person education events with the public. Now, Wildbird Recovery is raising funds to expand its facilities.

“Most of us don't get paid,” McMaster said. “We are all volunteers here.”

Read more in Thursday's Butler Eagle.