Despite the rain, which usually leads to an uptick in intakes, LWR had just two intakes last week, a barred owl with an open wing fracture and a mature red tail with possible spinal trauma. And the screeches are still here, of course.

The barred owl’s open fracture meant that he required euthanasia, and I honestly forgot to take any photos of him. It was a nasty fracture and my main concern was ending his suffering.

The red tail came unable to stand and with little neural response in his feet.  He wouldn’t or couldn’t spread his wings or flare his tail. We opted for a steroid injection to see if possibly the issue was a pinched nerve or some sort of inflammation, as there was no sign of spinal fracture. The next morning he was half-standing, which is where he’s remained thus far, but he’s eating well and when I take him out to change his paper, he’s flexing his feet and spreading his wings. He’s not out of the woods yet, but his prognosis is considerably better than it was on intake.

All three screeches were placed in the mini-pen, where the female immediately let me know she could fly quite well, thank you, and wanted to go NOW. However...we had rain predicted within the three-day period, so she remains an unhappy camper at LWR for another day or so.

The Christmas week fellow is still iffy. He spent the first couple of days on the ground but has since been perching when I go to check on them and feed them. He’s spreading his left wing fully but still has no real lift, leading me to think he’s been laddering up to the perch. Time will tell...

The third screech, whose trilling I still haven’t been able to record, appears to have lingering head trauma. He seems a bit dizzy when he perches, struggling and often failing to maintain his balance, and he’ll perch on my finger. Given his apparent dizziness I brought him back inside for fear he’d fall off a perch and break his neck. He does quite well on a very low perch in his box, so I think he just needs to get his brain unscrambled a bit more.

And, of course, that time of year is approaching—the Great Backyard Bird Count is Feb. 12-15. Weather permitting, I encourage y’all to spend at least an hour or two over that weekend tallying the birds you see. Those of you with cameras and patience, snap a few shots and submit ‘em to the GBBC website. They often share good photos from participants.

In addition to two new intakes that required euthanasia, the potentially imprinted barred also experienced a steep and rapid decline. It was one of “those” weeks, salvaged only by the screeches...

A great blue heron with no apparent injuries came in Wednesday. Given his alertness and the fact that nothing was broken, it seemed that all he needed was a few days of R&R before release; however, on Friday morning he started having seizures one after another, lying on his side and thrashing wildly. Obviously, euthanasia was the only humane option.

And on Friday yet another barred owl came in, this one with an unfixable shoulder fracture. He was also euthanized.

Adding to the general crappiness of the week, today the potentially imprinted barred was on the ground again, sitting facing the corner of the pen with his head at an odd angle, looking up at the perch above him—or so I thought. When I walked toward him, he was unresponsive to my movements, and when I reached down, he attempted to walk away, fell over, and began struggling to breathe. I have no clue. His feet were already ice-cold, his body temp was low, and he’d eaten only half the mice I’d given him the previous night. I don’t know if there was lingering head trauma that led to a stroke or maybe an aneurysm or...I just don’t know. He was euthanized.

There ARE a few rays of sunshine in an otherwise depressing week, though—three, to be exact. The three screeches are all doing well and should all be moved outside within another week or so. It’s impossible to not experience a mood lift from just looking at a screech, and these three are such pissy, attitudinal little snots that I snicker every time I look at them.

The Christmas week screech, henceforth Screech 1, seems to have full mobility in his wing, so that’s promising. The other two had no fractures, just head trauma. Screech 2’s RIGHT eye was swollen shut on intake, recall, but he closes the LEFT when giving stinkeye. Screech 3 likes to glare with both eyes wide open most of the time; his left pupil is still a bit dilated.

Below are some shots of them from when I freshened their paper this afternoon:

Y’all, LWR now has three red phase screeches. Additionally, we had a fairly common but not commonly seen songbird this week, and some interesting developments with one of the two barred owls.

Let’s start with the uncommon-common songbird, a yellow-rumped warbler, aka “butterbutt.”  Based on color, this was either a female or an immature bird. We’re going with female. She was found in the road with one eye closed, very lethargic. Upon arrival at LWR, she was still pretty lethargic, although she let me know in no uncertain terms she did NOT appreciate being handled during her intake exam. Her little lungs and vocal cords worked just fine!

Within a few days her eye was clear and she was eating well and antsy, so it was time for release. I tried the slow-motion function on my phone camera because I knew she’d move fast—and it worked nicely!

The first of the screeches to arrive also had an eye swollen shut and was a bit loopy. He was found in the road in Effingham County but the finders drove him the two hours to LWR the night they found him. His eye is still a little swollen but he’s eating well.

The second screech arrived yesterday after being removed from the premises of a Home Depot in Colquitt County.  Nothing seems broken, although his left pupil is a little dilated, so perhaps just a mild concussion. He’s the talker of the screech trio, trilling away randomly. No videos of that yet but I’m trying.

The Christmas week screech, although he’s been at LWR the longest, remains the pissiest of the three. He hates everything and everybody! By late this month or early February he should be ready to test his wing and see if the fracture has healed for flight or frozen the joint.

The barred owl who came in last Sunday with the wing fracture turned out to also be blind in both eyes, so the wing wasn’t even an issue; he required euthanasia due to the blindness.

The barred owl who came in a couple of weeks ago, though, is perching well now, his eye is beautifully clear, and he’s eating quite well. But he’s...unusual...

When I walk in to feed him, he makes noises ranging from puppyish whines to squeaky toy squeaks (that one just started today). I’ve heard barreds make a LOT of weird vocalizations but never anything like these. He very politely takes the mice from the forceps with his beak rather than lunging for them with his feet. He will not take mice off the glove, though. He allows me to run my hand from the crown of his head down his back and wing. He makes no attempt to fly past me or away from me. He won’t perch on a glove; tried that, too. I had my niece’s boyfriend walk into the mini-pen to see if he got antsy at a stranger being near him. Nope. Some of this could possibly be lingering head trauma, but he also has rather overgrown talons and tends to grind his beak a lot—but he’s not once clicked it at me in threat.  At the moment I’m really, really hoping it’s lingering head trauma but suspecting he’s imprinted or at the least habituated. We’ll see how he reacts to more space to avoid me when he’s moved from the mini-pen to the raptor flight this week. 

At the moment, I’m rather enjoying him; he’s the best-behaved young adult/adult barred I can ever remember having.

With only two intakes, it was a fairly normal winter week.

Today’s intake is a barred owl with a broken left wing. It feels mid-bone but it’s still too swollen to be sure, as he was found in the road this morning in a county south of LWR. He’s also still very woozy, as you can see below. (That's his third eyelid showing in the photos.)

Last week’s surviving barred is in the mini-pen now, where he prefers the ground still but will use a low perch occasionally. He’s still got some head trauma going on, and it’s causing issues with depth perception.

Mid-week a first-year red tail came in with what initially appeared to be bumblefoot—a wounded foot that had gotten infected. Closer examination and input from several colleagues led to the conclusion he actually had avian pox, a highly contagious (to other birds) viral disease. The general consensus was his was a treatable case, although it would be a lengthy process. However, he also had a large wound above his tail that smelled infected and looked partially necrotic—my fear was that would be the deciding factor in his fate.

I cleaned the dirt and muck off his feet so I could more clearly see how bad they were and started oral and topical antibiotics for both the pox and the base-of-tail wound. He had to be hand-fed but he did eat a large mouse, so I was fairly optimistic he had a fighting chance—he was alert and aggressive despite not being able to stand on those poxy feet.

Sadly, he died during the night. And yes, as red tails and screeches are among my favorite raptors, I did more than a fair amount of cussin’ over losing him...

The screech who came in the week of Christmas with a wing fracture is doing well. He footed the fool out of me yesterday when I was freshening up his box, but hey, he’s a screech. I’ve seldom handled a screech who didn’t draw blood; they’re just vicious little snots that I love dearly. As I’ve said repeatedly, if screeches were as big as they think they are, I’d never go outside again at night!

He needs about another month for that wing to fully heal; the fracture was close to the joint so we’ll have to wait and see, but I’m hopeful it’ll heal for flight and not freeze the joint.

Hope everybody had a good Christmas and a nice, quiet start to 2021.  LWR had a slow but steady trickle of intakes over the past two weeks.

On Dec. 22 a screech owl with a wing fracture came in. He’s a typical pissy screech but he’s eating well and the wing seems to be healing nicely. Of course, it hasn’t quite been two weeks yet, so he has a while to go before we know for sure if it’ll heal for flight.

On Dec. 23 a first-year Coop arrived with a trashed wing and a massively swollen eye. Euthanasia was the only humane option for this bird.

On Christmas Day, two great horneds arrived, one during the day and the other that night. The daytime arrival appeared to have rodenticide poisoning: the inside of his beak was white and he was having seizures. The seizures hadn’t gotten too bad yet so I started treatment in hopes he could be saved—and he did perk up slightly before crashing that night.

The second great horned was pulled from a woman’s grille at a gas station. His rescue was a group effort between a 911 dispatcher, a sheriff’s deputy and a city police officer. Unfortunately, he had open wing and leg fractures and required euthanasia.

On Dec. 26 an adult Eastern cottontail arrived. I normally don’t take mammals, focusing my efforts on birds, especially raptors, but the deputy who grazed him wasn’t aware of that. I agreed to take the rabbit figuring it’d need euthanasia, as 99.9% of the time rabbit vs. vehicle ends badly for the rabbit. Aside from a nosebleed and a dinged ear, though, this fellow was just fine. After a few hours’ observation to make doubly sure everything was functioning, he was released.

And today, Jan. 3, two barred owls arrived. The first is very emaciated and weak. He may have been grazed by a car, as well, as his right ear looks bruised and his left eye is currently filled with blood.  But he’s already eating on his own so I’m hopeful he’ll make a full recovery.

The second barred had an open wing fracture and required euthanasia.

Again, hope everyone’s New Year has gotten off to a good start!