Another week (more or less), another slew of babies

The mocker has been released, although his favorite haunt at the moment is the tree right at the flight pen, so he can beg for a handout when I feed the flight pen occupants. The finches are ready for release as soon as we
have several consecutive rain-free days forecast; the Carolina wren, now in the flight pen, can be released with the finches.

In a lovely, lovely surprise, the mourning dove decided last week  to start flying, just before I planned to have him euthanized because he was  miserable pacing back and forth in the flight pen. Now he’s still unhappy, but
he’s flying, so he has a chance at release and the freedom he so desperately wants!

The possum trio has been released, also, and they were quite  happy to be on their clueless, dim-witted little ways.

The mallard continues to do well and should be ready for release  on a well-monitored pond in another week or so. 

Despite my best efforts, I was unable to reunite the failed fledgling bluebird with his family, but as luck would have it, he had a “cousin” come in the very next day—a pre-fledgling American robin with a broken
wrist. (Robins and bluebirds are both members of the thrush family.) Idiots set on wiping out every tree in the area they were planning to  “develop” chopped down the tree this baby’s nest was in, and he ended up in the
neighbor’s yard. His siblings were probably crushed by the falling tree; his  finders did look for other survivors and didn’t find any.

The robin’s wrist was an open fracture but because his bones are still growing and because he’s never learned what “proper” flight feels like, we opted to soft-splint the wing, use copious antibiotics, and hope for the best.
Meanwhile he has the bluebird for companionship. The bluebird should be in the flight pen, but he seems to help lower the robin’s stress levels, so he’ll stay inside for a while longer.

“Cuz,” as I’m calling the robin, is doing amazingly well. He’s  attempting to use that splinted wing, eating well, and very much likes having the bluebird as a buddy. So we have Cuz and Buddy, unlikely companions anywhere
outside a rehab setting, doing well and growing apace. Only time will tell if Cuz’s wing will heal to allow flight, but we’re gonna give him that time.

Even though it’s hawk nesting season, I was somewhat surprised to get in a nestling red tailed hawk. She’d been grounded for two days before I got her and was not being fed by her parents, which doesn’t bode well for the fate of either her parents or any siblings. She’s a beauty, as you can see below, and rather big for her young age. I kept telling Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends that she was large, quite large, and when I transferred her to him, he called almost immediately after getting her, laughing at the size of her feet—you can see the source of our amusement below. The gal has gunboats for feet! She also has a healthy appetite and will be a huge bird when she’s full-grown. Steve and I are betting she might be a record-setter. In the videos below, you can hear
her demanding food while it thaws the day she came in and then witness her appetite for yourselves.

This American coot apparently had a mild concussion after being found in a roadway. After observation and examination to determine if anything else was amiss, the ill-tempered little waterfowl was released and promptly
showed off by vigorously swimming upstream against a strong current.

And I originally posted the following paragraph on LWR’s Facebook page, but because I don’t think I could word it any better, I’m copying it here:

 Every so often, someone comes along who halfway restores my hope for humanity's future. The folks who brought me four nestling red-bellied woodpeckers this morning are in that very small group. When their new neighbors chopped down the tree the nest was in on Thursday without even checking for active nests first, the
rescuers 1) cussed out the neighbors (now these are MY kind of people!); 2) attempted to rig a makeshift nest; 3) when the parents hadn't returned by dark, retrieved the babies; 4) called me for advice on feeding BEFORE attempting to offer any food; 5) made arrangements to meet me in the AM with the woodpeckers. And they drove ALL THE WAY FROM BRUNSWICK to save these babies' lives. For my friends outside Georgia, that's a two-hour ONE WAY drive from the coast using the back roads; three hours one-way on the interstate. These are people who give a damn about our native wildlife, and they put action behind their words. We need more people like them, not just in Georgia but around the globe.

The red bellies are doing quite well, and the little runt that the rescuers and I were worried about has now become the most vocal of the group in demanding his fair share of the food! I suspect that as the runt, probably a late hatch, he was getting less food in the nest, which further slowed his development. It may not be obvious in the photos and video, but I can see marked development in just the three days he and his sibs have been at LWR.

And folks, it is now time for my weekly soapbox rant. It is A VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW to disturb
active nests. Yeah, all you developers and chainsaw happy fools out there, this  means you, too. You are supposed to check for active nests BEFORE pruning limbs or felling trees, and when I know the names of individuals or companies who don’t follow the regulations, you damn well better believe I report them to both
the state and federal authorities. I have five babies right now—the robin and the red bellies—who should be in the wild being raised by their parents but were robbed of that right by idiots who don’t give a damn about nature, the environment, or the laws they broke by destroying active nests. I say it’s time for state and federal authorities to come down on some of these violators very hard and very publicly and let people know this nonsense must stop and that violators will be punished to the fullest extent of the law…not nearly as
severely as I’d like, but not everyone believes in the Hammurabian code of justice…