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.

For those who may not recognize it, that’s a spin on an old spiritual/children’s song that starts: “Who built the ark? Noah, Noah, Brother Noah built the ark.” Yep, STILL raining. And no real relief in sight next week...That means we’re still in a holding pattern in terms of releases.

The screeches are ready to go—at least the two outside are; the one inside needs some flight time first but I don’t wanna upset the balance in the mini-pen by adding him to the mix now, so he has to wait till the other two are released.

Meanwhile, inside screech serenades me nightly with that lovely trill. Since he stubbornly refuses to trill if he senses my presence within recording distance, I scoured the Internet to find a suitable recording of that gorgeous trill. The link is below.

https://nas-national-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/EASCOW_3.monotonictrill_SCle.mp3?uuid=60298d37c24e4

The red tail is able to stand in his box but not outside it—but he doesn’t lean against the walls (except when I take photos and he’s in full defensive mode); it’s like without the walls of the box enclosing him, he can’t keep his balance; he just falls over and won’t perch.  Remember, though, he came in unable to stand, flare his tail or spread his wings, so he’s made amazing progress in just a couple of weeks.

With monsoons all last week and predicted for most of next week, people just aren’t getting out, so there’s been only one intake in the past week, and that came in today—a goldfinch with what may be early mycoplasmic conjunctivitis, or finch eye. Not sure yet, as it’s not advanced enough. We’re treating prophylactically, just in case.

For those who’re wondering just how much rain my area’s gotten, here’s my front yard as of today. It's currently shin-deep.  I’m thinking koi and maybe a couple of ducks will look nice in my new pond...

Meanwhile, if you’re not busy looking for gopher wood for your arks, the GBBC continues through tomorrow.

Last week was wet, windy, and did I mention wet? And this week’s just supposed to be wet. Apparently Georgia now has a monsoon season...

This meant the antsy screech couldn’t be released last week—not gonna release a tiny screech in winds gusting up to 30 mph, and surely can’t release in the rain. So she’s still anxiously awaiting her release.

The December screech is flying better than I expected this soon, honestly. He still tends to droop his wing a bit when he perches but he’s maneuvering around the mini-pen with amazing dexterity—his chances for eventual release are looking better each day!

And the head trauma screech is acting more like a screech now, so his brain seems to finally be unscrambling. I may try to move him out to the mini-pen again this week, rain notwithstanding.

The red tail has full use of both feet now, with a strong grip in both. He still props up against the side of his box, and his tail still skews to the side, so there’s lingering nerve/spinal trauma there. But boy howdy, can he pack away the mice—the highlights of his day are morning and evening feedings!

Finally, don’t forget that this coming weekend, Feb. 12-15, is the Great Backyard Bird Count. If I’m not busy building an ark, I’ll be participating, and I encourage y’all to do the same! (Join the GBBC, that is, not build an ark...)

Despite the rain, which usually leads to an uptick in intakes, LWR had just two intakes last week, a barred owl with an open wing fracture and a mature red tail with possible spinal trauma. And the screeches are still here, of course.

The barred owl’s open fracture meant that he required euthanasia, and I honestly forgot to take any photos of him. It was a nasty fracture and my main concern was ending his suffering.

The red tail came unable to stand and with little neural response in his feet.  He wouldn’t or couldn’t spread his wings or flare his tail. We opted for a steroid injection to see if possibly the issue was a pinched nerve or some sort of inflammation, as there was no sign of spinal fracture. The next morning he was half-standing, which is where he’s remained thus far, but he’s eating well and when I take him out to change his paper, he’s flexing his feet and spreading his wings. He’s not out of the woods yet, but his prognosis is considerably better than it was on intake.

All three screeches were placed in the mini-pen, where the female immediately let me know she could fly quite well, thank you, and wanted to go NOW. However...we had rain predicted within the three-day period, so she remains an unhappy camper at LWR for another day or so.

The Christmas week fellow is still iffy. He spent the first couple of days on the ground but has since been perching when I go to check on them and feed them. He’s spreading his left wing fully but still has no real lift, leading me to think he’s been laddering up to the perch. Time will tell...

The third screech, whose trilling I still haven’t been able to record, appears to have lingering head trauma. He seems a bit dizzy when he perches, struggling and often failing to maintain his balance, and he’ll perch on my finger. Given his apparent dizziness I brought him back inside for fear he’d fall off a perch and break his neck. He does quite well on a very low perch in his box, so I think he just needs to get his brain unscrambled a bit more.

And, of course, that time of year is approaching—the Great Backyard Bird Count is Feb. 12-15. Weather permitting, I encourage y’all to spend at least an hour or two over that weekend tallying the birds you see. Those of you with cameras and patience, snap a few shots and submit ‘em to the GBBC website. They often share good photos from participants.