Almost “breaking even”

Intakes and releases this week were nearly equal; don’t recall that ever happening before. All in all, it was a busy week.

Two new mockingbirds arrived, one pulled from a trash can and the other rescued from a puddle. The “puddle” mocker had other issues that meds didn’t even have time to address, as he died overnight.

The other mocker, a pre-fledgling, is doing well and is in the flight pen. It’s a bit early for him to be in the flight but his buddy, the older mocker from last week, went to the flight, so to keep the best buds together, the younger one got an early start. He’s actually been chasing crickets around, although I haven’t seen him catch any yet.

Last week’s Carolina wren with leg issues was, I suspect, in the early stages of Metabolic Bone Disease (MBD), a result of a bad diet. While this can rarely occur in the wild, it’s more likely a result of someone having the bird and feeding it crap before dumping at the vet clinic in the other county. A fledgling Carolina wren is usually not as willing to gape and be handled as this one was, plus her feather color is “off” and the general state of her feathers—especially her tail feathers—leads me to conclude that she may have been with the person who dumped at that clinic longer than they admitted.

Still, because we got her in time, she bounced right back with a good diet and has actually been released. Carolina wrens tend to hang around their release site for a day or two, and this one was no exception, so I was able to snap a couple of shots of her after release.

Sunning birds are so adorable!

This pre-fledgling Carolina wren was found hopping around out of the nest too early; when the attempt was made to place him back in the nest, two dead siblings were discovered. He’s doing quite well, despite the stressed initial photo of the little guy. 

You can clearly see the feather development here.

He’s already taking short flights, so we tried him and the house finch from last week in the flight. The wren was pretty happy; the finch not so much. They’ve become big buddies, so we’re keeping them together, back inside for a while longer.

Bluebirds are among my favorite birds; even so, when the call came about this sweet little female nestling, the caller and I worked to try and re-nest the baby. She was found on the ground below her next box; the caller found a dead sibling inside and removed it, placing this little girl back in. After an hour, her parents still refused to go inside the box, so she ended up at LWR. Sadly, the parents’ refusal to feed this little darling was probably related to her declining health. She also didn’t survive the night of her intake, even though we started her on meds as a precaution. Sometimes the meds don’t even have time to kick in…

The barred owl proved totally unable to fly, so I reluctantly made the decision to call it on him. He was euthanized last week.  Sometimes our best efforts aren’t enough to return a bird to the wild—it’s not a pleasant fact, but it is reality.

The possums continue to grow like weeds; they’re probably slated for release later this week, as they’re pretty close to release size now and, given their rapid growth rate, should reach that size by week’s end. Proper nutrition makes such a difference in growth rates!

Meanwhile, although I seldom see them all out, their little hissy faces have amused me all week, and I did catch a couple on top of the box they sometimes sleep in.

The flyer continues to progress nicely and will be moved to the pre-release caging the possums will be vacating later in the week; at the moment, she’s still in a smallish pen but seems quite content there. I think she’s just happy to have a steady supply of formula and snacks.

This poor least flycatcher not only suffered the trauma of a cat attack; she also faced the indignity of being misidentified twice by your intrepid rehabber. In a cursory exam under the parking lot lights when she was picked up, she looked like a warbler of indeterminate species. When I got her home, her wide, flat beak identified her as a flycatcher, and since great crested flycatchers are what I most commonly see in rehab—and in my defense, it was also late and I was dead tired—that’s what she was…until morning, when I realized I actually had a least flycatcher. They actually don’t breed in Georgia, just migrate through.

Unfortunately, someone’s free-roaming cat ripped out all her secondary feathers, and while this photo doesn’t show it, she’s since broken her primaries as well. Without the secondaries to support them, the primaries are prone to easy breakage, especially when a bird is flinging itself against the mesh of its cage, desperately trying to complete the migration it knows it should be making. So now the poor bird will be at LWR until all the feathers on that wing grow back…

The brancher great horned owl is well and truly fed up with having his eye medicated, and we’re actually done medicating as of today. It looks better than last week in terms of being less cloudy but it’s still not a pretty sight. Since Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends raptor rehab currently has three other GHOs, this guy will be going to Steve this week.

The cat-attacked mourning dove from last week continues to mend and the feathers are slowly growing back in, but there’s still not enough growth to consider putting the dove in the flight pen.

The killdeer, however, has progressed to the point that he’s now in the flight. He’s not actually capable of flight yet, but since he’s self-feeding and killdeer spend a lot of time on the ground—those stiltlike legs are kind of a dead giveaway on that—he’s happier…sorta…in the flight. I guess perpetual motion is happy; he’s been nearly impossible to catch pix of. Even tracking him with the camera for video on his first day in the flight was a challenge! 

The oldest mocker, pictured above in the flight pen with the younger one earlier in the week, was released this weekend. He’d been ready for several days; I just hated to take the younger one’s buddy. When he was offered the option, however, he flew the coop and didn’t look back.

Both the woodpeckers were also released.

The downy has opted for a soft release, happily playing in the trees near the songbird flight during the day and alighting on the flight as dusk approaches, loudly demanding to be let back into her “bedroom.” Below are pix and vids of her in inside caging, in the flight pen, and after release. She oozes perky, chatty personality!

The pileated went from inside caging to the old, rundown flight to begin with, as the songbird flight was full of smaller birds and the raptor flight housed the barred owl. 

After the barred owl was euthanized, the pileated moved to the raptor flight, which was more size-appropriate for him to test and strengthen those wings—and he did!

And then, as he got increasingly restless, he was offered his freedom, which he was initially unsure about. Once he made the decision to leave the flight pen, though, he was delighted to find the nearest snag and go to work on it!

Woodpeckers of all species tend to hang around and demand handouts for a fairly long time after release. Thus far, these two are holding true to form; we’ll see how long it lasts. The record for mooching woodpeckers at LWR currently belongs to a red-bellied woodpecker from several years back who continued to periodically show up for a “treat” well into the fall of the year!