You know, wildlife rehabbers emphasize over and over the importance of getting orphaned, injured or ill wildlife to us ASAP. Last week LWR had a prime example of exactly why this is so important.
Monday a caller reported having found a downed baby red tail, probably unnested in Sunday night’s storms. Wrong time of year for red tails to be nesting, so I suspected late-breeding red shoulders. When she arrived with the bird it was a nestling Cooper’s hawk. Oh joy…if any hawk makes a rehabber cringe, it’s a pissy, psychotic Coop—and yeah, the babies are just as bad as the adults.
ANYway…his intake exam revealed a beauty of a shiner on his left eye and some bruising under his left wing, both most likely sustained when he fell from the nest. Aside from that, he was textbook Coop. And because his finder had sought help immediately, he suffered no lasting damage or nutritional deficiencies. Today he’s started attempting to feed himself, to this rehabber’s delight. Fighting with a Coop to get him fed ain’t on my Top 10 list of favorite things to do!
Monday a caller reported having found a downed baby red tail, probably unnested in Sunday night’s storms. Wrong time of year for red tails to be nesting, so I suspected late-breeding red shoulders. When she arrived with the bird it was a nestling Cooper’s hawk. Oh joy…if any hawk makes a rehabber cringe, it’s a pissy, psychotic Coop—and yeah, the babies are just as bad as the adults.
ANYway…his intake exam revealed a beauty of a shiner on his left eye and some bruising under his left wing, both most likely sustained when he fell from the nest. Aside from that, he was textbook Coop. And because his finder had sought help immediately, he suffered no lasting damage or nutritional deficiencies. Today he’s started attempting to feed himself, to this rehabber’s delight. Fighting with a Coop to get him fed ain’t on my Top 10 list of favorite things to do!
Day of intake--talk about a shiner...
Four days after intake--still a bit bruised and puffy
And then we have nestling Coop 2. Coop 2 came in Friday. The urgency of the call suggested the caller had just found the bird, but when he arrived he said he’d had the poor nestling Cooper’s hawk a WEEK, feeding it CATFISH and CHICKEN—and based on the dark green in his poop, not a lot of that. And as for the poop, it was CAKED to his butt and his cloaca (his rectum) was red and swollen from sitting in his own waste for a week—he had a pelvic fracture and was unable to stand at all. So for a week this bird sat in a chainsmoker’s house (his car reeked when I retrieved the bird), being fed too little of an inappropriate diet and sitting in his own waste—and the finder admitted this isn’t the first time he and his wife have screwed over our native wildlife, because they “just looove nature” and are “real animal lovers.” (And yes, they’ve been reported.)
Initially, I’d planned to euthanize as soon as the poor bird had experienced a couple of decent meals comprised of proper food. But he went from feet dangling uselessly to at least tucking them against his body when I picked him up to feed him. And consultations with Kathryn Dudeck of Chattahoochee Nature Center and Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends Raptor Rehab led us all to the conclusion that maybe giving him the weekend wasn’t a bad idea—and he seemed to be making promising progress: After he’d been soaked in warm water to remove as much of the caked-on poop as possible, he was flaring and spreading his tail feathers. Saturday morning he’d sliced (pooped) a wee bit outside the nest, cast a small pellet, and was moving his tail feathers more. And the swelling and redness in his cloaca had diminished considerably after just one night in a clean nest. Another soak Saturday night removed even more of the caked-on waste, and there was slightly more motion in his legs this morning. Sadly, a week of crap nutrition was more than his little body could take, and he died sometime after his first feeding this morning. He was sprawled in his nest when I went in to give him his second feeding.
Could his fractured pelvis have been treated when it was a fresh fracture? We’ll never know now. In a young bird whose body is still growing, a week of improper caging, diet and nesting is an eternity of improper healing and malnutrition, as well. Pelvic fractures can frequently be successfully treated. This poor fellow had no chance, though, because some fool decided it would be fun to try and raise an injured baby with no clue what he was doing.
Initially, I’d planned to euthanize as soon as the poor bird had experienced a couple of decent meals comprised of proper food. But he went from feet dangling uselessly to at least tucking them against his body when I picked him up to feed him. And consultations with Kathryn Dudeck of Chattahoochee Nature Center and Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends Raptor Rehab led us all to the conclusion that maybe giving him the weekend wasn’t a bad idea—and he seemed to be making promising progress: After he’d been soaked in warm water to remove as much of the caked-on poop as possible, he was flaring and spreading his tail feathers. Saturday morning he’d sliced (pooped) a wee bit outside the nest, cast a small pellet, and was moving his tail feathers more. And the swelling and redness in his cloaca had diminished considerably after just one night in a clean nest. Another soak Saturday night removed even more of the caked-on waste, and there was slightly more motion in his legs this morning. Sadly, a week of crap nutrition was more than his little body could take, and he died sometime after his first feeding this morning. He was sprawled in his nest when I went in to give him his second feeding.
Could his fractured pelvis have been treated when it was a fresh fracture? We’ll never know now. In a young bird whose body is still growing, a week of improper caging, diet and nesting is an eternity of improper healing and malnutrition, as well. Pelvic fractures can frequently be successfully treated. This poor fellow had no chance, though, because some fool decided it would be fun to try and raise an injured baby with no clue what he was doing.
Immediately after intake
Day of intake, after warm soak to remove caked poop
Saturday after a second warm soak
Also on Monday, a nestling grackle came in, another storm victim. Young grackles aren’t especially attractive and their call is harsh and demanding. But their personalities are so endearing it’s impossible not to love ‘em. I’ve seen them called the “poor man’s crow” but they’re not corvids; they're icterids--in the blackbird family. Adults have long, slender bodies, dark iridescent feathers and striking yellow eyes—it’s an utterly gorgeous combination. But their poor voice never changes! This little fellow has matured rapidly over the past week and is ready for new digs with a perch.
And Monday also saw the arrival of a pre-fledgling flicker, thoroughly stressed from being unnested when the tree his nest cavity was in was felled. Flickers are in the woodpecker family but the feather pattern and coloration on young flickers is noticeably different from either young red-bellied or red-headed woodpeckers. Stress isn’t an issue now, as he calls loudly if I’m two minutes late feeding him!
Thursday two nestling mourning doves were found on the ground after a storm—it was a week of hit-and-miss storms throughout Georgia. They’re growing nicely; by next week you won’t recognize them as the same birds!
An impossibly tiny pre-fledgling blue-gray gnatcatcher also arrived Thursday, weak and lethargic from an extended period without food before she was found. She rallied with warmth and appropriate food and I thought the danger was past, but she died overnight Friday.
Thursday night a caller reported an unnested brown thrasher and was willing to bring it immediately, even though it was after 10 pm. He was placed with the surviving of the two cat-attacked thrashers, and both are thriving.
The barred owl is now self-feeding and testing his wings.
The red tail will be released as soon as we have three consecutive days of low/no rain chances—this gives released birds time to acclimate to their new surroundings before experiencing any inclement weather.
The red shoulders are also rarin’ to go.
And the screeches will go into the mini pen as soon as the red tail’s released. And yeah, they do make just that big a mess in their box overnight…
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