Aaannnd the pace slows again…

It’s early in baby season; the pace of intakes varies wildly from one week to the next—and a slow week is always a welcome break!

That said, it was most definitely not a slow week for the rehabs at LWR, with several releases and one major accomplishment for an “iffy” bird.
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If you’ll recall, in last week’s update vet Peggy Hobby and I had discussed the brown thrasher’s nest injury and agreed to give him time to see what might develop. He was doing well on the ground and low perches but making no attempt to get up higher. This week he perched near the highest point in the songbird flight! He’s also doing some self-feeding, so with his progress, I suspect he’ll be near-releasable within a week or so.

​The pine warbler has been released, and I was lucky enough to be in the flight when he flew the coop; see the second video below. He’s still coming down for handouts, but the amount he eats varies wildly, from mere mouthfuls to voracious gulping—depends on how much he found for himself between offered feedings!

​The bluebirds, also largely self-feeding, have also been released, after a week of gorgeous photo ops in the flight. The last two left just this morning, and although the camera lost focus toward the middle, I managed a short video of the next-to-last one leaving the flight pen—see below. Thus far, none of them have returned for handouts, which doesn’t surprise me; they were very reluctant to accept hand-feedings their last few days in the flight unless I let the mealworms and wax worms run out—didn’t need me otherwise, thankyaverymuch…

​The older GHOs are…well…GHOs. What else can you say? They’re eating well, flying well, and failed last week’s live prey test miserably. I mean bombed it totally. Both flew to the highest point in the raptor flight, eyes wide (even for a GHO), and stared alternately at their proposed prey and me as if to say, “What the…? That’s MOVING!” I left, thinking they’d be more likely to at least attempt catching their own food without an audience. Twenty minutes later, nope. No go. Wasn’t gonna happen. So…we’ll try again later!

The mockers had a lousy week. The older of the two died overnight about mid-week—was fine at lights-out and dead the next morning. The younger of the two, who showed no signs of injury on intake, is having coordination issues now that he’s out of the nest—makes me wonder if there was some sort of brain injury that didn’t show until he hopped out of the nest. The result, however, is a really pathetic-looking little bird, and constant cleaning just makes him even more pitiable, poor fellow.  No pix of him this week; been too busy trying to keep him clean.
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And late last Sunday, a very late-season (for GHOs) downy GHO came in. His finders had fed him chicken livers for two days before contacting LWR so in addition to very smelly poops, he was wearing a good bit of his highly inappropriate diet. An exam upon intake revealed that his left wing was broken at the wrist—never a good location for a fracture. 

​X-rays at Smalley’s Animal Hospital Monday morning showed that the break was worse than a mere physical exam indicated, as even the “thumb” was displaced. In an adult bird, an injury of this nature would be a death sentence, and even in a young bird, it means he’ll never fly. 

​However, because he’s young enough to be trained, vet Jim Hobby and I agreed he might have a good chance at becoming an educational bird. We’re looking to place him as an ed bird, in-state preferably. The mountain of paperwork to transfer him out of state is just not something I want to deal with, quite frankly, unless absolutely necessary.

​Disclaimer: This was written and posted while also trying to watch brown thrashers feed one of their fledglings outside my window. Yep, I’m guilty of typing and posting while distracted…