Photo provided to the Times Observer Regal, a bald eagle recently released in the area of Brown Run after a five-month rehabilitation at Tamarack Wildlife Center, undergoes an x-ray as part of her treatment.

It took five months of treatment and rehabilitation for a bald eagle with a broken wing — found in the area of Brown Run — to be successfully released in the area last month.

While she proved difficult to catch, the eagle, nicknamed Regal, was taken to Tamarack Wildlife Center in Saegertown.

Regal’s wing was first splinted and that was followed by a period of physical therapy and reconditioning. The therapy was essential — if the radius and ulna in the broken wing had fused, Regal would have not been able to be released.

The decision to move from step to step required data and pictures.

“Our x-ray machine was critical in her road to recovery and allowed us to ensure her injuries had properly healed prior to release,” Melissa Goodwill, outreach and education manager at Tamarack, said.

And that on-site x-ray hasn’t always been an option.

The on-site capacity expands access to patients that otherwise wouldn’t receive imaging.

Executive Director Carol Holmgren said x-rays revealed a fracture in a Cooper’s Hawk from Erie that couldn’t be detected in a physical exam. X-rays also revealed that a Red-tailed Hawk’s wing fracture was “proceeding more slowly than typical so his time in a splint was extended.”

Another eagle with a swollen foot and wound was found via x-ray to not have a bone infection, which resulted in a “promising prognosis” and, Holmgren explained, received less aggressive treatment and avoided antibiotics.

Previously, Tamarack’s patients had to go to area veterinary clinics for x-rays.

“This meant that only a very small fraction of Tamarack’s many patients could get x-rays due to the expense, staff time, and stress on the patient involved in transport to a veterinary clinic,” Holmgren explained.

“Wildlife patients can now get this critical diagnostic in just minutes and the images,” she said, and “can be emailed to TWC’s supporting veterinarian or other experts for interpretation.