A much-welcomed slower week

With only one new intake this week, it was a nice break from the unusually active winter LWR has been experiencing.  A short break, probably, but “loverly” nonetheless.
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The new intake, an adult male barred owl, had only a mild concussion but hasn’t been released yet due to the nasty weather we had immediately after he came in. He’s good to go and chomping at the bit but he’ll be with me through Monday, at least. “But he’s an adult; surely he’s used to the weather,” I can hear you muse. Yep, he is. But I still don’t release in rain or extreme temps, and I consider below-freezing nights extreme. It’s hard enough for wildlife to survive out there as it is; I’m not gonna add to the difficulty by releasing a bird, even an adult bird, into freezing temps.

The GSW male red-tail didn’t make it to the vet for a pre-op exam last week, also due to the weather. Unless it’s an emergency, I’m not dragging birds in and out in rainy, cold, nasty weather. They don’t need the added stress.

The second-year female red-tail is proving to be almost as big a bottomless pit as the young barnie; mealtimes are her very favorite times of day!

And the kestrel continues to do well and should be due for a follow-up vet visit in another week or so, for new x-rays to see how his wing is healing.
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The GSW crow is definitely feeling better; he’s perching now and starting to “sass” me when I change his paper and freshen his food. He’s off meds as of this weekend, and his eye looks about as good as it’s gonna get, I suspect. His vision is definitely impaired in that eye, but as long as the wing heals for flight, I don’t think the eye will impact his potential for release.

​Just look at the difference a  week makes in the life of a young barnie: downy fluffball one week, nearly all feathers the next! And he’s still a hissy young rascal, too, although he’s settled down some on the food intake now that he’s realized there’s no shortage of mice for him to inhale—just four or five large  mice a night now!

​And of course, the flyers are, well, inexpressibly cute. Their very cuteness is what leads some people to want to keep flyers as pets when they find them as babies.  Setting aside the illegality of possessing wildlife without the proper permits, let’s look at why having a flyer as a pet isn’t a good idea:

• They’re wild animals and deserve to live their lives as nature intended.
• They’re nocturnal. When you’re trying to sleep, they’re rarin’ to go.
• Their teeth continue to grow throughout their lifetime, so they MUST have something to chew on at all times to keep them worn down; if the incisors get too long it can kill them.
• Maintaining a proper, nutritionally balanced diet for them is expensive; they require very specific amounts of various vitamins and minerals.
• They can’t be potty-trained and will pee or poop wherever the urge strikes, whether that’s on your shoulder, in your favorite shoes or in their cage.
• They will also chew electrical cords, sweaters, bedspreads, etc. The gnawing instinct is strong!
• They need space to glide; if you turn them loose to do so in your home at night, you will have an unholy mess to clean up every morning, gnawed everything, plus an ongoing search for where they’ve decided to bed down for the day, as it may not always be in their nest box, if you’ve provided one.
• Caging any wild animal for your own “pleasure” is cruel. Would YOU want to be confined to a small space and fed the same boring diet every day for the rest of your life, with only a few  hours a day outside that cage—if your captors remembered or had time?

Bottom line: yes, flyers are adorable, as is the case with most wildlife, if truth be told. But ALL wildlife is best enjoyed in its natural habitat. If you want to see flyers in their natural habitat, put a game tracker near a bird feeder and see what kinds of photos and videos you get when they visit the feeder nightly!