And then there were three

Great horned owls and screeches,  that is.

Great horned Number 3 came in April 1, after rains and high wind the previous night. She’s a bit older than the other two doofuses and, having been in the wild longer, a bit more aggressive—she hasn’t figured out yet that at LWR nobody has to fight for food. But the three of ‘em together...Lord love ‘em, great horneds are fierce hunters, but that’s about all the neurons fire for.

Here’s Number 3 on intake:

And here are the Three Stooges together, along with close-ups of their gorgeous little faces.

This one is my favorite—taken with my phone camera because I was about to feed ‘em and turned from picking up the forceps to see this.

Number 3 is actually an early brancher and ready for the raptor flight, but she’ll wait till her new sibs can go out there with her.

And of course, the red tail has to be released first, too. Next week looks gorgeous—ideal for releases. (Knock on wood!)

The red phase screech’s release may be delayed a bit longer, as I’d like to put him and the gray phase together for a bit first.

The gray phase is doing much better and will, as indicated above,  go into the mini-pen with the red phase next week.

The third screech, a red phase, came in tonight.  The finders had knocked over a snag without seeing her nest, trapping her inside with three broken eggs—and that breaks my heart. Three screeches that’ll never hatch...When they started cutting up the snag, she wobbled out and seemed disoriented, so they brought her to LWR. She’s stressed and traumatized beyond belief, poor girl, but nothing is broken.

The nestling mourning dove has feathered out beautifully; now if he’ll just figure out the self-feeding thing...

And a second mourning dove came in with severe neck trauma. I really thought on intake that he might be “fixable” but the next morning, this is what he looked like, and when I tried to feed him, his little neck was so twisted he couldn’t swallow properly. He was humanely euthanized. It never gets easier but it’s all too often the only “release” we can offer the severely injured.

Hope everyone has a happy Easter tomorrow!