Baby season, that is. Yeah, the flyers came in earlier in the month, but for me, proper baby season begins with the first sustained…ummm…onslaught of baby birds. And they started this week, albeit not exactly in a massive onslaught.
However, the first visitor to LWR was a turkey vulture who seemed more stunned than anything else. I couldn’t find any signs of injury, so I placed him in the old duck pen outside (raptor flight was occupied) for overnight observation before making a vet trip…and didn’t think to snap a single photo. The next morning, he’d flown the coop—no sign of him anywhere. So obviously he was only stunned and just needed a safe space to recover.
Next, a call came in about a nest blown from the tree in the high winds we’ve had most of this week. The family had been watching the nest, and the caller said it was in the tree when she left to run errands and on the ground with one dead baby and one survivor when she got back 90 minutes later. Within an hour of her call, she had the baby, a nestling mourning dove, at LWR. She’s doing well and quite a sweet little dove, which is their normal personality. The second photo below is of the keratin accumulation in her nest overnight and into the early morning, where she preened the sheaths off her feathers.
However, the first visitor to LWR was a turkey vulture who seemed more stunned than anything else. I couldn’t find any signs of injury, so I placed him in the old duck pen outside (raptor flight was occupied) for overnight observation before making a vet trip…and didn’t think to snap a single photo. The next morning, he’d flown the coop—no sign of him anywhere. So obviously he was only stunned and just needed a safe space to recover.
Next, a call came in about a nest blown from the tree in the high winds we’ve had most of this week. The family had been watching the nest, and the caller said it was in the tree when she left to run errands and on the ground with one dead baby and one survivor when she got back 90 minutes later. Within an hour of her call, she had the baby, a nestling mourning dove, at LWR. She’s doing well and quite a sweet little dove, which is their normal personality. The second photo below is of the keratin accumulation in her nest overnight and into the early morning, where she preened the sheaths off her feathers.
Then one of my game wardens called; he’d just made it home from a long day, only to get a call about a baby raptor on the ground in someone’s yard. He’d picked it up and was en route to LWR. His baby was a hatchling great horned owl, about five or six days old, based on weight—GHOs weigh about 36g on hatching and gain app. 33g per day afterward, and this wee one weighed app. 215g on intake. He still had his egg tooth, which fell off the night of intake. The egg tooth is more or less a tiny chisel on the end of the beak that helps birds break through the eggshell when they hatch. He also cast his first pellet last night. For those who may not remember, pellets are undigested bits of bones, feathers and fur from raptors’ prey.
It’s unusual to have such a young GHO this late in the year, as by this time they should be branchers—out of the nest on a branch or even the ground but still being fed by the parents. There’s a good possibility this wee one’s parents had a failed first nest and started over late in GHO nesting season, hence the late hatch.
It’s unusual to have such a young GHO this late in the year, as by this time they should be branchers—out of the nest on a branch or even the ground but still being fed by the parents. There’s a good possibility this wee one’s parents had a failed first nest and started over late in GHO nesting season, hence the late hatch.
In the photos above his egg tooth is circled.
Baby's first pellet!
The very next day, an adult GHO came in with swelling around the right humerus. It was too swollen to be sure, but there didn’t appear to be a fracture. Because he came in late on Friday, after hours for Smalley’s, he’ll head in for x-rays early this week.
And Saturday, a very young turkey vulture—adult, but still very young—came in. He’d been seen wandering around a parking lot for several days before he was caught. His intake exam showed an old fracture in the right wing that had healed in the wild. I suspect he’d been eating carrion found in the woods—of which there is plenty for a grounded vulture, usually—until he meandered into the parking lot, where there was nothing to eat. He’s spending a few days at the LWR B&B to fatten up a bit.
And finishing out the week’s intakes was another nestling mourning dove. In this case the family had been in the yard and saw what they described as a swallow-tailed kite hit the nest, knocking the baby out. It was too high to re-nest him. Oh, and for the record, kites are aerial insectivores, not likely to eat something as large as a late-nestling dove, so what probably happened is that the kite was after an insect and sideswiped the nest in pursuit. At any rate, this little fellow isn’t real cooperative about eating—he’ll eat, but it’s a struggle, unlike the sweetheart who came in earlier in the week. He’s also a bit younger, as you can see in the photo below (he's at the bottom).
As for the older guests, the red shoulder is now in the raptor flight and flying like a pro, although he stubbornly refuses to do so when I take the camera out there to try for video—y’all, I swear he does it to irritate me. In the mornings when all I’m worried about is getting everybody fed, he’s from one end to the other, over and over. I go out there with the camera later in the day; he flies to the opposite perch when I open the door and then sits there and glares at me! Anyway, he’ll be released within the next few days and the red tail will then go back in. The overwintering flyers will—I hope—be released next week if the weather predictions are valid.
And the two youngest flyers’ eyes opened this week, although they’re still spending most of their time with them closed. Babies of all species need lots of sleep!
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