The yellow-bellied sapsucker is eating well and drumming away on her log, but she’s still unable to fly. We know from the x-rays that nothing’s broken, which means the issue is soft tissue damage. How long that will take to heal—if ever—is anybody’s guess. Only time will tell if she’ll recover and be able to fly. The will is definitely there; hopefully the ability will be, too—and soon.

This barred owl was found in the middle of the road in a neighboring county, so we all figured he’d been hit by a car. He crashed when I got him to Smalley’s Animal Hospital, but we thought we’d pulled him back. He was weak, unable to stand, lethargic, and losing body heat, which can all be symptoms of severe head trauma, so we treated him accordingly and hoped for the best. Unfortunately, the poor fellow died on the way home.

These two rabbits were dug up by a dog. They were rescued before the dog actually mauled them and weren’t injured in any way, so I was cautiously optimistic, but as is too often the case with rabbits, they didn’t survive.

This pair of cottontails was cat-attacked. One had spinal injuries and died shortly after I got home with him. His sib lasted about 12 hours longer, despite showing no signs of injury. I’d started him on antibiotics, but they didn’t even have time to kick in.

When this downy great horned owl fell from his nest, his rescuers did everything right. After several days of heavy rains subsided, apparently the nest simply disintegrated. When they heard the nest crash to the ground, they retrieved the single baby from the debris, secured a laundry basket to a tall stepladder, placed the downy GHO inside, and put it against the tree for the night. The next morning, the lack of food remnants indicated that the parents hadn’t returned for their baby, so the rescuers brought him inside to safety and set about finding a licensed rehabber.

This little guy went to Steve Hicks of Bubba and Friends raptor rehab this morning. He has another downy GHO about the same age. They can learn to be clueless together!

It’s never a good sign when a great blue heron can’t stand. In fact the people who found this poor fellow almost left him for dead, but then he moved, so they brought him to me. He had a broken leg, right at the hip, and was rail thin. Since he came in on a Sunday, my plan was to get him to Smalley’s to get x-rays and see how bad the fracture was ASAP Monday, but he died during the night.

I cringe whenever a caller says they’ve rescued a bird from a cat. Bird vs. cat seldom ends well for the bird. Besides the risk of infection from bacteria in the cat’s mouth, there are puncture wounds and fractures to worry about. This little chickadee was taken away from a cat. He escaped obvious injury but favors his right wing. He was pretty stressed upon arrival, and still a bit shocky, I think. His breathing was also a bit labored.

Within a few hours, he was looking slightly better and had started showing an interest in food and water.

Another few hours, and he’d perked up considerably and I had high hopes for the little cutie. Unfortunately, when I checked on him this morning, he was no longer perching and his breathing was more labored. By the time I got him to Smalley’s, he was in severe respiratory distress. Our best guess is that the cat cracked his tiny ribs and one of them punctured a lung during the night.  Another avian fatality thanks to a free-roaming cat…

The chickadee’s rescuer is doing what I wish all cat owners would do—bringing the outside cat indoors. Folks, cats kill birds. They’re predators; killing birds is their nature. You can’t blame them for doing what comes naturally to them, but you CAN prevent the carnage by keeping your cats indoors. It’s healthier and safer for the cat, and it’s definitely safer for the avian population of your property. I have cats. I love my cats. I also love the birds that share my yard.  Therefore, I keep my cats indoors. It’s a win-win situation for cat and bird. Please take my advice, follow my example—however you want to word it—and keep your cats inside and away from our native birds!

And rounding out two horrendous weeks, this morning I picked up an adult red-shouldered hawk who’d been hit by a car. Given that, upon a cursory parking lot exam prior to heading to Smalley’s, I found an open wound on his left wing, I was hopeful but not optimistic. Sometimes even hope is misplaced. The open wound wasn’t fatal, but the break in the joint above the wound was. (That white object is actually NOT exposed bone; there was no open fracture.) The joint would have been frozen when it healed, and this feisty little raptor would never have flown again.  He also was very thin and had a small wound on his keel that may have indicated internal injuries. He went down so quickly from the euthanasia injection that we suspected this was the case.

Hopefully the next update won’t be so full of mortal wounds and deaths/euthanasias…if you think it’s difficult to read about, try experiencing it firsthand for a while. It ain’t pleasant, and it never gets easier…

...but you CAN publicize it so people begin to grasp the depths of stupidity wildlife rehabbers face on a continual basis.

Recently I received a call from several counties away about an injured songbird. The lady was sure it was a woodpecker—“one of them extinct kinds”, in her words. I said I’d be willing to take the bird if she could get it to me, since she was about 75 miles away, and she hemmed and hawed about not having the gas or the gas money. I explained that I pay the expenses for my wildlife rehab efforts out of my own pocket and that she would need to meet me at the site I designated in order for me to assist the bird.  She said she’d call me back the next day…and then proceeded to call me back about four times that night, the last time at nearly 10pm.

The next morning the calls started bright and early. The last was as she was headed out to meet me, and she informed me that she would need reimbursement and tried to get me to meet her somewhere other than the designated site. I told her again that I didn’t get paid for what I do and that was the only place I would meet her, and she huffed a bit but still indicated she was meeting me.

When she arrived at the designated meeting site, she had the bird in a box with dingy rags that reeked of stale cigarette smoke. (Rant here: people, birds have tiny lungs compared to humans, aside from which, they’re highly sensitive to chemicals. Tobacco smoke is even less healthy for them than it is for a human, especially if they’re already stressed from illness/injury! Show some common sense, dammit, and don’t smoke around injured/ill wildlife!) I had her fill out my intake form—I’ve found that giving people paperwork gives me time to examine the critter without “assistance.” On my intake form I have a short list of the approximate costs of rehabbing several more common species, a note that LWR receives no state and federal funding, and a disclaimer that any VOLUNTARY donations are tax-deductible.

I then started to leave and this…genius (sarcasm, people, heavy sarcasm) informed me that she had no gas money to get back home. Against my better judgment, and because she did bring me the bird when she could have let it die, I gave her the only cash I had with me that night—not much, as I don’t take a lot with me on night calls, but it should have been enough to get her back home. I could tell she wasn’t pleased, but hey, my concern’s the animal, not the person.

A little over an hour later, she called me, ranting and raving about how I lied to her, I cheated her out of money, that the state and feds reimbursed me at the end of the year for all I did, and on and on. I did attempt—briefly—to reason with her before referring her to the Georgia DNR. They get paid to deal with idiots; I VOLUNTEER my time, efforts and money to aid our native wildlife, not to be verbally abused by delusional souls who’re out to make a quick buck any way they can.

You see, given her comments about this bird being “extinct” and her insistence that she needed “reimbursement,” I’ve come to the conclusion that she was expecting payment for the bird—in effect, selling a bird that didn’t—and couldn’t ever—belong to her. A wild bird. A FEDERALLY PROTECTED bird. Yep, some people will do anything for a buck these days. (And if someone at the state and federal levels could please tell me what forms we rehabbers are supposed to fill out for our “year-end reimbursement,” I’d be eternally grateful; here all this time, I’ve apparently been misreading the paperwork that tells me I DON’T get reimbursed. Sarcasm again, folks…)

The bird at the heart of this close encounter of the weird kind? A pretty little female yellow-bellied sapsucker.

And a very lucky little sapsucker, too. My brief exam the night she came in left me worried that her left wing might be broken, but an exam and x-ray by vet Shelley Baumann of Smalley’s Animal Hospital the following day showed no fractures. The wing was just badly bruised. 

The little missy’s still not attempting to fly yet, but she is eating up a storm. She was also on the thin side on intake, so I’m happy to put some meat on her bones while she mends. Hopefully after a week or so of R&R at the LWR bed and breakfast, she’ll be ready to send on her merry way—just in time for the start of songbird breeding season, during which I hope she can have a successful clutch!

To tie up loose ends from the last update, the squirrels have been released and are no longer showing up for handouts. The poor little dog-attacked rabbit did well for a few days. His eyes opened, he started nibbling at solid foods…and then I went in one night to medicate and feed him and he was limp but still breathing. I figured he was on his way out, but because he was still fairly alert, I put him back on heat and placed some greens in his pen, just in case.

A few hours later, I went back to check on him and he was be-bopping around as if nothing was wrong. I’ve seen this before, though, so I merely went to bed cautiously optimistic that he might make it, after all. The next morning, he was stone cold.  This is why rabbits are so frustrating. He was on meds, he had no diarrhea or bloating, he was eating well…and then he crashes and recovers and then dies, all in the space of one night. Go figure…It’s a rabbit thing. After years of rehabbing rabbits, I’m firmly convinced that most of the ones that we’re able to release are primarily due to sheer luck.

The Cooper’s hawk had a happier ending. We caught his foot injuries early enough to avoid bumblefoot, and so he was released last week. He shot out of the box like a rocket, flew down to a small stream to drink, and wanted to bathe but refused to get in the water while he could still see me pointing the camera at him. I snapped a couple of shots of him on the ground and got one fairly decent one of him when he flew up to the nearby tree awaiting my departure. I presume when I drove off, he bathed to his heart’s content!

As I indicated earlier, baby songbird season will be kicking in soon—sometime this month, in all likelihood. When the baby birds start coming in, I’ll return to weekly updates so you can watch their progress in a more timely fashion. In the meantime, be observant—watch for nest construction, keep your cats inside, and don’t trim or fell trees without checking for nests first. And puhLEEZ avoid using pesticides/insecticides on your lawns, flowers, etc.—these are deadly to birds!