...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.

Last week’s editing deadlines prevented me from getting the weekly update done; fortunately, it was a fairly slow couple of weeks. Let’s dive right in.

The catbird and blue jay were released within a day of each other and, after a few days of demanding handouts, stopped coming down.

Poe the crow is now in the mini-pen and even exploring outside it occasionally—but he expects the door to remain open so he can go back to his safety zone when he gets tired of flitting about the trees in the yard. He’s getting more independent, though, and doesn’t like to be touched anymore. The outside photo was taken near dark without a flash as I was waiting for him to come back to the mini-pen, hence the fuzzy image.

As always, there were intakes that couldn’t be saved; on August 25 and 27 a red shoulder and a barred owl, respectively, came in with fatal injuries. The red shoulder was euthanized; the barred owl was DOA.

A near-fledgling Eurasian collared dove came in August 24 and, aside from being stubborn about totally self-feeding, is doing well. Eurasian collareds are larger than mourning doves and not actually native to the US, as their name suggests, but all research indicates the two co-exist peacefully.

Two of the three red tails were released. My trusty old point-and-shoot zoom pocket camera apparently has moisture in the body, however, and the lens now stays permanently fogged—which I discovered when I tried to use it at their release—so the only photos I managed were with my phone camera, and I totally missed the first release while fiddling with the point-and-shoot camera. Time to replace “Old Faithful”… or just break down and use the larger one I seldom pull out...

The third red tail, the July 4 intake, is doing much better with no companions in the raptor flight; I think another week or two and he’ll be good for release.

An adult yellow-billed cuckoo, also known as a rain crow, came in August 27 and was released Tuesday, Sept. 1. He was missing most of his tail feathers but still flew strong and straight and was VERY unhappy at being confined—his migratory urges were in overdrive. I managed a few photos at maximum zoom (this was several days before the camera failure), as he took off like a shot straight for the tallest trees he could find.

And on August 30 an adult male great horned owl came in with what appeared to be a left wrist fracture, but x-rays at Smalley’s showed that it was actually a healing hand fracture, both bones. Given that it wasn’t too horribly displaced and was already forming a callus, vet Jim Hobby and I decided a couple of weeks of cage rest, followed by a week or two in the raptor flight, should be enough time to see if the fracture will heal for flight. At the moment it looks really promising, so fingers crossed.

LWR had one release and several intakes last week, making it slightly busier than the previous week.

First, the release: The MIKI’s migration instincts had kicked in big-time by mid-week, and he was calling incessantly, demanding that he be allowed to go on his way—and boy, did he!

With his release, the catbird and blue jay moved into the mini-pen and should be good for release possibly as soon as the end of this week.

One of this week’s intakes was another juvie MIKI who had a nasty shoulder fracture; the only option was humane euthanasia.

Also, a juvie sharpie came in with both eyes severely damaged/infected. Warm compresses, saline baths, ointments and drops made no difference; both eyes were totally trashed. This poor baby was also euthanized.

LWR also had a house finch come in with a horribly swollen and deformed left leg. The poor bird was already beak-breathing on arrival and died as I was preparing to euthanize.

A second-year red tail appears to have a wing fracture in or near the left wrist; he’ll go in for X-rays Monday. Meanwhile, he ain’t a happy camper, not at all…

The two red tails who’ve been at LWR for a while are doing well. The female will be released soon; as you can see in the video below, she’s flying like a champ. The male, who has soft tissue damage, is actually more mobile, although you can’t tell it in the video. He’s laid-back; she’s a pistol!

The hummers are…well, humming right along, if you’ll pardon the pun. They eat and they buzz around. The female has some lift now; the male’s wing shows no signs of improvement.

And Poe the crow has his brace off now. His right leg still wants to splay a bit, but it’s not interfering with flight, landing or perching. He’s a crafty fellow—perches till it’s feeding time, then hops back in his nest and acts like a big baby…With the raptor flight occupied for the foreseeable future, he’ll go into the mini-pen once the catbird and blue jay are released.

Last week was typical for late summer, with few intakes—just three, to be exact.

Monday a juvenile male ruby-throated hummingbird came in, left by someone at Smalley’s. His wing is pretty badly displaced and probably won’t heal for flight but we’re gonna give him time to see.

And the week ended with yet another hummer intake, a female, whose wings are perfectly level but she can’t fly. It’s possible she has a coracoid fracture, so I’d guess she’s got a better chance at release at this point. Time will tell.

Also on Monday, a juvenile Coop came in with partial paralysis; she didn’t survive the night.

We’re down to one MIKI, as the older of the two self-released early last week, bouncing off the top of my head and straight out of the mini-pen when I went in to feed them. He’d been antsy for several days and I’d been cautious when entering and exiting the pen, as I was half-expecting him to make a run for it—and he did. He flew due south, typical for MIKIs.

The younger MIKI is also getting antsy now, so I’m actually aiming at a proper release for him by mid-week.

The red tails continue to inhale food. The female is flying beautifully and would’ve been released last week except for high rain chances throughout the week. Maybe this week…

The male, a gorgeous lighter-colored bird, is still having issues with that soft tissue damage. I’m hopeful, though, that he’ll make a full recovery. It’s just gonna take a while.

The catbird is ready for the mini-pen as soon as the MIKI is released, and the blue jay will join him. He’s about the quietest jay I’ve ever had. Nary a peep from him most of the time—not at all normal jay behavior. But he’s alert, active and eating well!

And Poe the crow is flying and perching quite well; we may do one more week of leg hobbles just to be sure we’ve corrected as much of the splay as possible.

And that’s it for this week—short and sweet. I rather like these late summer lulls!

LWR saw two releases and two intakes last week, with birds being moved around to allow for flight conditioning.

Thursday the two juvie barred owls were released. I’d been contacted earlier in the week by FWS to see if I had any pending releases, as a former county official in a neighboring county had terminal cancer and had participating in a raptor release on his bucket list.  The man’s wife originally said she was going to get the press to be present, so I’d contacted DNR, too, so both my supervising agencies could get good PR from this release. However, the man apparently asked his wife to forego the press, but she didn’t notify me, so shortly before the release my yard looked like I was being raided, with three DNR vehicles and a FWS vehicle lined up and representatives from both agencies gathered in the yard. I couldn’t stop snickering about it.

When I found out that the man had asked for no press, I also refrained from taking photos of him as he witnessed one release and opened the box for the second release. I did, however, snap the usual post-release shots of the owls.

Thanks to Thomas Payne of FWS and Bob Sargent, Austin Biggers, and Greg Nelms of DNR for showing up and traipsing through the woods with us in the heat.

Earlier in the week, a juvie Coop came in, partially paralyzed and producing black, tarry poop shortly after intake—a sure sign of internal injuries. He was euthanized humanely.

And Saturday a recently-fledged—as in probably the day before—blue jay came in after being attacked by a cat. He has no injuries but is still not a happy camper, poor fellow.

With the barreds’ release, both red tails were moved into the raptor flight. The juvie female is loving the space to fly; the second-year male with soft-tissue damage isn’t attempting flight yet. That gal is feisty and an aggressive hunter, too; I’ve started tossing her mice in the air to watch her grab them as they hit the ground. It’s hysterical. The male is calmer, perhaps because he’s a year older.

With the male red tail out of the mini-pen, the MIKIs were moved into it. After an entire afternoon of disconcerted “pit-pewing” from them, they settled down and seem to be enjoying their new digs.

The injured cat-attacked catbird didn’t survive. The poor thing struggled and struggled, and just as I’d decided to euthanize, she checked out on her own, between feedings.

The uninjured catbird has started sorta kinda self-feeding: He picks up the mealworms, tosses them around, and maaaaybe eats one or two before demanding that he be fed. It’s a learning process!

And Poe the crow, despite his leg issues, has started perching some. You can see in a couple of the photos below that we’ve “braced” his legs with vet wrap, as he had pretty bad splay leg. We’ll keep moving them closer together every few days, as it seems to be working well thus far.