It was a pretty busy fall week that culminated with the release of the dog-attacked first year red tail who came in last month. And it was SUCH a pretty release that I kinda sorta went overboard with photos and video, so let’s start with gorgeous and move on from there, shall we?

There’s nothing much to say about these photos and videos.  He shot out of the box before I had the camera even focused, so no release video, but oh, the aftermath—after perching above water for some time, obviously planning to bathe, he treated us to a spectacular bathing display before shaking dry and flying off.  Enjoy!

The screech whose eyelid required suturing back together is doing great. He’s a textbook pissy screech and his eye looks amazing: clear, full movement of the eyelid, and full vision. Another week or so, and he should be ready for the mini-pen.

Unfortunately, things aren’t looking as promising for the screech with the eye infection. It appears he’s totally blind. He cannot find his food, and he hates being force-fed. I’m trying to give him time but he’s likely a candidate for euthanasia.

A mature male red tail may be facing the same situation. He was found in an interstate median and while nothing is broken, his right eye remains swollen and he doesn’t seem to have vision in the left eye, either. He’s currently in the mini-pen but cannot see to locate the perches. I placed him on the low perch when I moved him outside, in hopes that the fresh air would perk him up, but within hours he was on the ground at the back of the mini-pen, where he’s remained. Again, force-feeding is a struggle—he can’t see what’s going on and hates being handled for feedings. We’re trying a little more time with him, as well...

Saturday morning an adult brown thrasher came in with a severe case of pox. He died before I could euthanize.

And this morning FWS agent Thomas Payne delivered a young adult black vulture he’d retrieved from beneath a cell phone tower. He bated hard as we walked to the raptor flight, and I loosened my grip slightly to prevent him from breaking one or both legs—and he got loose. I still can’t run because of the ankle issues, so poor Thomas had to chase him back down, but we did get him back and into the raptor flight. Nothing felt broken but he favors his left wing ever so slightly. I think a little time will do the trick for him.

Y’all know how skilled my vets at Smalley’s are—or you should, anyway. Well, they’ve come through yet again. Remember the screech with the slit lower eyelid from last week’s update? I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, for the most part.

I took him in Monday afternoon, and Jim quickly discovered the damage was more severe than either of us initially thought. Essentially, the eyelid was slit from corner to corner and right up to the edge of the ear; Jim said the screech came close to losing the entire eyeball. But it looked clear and the third eyelid was functional, so...

Yep, the eyelid is functional, as is the third eyelid. The eyeball is clear (that film you see is the antibiotic ointment I was using on his eye, in addition to oral antibiotics); the pupil is responsive to light. He still squints it a lot, and there’s still some swelling, but overall it’s looking really promising at the moment. My vets are nothing short of miracle workers!

The antsy first-year red tail will be released this week, as rain chances are nil for most of the week.

Sadly, a mature red tail wasn’t as lucky. He came in with limp and useless legs that failed the pinch test, severe beak-breathing, and what looked to be early-onset frounce. I’d planned to get him in for x-rays the following day to see if maybe we had a pelvic or hip fracture, but he didn’t make it through the night.

A hunter coming out of his stand near dark found this young yellow-bellied sapsucker and brought him to LWR the next day. He was lethargic, cool to the touch and his eyes were dull. I put him on low heat and offered some watered-down maple syrup—similar to tree sap—which he eagerly ate. I was hopeful he had a chance, but he died within four hours of intake, poor fellow. LWR doesn’t see many sapsuckers; I think the last one before this fellow was about two years ago, and it was releasable. It’s slightly easier to remember the outcomes for the birds you only see one or two of every few years.

And this afternoon, yet another red-phase screech came in. His finders thought his left eye was missing; it’s badly infected and the pupil looks to be misshapen through the goop in the eye, which may signify a luxated lens. It’s gonna take a couple of days of antibiotics before his eye is clear enough for the vets to see past the goop, though.  But he—or she, slightly larger than "eyelid" screech—has other issues. The right eye is nonresponsive to light and the beak is off kilter, suggesting a broken jaw that healed in the wild.

It may be that there’s still just severe head trauma going on; we’ll have to wait and see on this fellow.

LWR had another slow fall week—have I mentioned how much I enjoy the slower fall intakes?

The red tail is doing beautifully, perching and flying like a champ. And eating. Boy, is he eating. Six large mice a day, and he acts like he’s famished every time I feed him!

He’ll be at LWR a while longer—pretty high rain chances the rest of the week.

The only other intake actually came in today: a red phase screech. He flew into the side of the family’s car Saturday night, and they brought him to LWR early this afternoon. Nothing appears to be broken and he’s already “unconcussed” enough to posture threateningly and snap that beak at me—good signs. But his left lower eyelid is slit badly. The eye itself is clear and moist, and I’m using artificial tears to keep it that way till he sees vet Jim Hobby at Smalley’s tomorrow. I’ve already called Jim, and based on my description of the eye, he thinks it’s fixable. We’ll know for sure tomorrow.

Keep your fingers crossed for the pissy little fellow; y’all know how I love screeches—as does everybody at Smalley’s!

No complaints here on a slower period; the downtime is always nice!

The loopy red tail went into the mini-pen again early Monday, October 19, and once he proved he was able to perch properly there, he was moved to the raptor flight. He’s flying beautifully when he wants to but spends a lot of time on the ground. The weather hasn’t been conducive for a release and frankly, I’ve not been comfortable with a release yet anyway. He needs fattening up a bit more and I need to see him perching more and not just sitting on the ground. The first part, he’s definitely on board with—he’s a young, food-aggressive bird. The second part—well, I know he CAN perch but he goes to the ground every time I walk into the raptor flight to feed him. He’ll be a guest at LWR for a while longer.

The great blue heron with the voracious appetite required euthanasia due to necrotic tissue around the wound site where the hook had been embedded. His x-rays were again clear—no fractures—but between the very large area of tissue that had died despite the bird receiving antibiotics and the pronounced wing droop, vet Peggy Hobby and I agreed his chances for release were nonexistent and his life as an educational bird would be pain-filled due to that drooping wing.

An adult great-horned owl came in with no apparent injuries but he was lethargic and the inside of his mouth was pale white. I suspected internal bleeding, and sure enough, he died within hours of intake.

Early this morning a caller reported finding a hawk by the roadside late Saturday evening, with what he believed was a broken wing. When the hawk, an adult red shoulder, arrived at LWR, it was immediately obvious the left wing was trashed; basically, it was held to the body with skin and tendons, as the bones near the shoulder were broken and protruding from the skin. The bird was humanely euthanized.

Sadly, late fall into early winter is the peak period for rehabbers to see birds that cannot be saved. There are always adults and juvies who come in year-round with fatal injuries, of course, but during baby season they’re somewhat balanced out by the intake of hatchlings, nestlings and fledglings who usually require little more than a steady food supply and being taught to fend for themselves. With no babies coming in, it sometimes seems as if late fall-early winter is one long stretch of euthanasias. It is indeed a slower period for rehabbers, but it can also be the most emotionally trying because so very many of the birds we see during these months can only be “helped” by a humane end to their suffering.

...And this one’s about to eat me outta house and home—but never fear, my cousin, whose entire supply of large goldfish I’ve wiped out in a week, has offered me the back room at his bait and tackle shop and a couple of blankets to crash on when the bird bankrupts me... We’re both just kidding. I think. At this point, with $200 worth of fish for that bird in 10 days and no idea when my cousin will be able to replenish his supply, it may be the heron who’s got troubles!

Actually, we’re aiming for more complete x-rays Monday before the heron’s either euthanized or transferred to the Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll Island this week. My vets were out of town last week, and the rehabber at GSTC was also unavailable, hence the delay in both x-rays and transfer.

Aside from watching LWR’s limited funds go down the heron’s throat in great gulps, it was a fairly slow week, with only two intakes.

A young adult Virginia rail with a wing fracture took a roundabout path from Columbus, near the Alabama line, to LWR. He was emaciated when he arrived, and he’d obviously not eaten while on his circuitous route here: The towel lining his box was covered with small white dots of poop, indicating lack of food. Sadly, he died the night of intake.

And a late first-year/early second year red tail was so desperate for food he tried to attack a covered chicken coop and was himself attacked by a dog—and then apparently ended up in a pool as the homeowner tried to catch him to see if the dog had injured him. Adding insult to injury, he was driven some 60 miles in a wire dog crate in the back of a truck with no blankets to muffle the road noise and wind, so when he arrived at LWR, he was stressed to the max.

Since nothing was broken I tried the bird in the mini-pen, where he perched very precariously on the low perch, wings drooping and head down and exhibiting nervous tics that made me suspect possible neurological damage. Also, the inside of his beak was pale, almost white, so I worried about possible internal bleeding or potential capillaria. It seemed a better idea to bring him inside where I could monitor his poop after the initial treatment for capillaria—and watch for bloody poop that would indicate internal injuries.

He did continue Saturday to exhibit a slight nervous tic: His head “ticked” like a clock second hand slowly to the right, to about 90 degrees, and then jerked quickly back to center. Today, though, the tic seems to’ve resolved; he’s bright-eyed and holding that head steady. A few days of R&R at the LWR B&B won’t hurt him, though; he can stand to flesh out a bit. His keel was a bit prominent on intake, and I prefer to release well-fleshed raptors.

For two days last week LWR had no guests, after releasing the wood thrush and great horned owl. But nature abhors a vacuum, so it didn’t take long for birds to start showing up again.

There’s no video of the wood thrush release; he refused to leave the mini-pen while I was anywhere near it so I left the door open, walked away, and came back half an hour later to check—and he was long gone.

The great horned owl also wasted no time leaving; I did get video of him but no post-release photos. When I walked over to where I’d last seen him after stopping the video, he was also long gone.

And for a couple of days, LWR was birdless—a nice, albeit short, break. Then, on the same day, two songbirds came in. The first, an adult blue jay, had been accidentally shot when the homeowner was shooting a BB gun in his back yard. Apparently the person didn’t know the four cardinal rules of responsible gun handling:

• Treat ALL guns as if they’re loaded.
• Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
• Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target.
• Identify your target, and what is behind it.

The jay’s wing was utterly trashed; it couldn’t be repaired. He was humanely euthanized.

The second was an adult female hummer who’d been attacked by the homeowner’s outdoor cat—TWO WEEKS before the bird was brought to LWR. Her right wing had been ripped off; how she survived two weeks with cat bacteria all in her system is beyond me. I was asked when the bird was brought to LWR if wings could regrow. No, people, wings cannot regrow. FEATHERS can regrow; the bones and tendons comprising the wing CANNOT regenerate themselves. It doesn’t work that way.

And yes, the hummer was also humanely euthanized.

And late in the week, an adult great blue heron was transferred from a songbirds-only colleague to LWR. He’d been found with a fishhook in his wing and tangled in fishing line. X-rays by my colleague’s vet showed no fractures but the left wing droops badly, indicating severe soft tissue damage. Honestly, I’m not real hopeful this will resolve for release but we’ll give him some time to see. At least he’s eating well, to the tune of $40 worth of live fish every 2-3 days.

The antsy red tails were released—FINALLY! The July 4 bird flew low but steady; the September one took almost the same course. Videos and post-release photos are below; I used a new camera and I’m still learning its ins and outs, so forgive the lack of zoom on the videos.

I got so focused on the September bird after his release I didn’t see where the July 4 one flew off to. I started out of the release site with the boxes, camera in bag...and walked right under him, startling us both. And I watched in awe and frustration as he flew off—awe because it was a much better, stronger  flight than the one I captured on video when he shot out of the box and frustration because I was holding boxes and the camera was in its bag over my shoulder, so I missed a gorgeous flight video. Oh well...

With both red tails gone, the mini-pen and the raptor flight were open. Given that the great horned owl had been kept waiting two weeks past what I’d intended due to rain delaying the hawk releases, I moved him right into the raptor flight, where he’s showing me that in another week or so, he’ll also be good to go.

Friday vet Richie Hatcher at Magnolia Grove vet clinic texted me that someone had brought them a bird that had apparently crashed into a local eatery’s window. The accompanying photo was a thrush but I couldn’t tell from the pic what kind of thrush. When I got the bird, it turned out to be a wood thrush, only my second wood thrush ever—and I adore wood thrushes.

He looked rough, sitting with eyes closed, not eating or drinking or pooping, and I honestly figured there was internal damage from the window strike. That night at lights out, I didn’t hold out much hope he’d be with us come morning, but to my delight, he was alert, active, pooping and eating well Saturday morning.

I worried that he might have a coracoid fracture but his wings were level and he was so active this morning I tried him in the mini-pen, where he flew beautifully—ground-to-roof, front-to-back, side-to-side. So I left the pen door open and stood to the side with the camera around the corner to video him as he flew out...only he didn’t. He sat there. And sat there. And sat there. So I carefully eased back in, and he flew to the ground and sat there. I picked him up, and he calmly sat in my hand, but then two hours later wanted nothing to do with me—maybe lingering head trauma making him act wonky.

But his little talons are insanely long for a wild-raised bird, making me suspicious. If not for those talons I’d say it was just the head trauma causing erratic behavior. I ran my suspicions by colleague Maureen Eiger of Help Wild Birds and sent her some photos. She agreed that it seemed likely I might have a bird who’d been raised illegally and released without proper survival skills. I’m gonna give him some time to see if he wilds up sufficiently for release, and we’ll go from there.

Saturday morning a caller reported finding several dead birds in her yard and one live injured one. The photo she sent of the live bird showed it was a bluebird—also in the thrush family and also among my favorite birds—but the lighting was such I couldn’t tell if it was male or female.

When she arrived, we had a feathers-fluffed bird with one eye closed and a scab on the left side of her neck. Yep, she was a little female, and the fading spots on her chest indicated she was one of this year’s babies just getting her full adult color. I started her on meds, in case her wound was from a cat attack, but she died about four hours after intake.

With the river too high to reach my preferred release site until late in the week and the rain moving in immediately after that, the hoped-for red tail releases were delayed yet again...

So currently LWR has two highly peeved red tails who’re ready to go and a highly peeved great horned owl who’d like to be in a raptor flight but is stuck inside till the red tails are released.

And why do rehabbers wait for low-to-no rain chances for releases, you may be asking? Well, most of the time we’re releasing birds into unfamiliar territory. Three days or so of minimal rain chances gives them time to acclimate to their new surroundings, rather than having to learn new territory while simultaneously coping with rain and less-than-ideal hunting conditions.

And yes, of course, in the wild, birds of all species fledge in the rain, near dark, etc.—in less-than-ideal conditions. This also lowers their chances of survival. A fledge—or in this case, release of two older birds—in good weather heightens chances of survival.

Birds of all species face enough of a struggle for survival as it is; anything we can do to improve their chances, we’re gonna do. (And also, from a purely practical human point of view, cameras with enough zoom to capture a good release flight and get post-release photos aren’t gonna be waterproof, so there’s that consideration, as well.)

The good news is that rain chances should slack off mid-week, and none of the rain before then should be heavy enough to cause the river to rise too much, so with any luck at all, next week I’ll be able to report two red tail releases and the great horned owl in the mini-pen!

The temps have been positively fall-like, and we had the outer bands of Hurricane Sally sweep through Wednesday and Thursday, with clouds moving in Tuesday and still hanging around Saturday—but it was still mostly a good week for wildlife at LWR.

Let’s start with a “minor miracle” bird—Friday, a caller reported hitting red tail with his truck, resulting in the bird getting caught in the grille. These types of vehicle vs. hawk encounters seldom end well for the hawk, so I wasn’t real optimistic when he showed up with the bird. Surprisingly, there were no fractures, and the red tail was alert, aggressive and angry at being confined. Upon further questioning, the rescuer clarified that he’d slowed to turn off the road just before the hawk hit his grille, and that’s probably what saved the hawk from serious injury.

So I boxed him up to give him a little more time to de-stress and gather his wits and went about my business. Didn’t take long for the red tail to stage a jailbreak and wreak havoc in the rehab room, at which point I decided he was probably good to go. He flew strong and straight! (And it only took half an hour to straighten up the mess he’d made during his jailbreak...)

The mourning dove was also released, this morning. Sorry for the crappy video; he flew off to the far reaches of the camera’s zoom and kept flying farther away when I tried to move closer for better images.

The hummer’s leg seems to be healing nicely; the wing is still very iffy.

The only euthanasia this week was a juvenile sharp-shinned hawk whose left shoulder was broken and badly displaced.  We thought we loaded the X-ray onto a flash drive at Smalley’s Friday but it didn’t load properly, and I didn’t realize it till they’d closed for the weekend.

The great horned owl really needs to be outside, but I have red tails in both the raptor flight and the mini pen.

However, both red tails are slated for release later this week, when the river drops and I can reach my preferred release site.

Murphy surely cackled with sadistic glee after that one… LWR had 7 intakes last week, 4 of them on Saturday alone.

Tuesday a pre-fledgling mourning dove came in after wandering into someone’s carport after falling from the nest. The finder said he could see the nest, such as it was—doves are notoriously lousy nest-builders—but he couldn’t reach it, and with good reason, as he was still in a boot from a broken ankle.

Then Wednesday a juvenile yellow-billed cuckoo came in with some sort of spinal trauma, or possibly a pelvic fracture—he could move his wings and his feet, even attempting to perch, but couldn’t stand or even squat and refused to stay in a donut. The original plan was to get him in for x-rays Thursday, but the poor fellow didn’t survive the night.

Friday a cattle egret—growing up, we called them cowbirds, and a lot of people still do—came in with a really nasty mangled wing. It was broken at the shoulder and the flesh was raw. He would have required euthanasia but he handled it himself, dying before I could euthanize.

Saturday started with a hummingbird with a definite broken right leg and a possible broken right wing. The leg should be fixable; the wing is a waiting game.

Then a juvenile mourning dove arrived with what appeared to be a gunshot wound. It’s dove season in Georgia, so this is highly likely. Aside from being swollen, the wound appears clean, so we’re doing meds and time to see what happens.

Then the third mourning dove for the week arrived, another juvie. This one had feathers fluffed and was cool to the touch. I started meds and low heat, but he didn’t survive the night.

And intake number four for the day was a second-to-third year red tail who’d been kept by his finder for at least two days. Nothing appears broken but his head feathers are disheveled and he still has a somewhat stunned look on his face. Yup, we have some head trauma goin’ on here.

In releases, the Eurasian collared dove gained his freedom early in the week. They’re such laid-back birds; he’d found a comfy perch and was napping when I snapped this photo.

Poe the crow also decided early in the week to stop the “come-and-go” soft release and go for full freedom. My cousin had just cut the hay behind the house, so flocks of crows were taking advantage of the exposed bug buffet, and Poe happily joined them. Then Thursday evening I heard a crow calling near dark—not normal—so I searched till I found Poe hanging by his wings in a magnolia tree, too weak to perch. I snatched him up and brought him inside. An examination revealed that his once-healthy red gape (inside of his mouth) was now pale white. The only color was the black spot on his tongue and even it was grayish. I started him on a slurry and waited for poop to see if it was black or loose or…whatever. It had a sharp chemical smell that usually indicates some sort of pesticide or insecticide poisoning. Obviously it wasn’t from anything in the hay, as it’s destined to feed cows and isn’t sprayed with anything, so we have no clue what poor Poe got into. He died overnight.

This is one of the benefits and drawbacks of soft releases: The birds are near a familiar face and environment should they get into trouble, and I can monitor for issues, but it’s heartbreaking to have one of your releases show up again a week or two after release, badly injured or ill from some sort of poisoning…It doesn’t happen often, thank goodness, but when it does, it hurts like hell.

The July 4th red tail awaits release; I’d planned on this coming week but the rain chances look too high for most of the week.

And once the head trauma red tail has recovered enough to go in the raptor flight, the great horned owl recovering from a hand fracture will go in the mini-pen.