A songbird kinda week

Which is unusual, given the raptor-fest of this baby season. Still, just one new raptor last week, and a slew of songbirds.
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Let’s start, though, with the fundraiser, as time is running out. The fundraiser is slated to end on June 30, and we still have $1080 to go to meet our $2500 goal—and I just placed yet another $600 mouse order. It’s costly to feed these birds of prey! Remember, your donations are tax-deductible—and more useful to LWR’s guests than attagirls or thank yous!

​The sole new raptor last week was another young red tail, still with heavy down behind his breast feathers, rail-thin, an incipient case of frounce, and possibly capillaria, too. Frounce is acquired from eating pigeons and capillaria comes from rodents. He flew into an open dog pen and when the dogs started in after him their owners snatched him up and brought him to LWR. This fellow is waaaay too sweet and docile; he’s really not ready to be on his own and will require intensive work to enhance his survival chances in the wild.

He’s finished his frounce treatment and started his capillaria treatment and will be transferred to colleague Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends for more individualized attention than I can currently spare as soon as he’s finished his capillaria treatment.
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Early last week, a bluebird nestling, almost ready to fledge, came in, the sole survivor of a snake raid on the nest. Physically she seemed fine but as I’ve mentioned a time or two in the past, stress is a killer. She never recovered from the stress of seeing her sibs devoured by a snake and barely made it 36 hours, poor little girl.

​Then a dog-attacked brown thrasher came in with a badly broken leg, and his poop was black and tarry, indicating internal bleeding.  He didn’t survive the night.

​A young cattle egret with a nasty triple fracture—shoulder, humerus and wrist—required immediate euthanasia. An elderly couple found him in a water trough, so no one has any idea how his wing was so damaged.

​Someone cut down a tree without checking for nests first and made orphans of these four great crested flycatchers, just days before they would’ve fledged. I’d wager a mere 24 hours would’ve been enough for them to be out of the nest, but noooo…And now, of course, they don’t trust a human parental substitute, making feedings a chore for all of us.

This grackle nestling was being tossed by a dog when the owner intervened, but it was too late; the poor baby’s wing was broken and his hip was fractured, as well. He required euthanasia.

While he awaited a spare moment for me to euthanize him, the grackle acted as a buddy to a brown-headed cowbird nestling. I’ll be perfectly honest; I would’ve preferred to euthanize the cowbird and save the grackle had it been feasible.  Cowbirds aren’t on my extensive list of favorite birds. They’re parasitic nesters—I call them welfare birds, as they lay their eggs in another bird’s nest and let the other birds raise the cowbird babies, often at the expense of their own offspring.

Another house finch also came in; no photos of him, as he’s a fledgling who totally doesn’t trust me and attempts to escape at each feeding. He’s fed every half hour from sunrise to sunset—you do the math on the number of daily escape attempts…
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And Sunday this hatchling, possibly a bluebird, was confiscated by one of LWR’s volunteer transporters when she saw a woman with it at PetSmart—and yep, they’d sold her the Kaytee Exact that will KILL wild birds.

Folks, in case you don’t remember, first, it’s against state and federal law to possess wild birds without a permit. Second, Kaytee is a crap diet for wild birds; the company even has a label on the product warning you NOT to feed it to wild birds. If you want to see what it does to a wild bird, go to the LWR Facebook page and look at the pinned post of its effects on a blue jay fed the crap for nearly a month.

In news of older LWR “guests,” much-needed rain has delayed the barred owls’ releases, so that’s put everybody in a holding pattern for the raptor flight. The screeches are next in line, followed by the red shoulders and then the older red tail. No new photos of any of them this week.
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On the songbird front, the mocker and blue jay were released and are still demanding handouts.  Only the jay will tolerate the camera, though...

Two of the three phoebes are in the songbird flight; one died. It’s so frustrating when birds are getting the same diet at the same frequency of feedings, and two thrive and one just dies for no apparent reason…

The house finch who was in the songbird flight last week is still there; he refused to leave  before new birds were placed in with him, and now he and the kingbird are buddies—go figure.
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The kingbird’s ruptured air sac took till mid-week to finally go down so he looked normal, but now he’s a gorgeous fellow. 

​And the juvie black vultures are starting to assert their independence a little more. I never know where they’ll fly into the yard from, as they’re venturing farther and farther from their comfort zone now but always seem to find their way back before sunset to roost nearby for the night. I fully expect them to disappear for good fairly soon, which is as it should be. They’re figuring out they don’t really need me anymore!