Yep, two more nestling barred owls came in early in the week. The tree their nest was in fell and there was initially some concern that they might be injured, but they’re just fine. Thanks to volunteer transporter Joy Daniels for picking them up late at night and her husband Doug for getting to me the next day. They make a good team!

The adult barred who came in Monday wasn’t as lucky; his wing was trashed beyond repair and he was euthanized humanely.

It wasn’t a good week for songbird nestlings, either: Of the five that came in, only two are still with us. A late-nestling house finch was DOA, as was a small warbler of indeterminate species, a fledgling titmouse and a grackle. The poor grackle had a serious pelvic fracture and I debated whether, since he was young and his bones were still growing, it might be fixable but he died within hours of intake, rendering my internal debate moot.

The two survivors are still iffy, as they’re hatchlings—and I do mean hatchlings; they’d probably just hatched when some jackass homeowner trimmed his trees and dumped the branches at a trash collection center in a neighboring county. Because he even made a mess of that, the woman working the center went to clean up the limbs he left on the ground and found these two babies with remnants of their eggshells. She spent the day trying to locate a rehabber and then had a friend bring them to LWR. Based on the eggshells found with them, I’m fairly certain they’re cardinals. Thus far they’re doing well but hatchlings are very fragile and prone to do well for a day or two and then crash. So...we’ll see...And just let me add, on a very personal note, there’s a special place in hell for anyone who’d deliberately dump helpless babies like that, after destroying their home.

The original barred quartet are now in the mini-pen; the screeches had to come back in for a while so the barreds could have room to spread their wings.

These are photos of the screeches before I moved them back inside.

The woodpeckers are growing like weeds.

The house finch is perching now but refusing to self-feed just yet.

The great horneds are still not quite ready for live-prey testing, but we’re getting there.

And the black vulture babies remain utterly adorable. And greedy. I believe they give the great horneds a run for the money in the “bottomless pit” department!

But there were no releases scheduled, and we did need the rain. Just maybe not all three inches all at once...

The vulture babies are growing like weeds; they’ve slightly more than doubled in weight in the past week, from 124g (4.4 oz.) and 156g (5.5 oz.) last week to 256g (9 oz.) and 341g (12 oz.) this week. They’re more alert for longer and growling and flapping those stubby little wings...Just adorable!

Late this week, a nest of three woodpeckers came in; while their feathers haven’t come in enough to state with 100% certainty, they look and sound like red-bellies to me.

Saturday’s torrential rain did NOT please the great horneds, not at all. It was their first experience with rain and while they do have a blind to take shelter from the weather, they seemed to prefer sitting in the rain and looking angry.

They were nice and dry this morning, though.

Of the mixed species nestlings last week, only the house finch survived. He’s looking really good and perfectly content to sit in his little nest. House finches are pretty laid-back little birds with sweet temperaments, as a rule.

The barreds continue to mature nicely. The barred trio is now doing some limited self-feeding; the older barred has been self-feeding for about two weeks now.

The screeches are honestly starting to look nonreleasable. I do have some placement options if that turns out to be the case, but I’m still hoping for eventual releases.

And the mourning dove released week before last paid a brief visit around mid-week. She’s looking good and seemed quite content.

A fourth young great horned came in Tuesday, making four great horneds and four barreds, along with some other not-so-common but always adorable babies—read on!

The fourth great horned is technically a brancher but he’s reluctant to fully self-feed and really on the skinny side, so he’ll remain inside for a little while longer.

The day prior to his arrival, two nests of Carolina wrens came in. One nest, five hatchlings, had been without food for over 24 hours by the time they arrived; two were DOA and the other three didn’t survive the night.

The second nest, four older babies, lost two within three days; the other two seem to be doing well.

Saturday a young nestling probably-phoebe came in; all the sibs were found scattered on the ground dead. This one had such bad bruising on his belly and took so long to finally poop that I really didn’t hold out much hope he’d survive the night, but he’s gaping and peeping and pooping today. He’s sharing a nest with the Carolinas.

Today a nestling house finch came in after falling from what his finders described as a nest 25 feet up in a tree. He’s also sharing a nest with the Carolinas and probably-phoebe.

The mourning dove and female red-phase screech were released; the male red phase refuses to leave and the gray phase male seems to have soft-tissue damage. As I’m about to need the mini-pen for the barred owls pretty quickly, the two screeches will end up coming back inside when the barreds need to go out.

And on the topic of barreds, they’re doing great and growing nicely.

The great horneds in the raptor flight, aka the Three Stooges, are eating well and flying beautifully. Their landing/perching skills, though, are painful to watch. It’s a cacophony of hissing and beak clicking when I go in to feed them, and the older of the three has learned to do an impressive threat display. His first attempt was a bit lacking but by week’s end he had it down quite nicely.

And finally, this week’s cherry-on-the-top intake is...

...wait for it...

...two baby black vultures! I mean, baby-baby. Intake weights were 124g (4.4 oz.) and 156g (5.5 oz.). They literally eat two or three bites of food and pass out. But they’re already, at this young age, giving me that cocked-head assessing stare: “We got your number, lady, and you are SO done when we get a little more mobile.” Yeah, vultures are smart, smart birds. Let the shenanigans commence!

LWR received four new owls this week, all barred owls.

The most recent barreds were all nestlings. The century-old tree their nest was in fell. The callers reported the tree trunk was over a pond and the babies were in a cavity over the pond. The tree had fallen the previous afternoon or night, but they didn’t discover the babies till the following day. When they arrived at LWR, their little bellies were empty (unlike other birds, owls have bellies, not crops), so the parents had not attempted to feed them in the downed tree. They’re eating well and doing great here at LWR.

A brancher barred came in a couple of days before that. He’d fallen and while the finders could see his sib in the nest, no adults ever came down and their dogs were starting to take an interest in him. When he arrived at LWR, he purely stunk. He reeked of death, making me suspect he may have branched too soon because of either a dead sibling or a rotting prey carcass in the nest. The finders said his sib was out of the best but perching when they left but reported the next day they’d seen the parents around the remaining sib. He doesn’t smell now and he’s self-feeding so that’s always a welcome break from rodent slicing and dicing.

The great horned trio are now in the raptor flight after the red tail’s release earlier today.

The red tail had a gorgeous release. For a change of pace, we released him over the hay field but he banked and flew back toward the pasture. And the crows were quick to notice and harass the poor fellow, who could’ve easily had a crow snack had he wanted to. Y’all, I’m so proud of this bird—he’s the one who came in unable to stand, flare his tail or spread his wings, and just look at him now!

All three adult screeches are in the mini-pen now. The “older” red phase was quite dramatic in his facial expressions at having company.

The red phase female keeps a permanent look of sheer panic on her face, poor baby. I’m sure she’s still traumatized by her experience of being trapped in the cavity with her destroyed eggs for six hours.

The gray phase just hates everybody. While he’s holding his head up properly now, he refuses to perch or attempt flight. I think his balance is still off.

And the mourning dove is still being stubborn about self-feeding.

Of course, it wasn’t all babies and releases; wildlife rehab seldom is. LWR had two hummers come in. One died within fifteen minutes of intake; the other seemed to have much better prospects but died overnight.

A young adult male osprey came in after hitting a guide wire. His right wing was shattered just above the wrist and vet Peggy Hobby and I agreed that euthanasia was the most humane course for the bird. He also had a broken toe that had healed in the wild and was developing bumblefoot (basically a pressure sore) on it—see the circled area on the foot photo.

And an adult great horned came in, quite literally blind in one eye and couldn’t see out of the other. His left eye was milky and inflamed, with a dilated and unresponsive pupil, and his right pupil was also dilated and unresponsive. Because having an adult great horned is always good to provide an example for the young ones, I talked with colleague Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends Raptor Rehab about using this bird for that purpose but we both agreed given the condition of his eyes this would be unfair to the bird, as he couldn’t see to eat—and therefore couldn’t really serve as an example to the young trio, either. He was humanely euthanized.

As an aside, those of you who’ve commented on the website in recent months may have noticed I haven’t approved the posts or responded. Weebly has stopped sending notifications when someone comments, and they hid the pending comments quite well in their last update, so I just found where they placed them. Your comments have now been approved and posted but I’m not going back through three months of comments to reply to each of them. Now that I know where Weebly’s “improvements” relocated things I’ll resume replying in a timely manner, though!

Great horned owls and screeches,  that is.

Great horned Number 3 came in April 1, after rains and high wind the previous night. She’s a bit older than the other two doofuses and, having been in the wild longer, a bit more aggressive—she hasn’t figured out yet that at LWR nobody has to fight for food. But the three of ‘em together...Lord love ‘em, great horneds are fierce hunters, but that’s about all the neurons fire for.

Here’s Number 3 on intake:

And here are the Three Stooges together, along with close-ups of their gorgeous little faces.

This one is my favorite—taken with my phone camera because I was about to feed ‘em and turned from picking up the forceps to see this.

Number 3 is actually an early brancher and ready for the raptor flight, but she’ll wait till her new sibs can go out there with her.

And of course, the red tail has to be released first, too. Next week looks gorgeous—ideal for releases. (Knock on wood!)

The red phase screech’s release may be delayed a bit longer, as I’d like to put him and the gray phase together for a bit first.

The gray phase is doing much better and will, as indicated above,  go into the mini-pen with the red phase next week.

The third screech, a red phase, came in tonight.  The finders had knocked over a snag without seeing her nest, trapping her inside with three broken eggs—and that breaks my heart. Three screeches that’ll never hatch...When they started cutting up the snag, she wobbled out and seemed disoriented, so they brought her to LWR. She’s stressed and traumatized beyond belief, poor girl, but nothing is broken.

The nestling mourning dove has feathered out beautifully; now if he’ll just figure out the self-feeding thing...

And a second mourning dove came in with severe neck trauma. I really thought on intake that he might be “fixable” but the next morning, this is what he looked like, and when I tried to feed him, his little neck was so twisted he couldn’t swallow properly. He was humanely euthanized. It never gets easier but it’s all too often the only “release” we can offer the severely injured.

Hope everyone has a happy Easter tomorrow!

Yup. Springtime in Georgia...at least it’ll wash away some of the pollen. Maybe. I’m trying not to complain because first off, it does no good—we don’t control the weather—and second, come July or so, the constant refrain will be “we sure need some rain...”

The great horneds continue to grow apace. They’re now reluctant to be hand-fed so I’m cutting up the mice and placing them in their box for them to eat as they please, the big goofballs. Look closely and you can see the tufts that will form their “horns” starting to show!

The latest arrival is a nestling mourning dove, who came in Thursday. The finder found it on the ground after strong winds but didn’t see a nest in the tree above. Given doves’ lackadaisical approach to nest-building, this isn’t surprising. He’s eating well and growing nicely.

The red tail is SO ready to go, poor fellow. But we keep having rain delays. Things look promising toward the end of this week. (Yeah, I know—I said that last week. And they kept adding rain chances and it kept raining juuust enough to postpone releases...)

The red-phase screech in the mini-pen is biding his time, as well.

The gray-phase screech is perching now but sits huddled right up against the wall of the box and his head still droops. He CAN raise it—and will, when I put food in—but he seems to prefer hanging it down. And those constantly dilated pupils aren’t normal. He’s self-feeding, though, so he can at least see well enough to locate white mice on a white box liner. He’s made progress since last week, though, so...fingers crossed...

The next update will be a day early, on Saturday, so I can spend Easter Sunday with my family.

...which, of course, means delayed releases. Shame, too, ‘cause the red tail is rarin’ to go. This morning he flew a complete circle around me in the raptor flight, and then went ‘round again, landing on two different perches, then the ground, then back to a perch, where he gave me a smug look, as if to say, “Look lady, lemme outta here now!” I remain amazed at his recovery; honestly, when he came in I didn’t hold out much hope but something in his eyes convinced me he still had fight—and boy, has he proved me right: from unable to stand, spread his wings or flare his tail to flying and perching like he’d never had a problem at all!

The red-phase screech is physically ready to go but something is still just...not right. I can’t quite put my finger on it but my gut says we need to hold off on his release—like there’s really a choice with another rainy week...

The great horneds are doing great. So far I’ve managed not to be sucked into the great gaping vacuums that comprise their mouths. No joke, these rascals eat 3-4 medium mice EACH per feeding. And as they mature, that amount will increase. I’ve nicknamed them Bottomless and Pit.

Yesterday a call came in about a baby owl and this being baby season for great horneds, I figured we had a brancher on the ground. I asked the caller to text a photo of the bird so I could gauge age and determine whether we needed to intervene or leave him on the ground for his parents to feed. Turned out it was an adult screech, gray phase. And he didn’t look good in the photos.

When the callers arrived with the screech, his intake exam revealed a swollen right elbow with some dried blood on the back of the wing, and he was a bit on the skinny side. His pupils seemed sluggish, and he acted dazed and confused, dropping his head to his chest as if he also had head trauma.

I started antibiotics after his rescuers mentioned seeing a stray cat near the screech; he may not have been cat-attacked but better safe than sorry. Given that his injuries seemed fairly recent, I wasn’t sure he’d eat—it’s not uncommon for concussed raptors to go 24-48 hours without eating—but I offered a mouse anyway. Within a couple of hours he’d eaten most of it, and this morning he’d eaten the better part of a second mouse I offered last night, so his appetite is good. We’ll see how he fares over the next few days.

LWR’s first babies of the season came in on Wednesday and this morning, both great horned owls.

Wednesday a caller indicated they’d heard the grounded nestling calling the previous day but thought the parents would either feed the baby where it was or coax it into a tree. This had not happened by Wednesday morning so they retrieved the baby, who was screaming for food by this point.  They couldn’t transport it for several hours so I started calling volunteer transporters. Mammal rehabber Charydi Gambill had him to me within an hour or so, whereupon he was promptly fed as much as his little belly would hold (unlike other birds, owls do have bellies rather than crops).

Saturday colleague Kathryn Dudeck of Chattahoochee Nature Center contacted me about another young great horned, nest destroyed, dead sib next to him. She asked if I could take this baby to be an “adopted sib” to my current singleton. It’s always better to have sibs for young raptors in particular, when possible, so I agreed, and her volunteer transporter Stacy agreed to get this second nestling to LWR this morning.

The two young ones seem to’ve bonded nicely already.

Tuesday morning a lady called about an extremely docile crow they’d found in their yard. She and her husband immediately headed to LWR with the crow and about 20 minutes away she called and said the crow had had a seizure in her husband’s arms and died. They continued to LWR, and on their arrival, the crow was already in rigor. He’d pretty much been dying the moment they picked him up. He was extremely emaciated; all I can figure is West Nile—his symptoms and behavior are consistent with WNV.

The red tail has finally started flying! Yesterday I heard movement in the raptor flight and eased over to the door to peek in; he made two complete laps of the flight. We have high rain chances Tuesday-Thursday so I’m giving him a little more conditioning time before thinking about release.

And the screech is also good to go after this week’s rains move through.

Thank goodness. We need some ‘dryin’ out time.’ And our raptors in particular need some good hunting weather.

The last intake for February was a turkey vulture with a wing fracture that had already healed in the wild. Because it had not healed for flight, he required euthanasia.  Vultures are among the most difficult birds for me to euthanize because of the sheer intelligence you can clearly see in their eyes.

March began with a great horned owl pulled from a barbed wire fence. His wing was trashed and so he also required euthanasia.

A Northern flicker rescued from the roadside in a rainstorm had a fractured wrist. Had it not been an open fracture, I’d’ve been willing to see if it might have healed for flight, but open fractures on songbirds are a death sentence.

And this poor barred owl was a victim of the near-nonstop rains of February that made hunting difficult; he was rail thin and lethargic on intake and while he kept down a couple of small slurry meals, it wasn’t enough to reverse the damage. He died overnight.

Late winter/early spring tends to be a crappy time for rehabbers in terms of not being able to save wildlife. It comes in either too badly injured or too far gone from starvation or disease. This is why most of us look forward to baby season, even with its insanity—at least we can usually save the babies.

It wasn’t all gloom and doom at LWR over the past two weeks, though. Both screeches in the mini-pen were released—no videos or photos, as I simply opened the door near dusk and let them decide whether and when to leave. They were gone shortly after dark!

The red tail continues to recover nicely. He’s eating well and if I can ever see him fly, he’s good for release. Thus far, though, he shows no inclination to attempt flight. Given his miraculous improvement, from not being able to stand at all to perching, I’m willing to give him more time.

And screech 3 is now in the mini-pen and finally over his head trauma. He’s acting like a truly wild screech now and should be releasable in another couple of weeks.

Believe it or not, the chickadees have beat the bluebirds in nest building at LWR this year; the chickadee nest is nearly completed, and the bluebirds haven’t even started theirs yet!

We had a slight break in the monsoons, and after Monday we’ll have several days of sunshine, so we’re aiming at releases next week. We did manage one release this week, though!

The goldfinch who came last Sunday turned out not to have finch eye after all. I’m still not really sure what was going on but within 48 hours he was acting as if nothing had ever been wrong and his eyes were perfectly clear—makes me wonder if he just got into something he shouldn’t have.

At any rate, since he would be released in my yard, near several feeders and abundant songbird shelter, I was comfortable releasing him with only a two-day break in the rain. And he did hang around; I saw him this afternoon with another goldfinch, drinking from a puddle. All I had to video them with was my phone, which has no real zoom, so forgive the image quality.

The red tail is now perching beautifully and still inhaling food like there’s no tomorrow.  Honestly, I’m surprised and pleased at his progress—remember, he couldn’t stand, spread his wings or flare his tail when he came in, and now he’s perching! I’ve not seen him fly yet, and his balance still seems off at times, so flight may take a while longer.

All three screeches are still at LWR. I did try to move Screech 3 outside with Screeches 1 and 2 and got pretty much the results I’d expected. None of them were happy. Poor Screech 3 sat there trying to look small(er) and inoffensive; Screech 1 literally howled at him, and Screech 2 promptly hid, glaring at him from behind a post. Needless to say, he’s back inside...

The current plan is to release Screeches 1 and 2 after Monday’s rain moves through, and move Screech 3 outside then. We shall see...

There will be no update next Sunday, Feb. 28.