Another week, another slew of babies…

​Another busy week at LWR, with more intakes, a few releases, and more on the way later today…
The miraculous news for the past week is the frouncy red shoulder has made a full recovery! If you’ll recall, last week he couldn’t stand on intake, was rail-thin, and his mouth and throat were a frouncy mess. He’s now self-feeding, full of red shoulder attitude, and will be releasable as soon as he puts a little meat on his bones!

Yes, my box is a mess and NO, I do NOT want you to clean it!

Wait, clean box means more mice? Okay, then...

The older blue jay was released last week; he came in as a fledgling and was antsy to get back into the “real” world from the get-go. I heard him once or twice day of release but never saw him. He was totally self-feeding, though, so I’m not too worried.

The younger jay, however, still wants to beg for food from the martin—none of the other birds in the flight, just the martin. Go figure. I’ve tried to catch this on video, as it’s pretty hysterical, but the uncooperative rascal has a sixth sense about when I’m about to video and will stop his silly antics until I put the camera away…

​Yeah, the martin’s still in the flight. He flies well but low, and the alacrity with which he took up ground feeding worries me. Martins are supposed to be aerial insectivores, but apparently he didn’t get that memo!

​As soon as the weather cooperates, two mockers, two Carolina wrens and two mourning doves are ready for release, with two nestling mourning doves waiting in the wings (no pun intended) to take their places. 

​This woodpecker hatchling came from a mammal rehabber who said the lady who brought it to her heard it hit the concrete—her description was it sounded like a walnut hitting the ground. He was VERY young and extremely bruised, but his eager feeding had me hopeful he was just bruised—no internal bleeding. Unfortunately, he died within 24 hours of intake. (His beak is NOT injured; that’s a normal look for very young woodpeckers!)

​The crow is nearing release stage and is quite antsy now, meeting me at the flight pen door and trying to slip past me. He’s in the dilapidated old flight because I had nowhere else to put him, but despite its state of disrepair, he’s enjoying being outside.

The GHOs are keeping busy finding new ways to trash the raptor flight, including shredding the fake hornet’s nest I hung in there to deter wasp nests (it was fairly effective before its untimely demise, if you’re wondering). The screech and barred owl both need to be in the flight, so the GHOs have to get their acts together pretty soon now. These two have waited their turns long enough. (And no, they can’t go in together; the barred would eat the screech before I could shut the door good.)
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Eurasian collared doves are larger than mourning doves but I’ve never seen aggression between the two species. This beauty came in with a broken wing and since the fracture was obviously close to the joint, my plan was to euthanize her. That was before she flew halfway across the room when I reached in to pick her up for euthanasia. Any bird with a wing fracture that can still manage that kind of flight deserves a chance. We can always euthanize later if need be, but once it’s done you can’t take it back.

​The tiny Mississippi kite with the puncture wound is rapidly becoming less tiny. His wound has healed beautifully, and he’s starting to get little wing feathers!

​The great crested flycatcher is definitely identifiable as such now. I love all the scruffy fuzz they have as they feather out. And their sweet little personalities don’t hurt a bit, either!

​And the last four intakes actually come from close to home. My father adores his barn swallows so when he found one of the nestlings from the latest clutch on the ground and another dead nearby late yesterday, I took the live baby. Today he noticed that the parents weren’t feeding the lone baby left in the nest. From a secure vantage point we watched as they completely avoided going near the nest—totally out of character for barn swallows. I suspected maybe the fourth, missing nestling might be dead in the nest, so we grabbed a ladder and rescued the abandoned baby and checked the nest—no dead sib. Yesterday’s rescue is doing well; today’s, the runt, is still slightly dehydrated and lethargic. We’ll see how he does.

And this morning my nephew, checking to see what his dogs were barking at, found a fledgling grackle and a nestling mocker within a few feet of each other. Rather than risk the dogs attacking them, he brought them to LWR. The grackle will be headed for the flight pen as soon as he shows me he can self-feed; the mocker has a while before it’s ready for the flight.
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Bless their hearts, young grackles ain’t got much goin’ for ‘em. They don’t have pretty voices; they’re butt-ugly babies; as fledglings they look like they survived an attempted scalping…But once they reach adulthood, they clean up real nice (aside from the voice—ain’t no helpin’ that voice)!