Baby season, that is. Yeah, the flyers came in earlier in the month, but for me, proper baby season begins with the first sustained…ummm…onslaught of baby birds. And they started this week, albeit not exactly in a massive onslaught.

However, the first visitor to LWR was a turkey vulture who seemed more stunned than anything else. I couldn’t find any signs of injury, so I placed him in the old duck pen outside (raptor flight was occupied) for overnight observation before making a vet trip…and didn’t think to snap a single photo. The next morning, he’d flown the coop—no sign of him anywhere. So obviously he was only stunned and just needed a safe space to recover.
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Next, a call came in about a nest blown from the tree in the high winds we’ve had most of this week. The family had been watching the nest, and the caller said it was in the tree when she left to run errands and on the ground with one dead baby and one survivor when she got back 90 minutes later. Within an hour of her call, she had the baby, a nestling mourning dove, at LWR. She’s doing well and quite a sweet little dove, which is their normal personality. The second photo below is of the keratin accumulation in her nest overnight and into the early morning, where she preened the sheaths off her feathers.

Then one of my game wardens called; he’d just made it home from a long day, only to get a call about a baby raptor on the ground in someone’s yard. He’d picked it up and was en route to LWR. His baby was a hatchling great horned owl, about five or six days old, based on weight—GHOs weigh about 36g on hatching and gain app. 33g per day afterward, and this wee one weighed app. 215g on intake. He still had his egg tooth, which fell off the night of intake. The egg tooth is more or less a tiny chisel on the end of the beak that helps birds break through the eggshell when they hatch. He also cast his first pellet last night. For those who may not remember, pellets are undigested bits of bones, feathers and fur from raptors’ prey.
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It’s unusual to have such a young GHO this late in the year, as by this time they should be branchers—out of the nest on a branch or even the ground but still being fed by the parents. There’s a good possibility this wee one’s parents had a failed first nest and started over late in GHO nesting season, hence the late hatch.

​The very next day, an adult GHO came in with swelling around the right humerus.  It was too swollen to be sure, but there didn’t appear to be a fracture. Because he came in late on Friday, after hours for Smalley’s, he’ll head in for x-rays early this week.

​And Saturday, a very young turkey vulture—adult, but still very young—came in. He’d been seen wandering around a parking lot for several days before he was caught. His intake exam showed an old fracture in the right wing that had healed in the wild. I suspect he’d been eating carrion found in the woods—of which there is plenty for a grounded vulture, usually—until he meandered into the parking lot, where there was nothing to eat. He’s spending a few days at the LWR B&B to fatten up a bit. 

And finishing out the week’s intakes was another nestling mourning dove. In this case the family had been in the yard and saw what they described as a swallow-tailed kite hit the nest, knocking the baby out. It was too high to re-nest him. Oh, and for the record, kites are aerial insectivores, not likely to eat something as large as a late-nestling dove, so what probably happened is that the kite was after an insect and sideswiped the nest in pursuit. At any rate, this little fellow isn’t real cooperative about eating—he’ll eat, but it’s a struggle, unlike the sweetheart who came in earlier in the week. He’s also a bit younger, as you can see in the photo below (he's at the bottom).

​As for the older guests, the red shoulder is now in the raptor flight and flying like a pro, although he stubbornly refuses to do so when I take the camera out there to try for video—y’all, I swear he does it to irritate me. In the mornings when all I’m worried about is getting everybody fed, he’s from one end to the other, over and over. I go out there with the camera later in the day; he flies to the opposite perch when I open the door and then sits there and glares at me! Anyway, he’ll be released within the next few days and the red tail will then go back in. The overwintering flyers will—I hope—be released next week if the weather predictions are valid.

​And the two youngest flyers’ eyes opened this week, although they’re still spending most of their time with them closed. Babies of all species need lots of sleep!

In one of those rare instances, incoming and outgoing were equal—not often that happens. Unfortunately, of course, it wasn’t an all-good news week. Wouldn’t that be loverly, though, to have a week where all intakes thrived and were releasable?

Starting with the bad news, to get it out of the way, both barred owls and the oriole required euthanasia. The coracoid fracture on the oriole didn’t heal for flight; the wing fracture on one barred didn’t heal for flight; the dislocated wing on the other barred apparently damaged nerves or tendons, making flight impossible. Some weeks just suck like that.
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And late this morning, a brown-headed cowbird with no apparent injuries came in. The finders first saw it late yesterday and when it hadn’t moved this morning, they decided it needed help. It was way too calm on intake and died within three hours, without ever touching the food or water in its pen. This is the time of year people start dousing everything in sight with insecticides and pesticides, with no regard for the wildlife they kill in the process, so it’s very likely the poor bird ate something covered with one of the many toxins people use to keep their yards “beautiful.”

Honestly, cowbirds aren’t among my favorite birds. They’re parasitic nesters, meaning they lay their eggs in other, usually smaller, birds’ nests, normally one invasive egg per nest. Those birds then raise the cowbird nestling as their own, often at the expense of their own actual babies, who either starve because the larger cowbird hogs all the food or get shoved out of the nest as the larger cowbird flails around in the nest. Some birds have learned to identify cowbird eggs and will pierce them with their beaks or shove them from the nest. However, cowbirds are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), which, incidentally, celebrates its centenary this year, so I take ‘em in and work with ‘em. I just call ‘em the freeloaders of the avian world.

Once Monday’s predicted nasty weather moves through, the red shoulder will go in the flight pen, and not a moment too soon from his perspective. The red tail remains a laid-back guest and will go back in the raptor flight after the red shoulder is released. The overwintering flyers are, as you saw last week, ready to go as soon as the weather cooperates.
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Last Sunday night, in the rain, a couple made the 90-minute one-way trip from their county to bring two two-to-three week old flyers to LWR. They said the tree had been down since that Friday but they didn’t discover the babies until near dark Sunday, by which time one had died. They put the two surviving babies on heat and got them to LWR late Sunday night. Upon arrival they were warm but dehydrated and hungry—and couldn’t be fed until they were rehydrated. In all the years I’ve worked with flyers, I’ve never had babies come in so hungry they were actually crying, but these wee ones were, bless their sweet little hearts.

Once they were rehydrated, they could have proper food, which quieted them down nicely.

​They continue to develop nicely, eating well and growing apace…and, of course, being impossibly adorable with every little pose they strike while sleeping…

And at the risk of sounding repetitious, please keep in mind that this is the beginning of nesting season, so don’t trim or cut trees unless absolutely necessary, and then only after checking to makes sure no nests will be disturbed or destroyed. Remember, it’s a violation of the MBTA and of state and federal law to disturb or destroy an active (with eggs or babies in it) bird nest!

…because we’re 11 days into March with no intakes, and I know all too well that means I’m about to get slammed soon…Meanwhile, it’s business as usual with the current residents of the LWR B&B.
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The barred owls are still not impressing me with their flight ability, which is not boding well for their future. We’ll see how this plays out.

The oriole cannot fly. Most coracoid fractures heal for perfect flight; I can’t even remember the last time I had a bird with a coracoid fracture that wasn’t releasable. But this poor fellow isn’t. I’m giving him till the end of the week to prove me wrong, even though I know he can’t.
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The red shoulder needs to be in the raptor flight now but can’t go in until the owls are out. He’s about stir-crazy, poor bird.

​The red tail should have been released by now but I wasn’t releasing a bird who didn’t seem to recognize food outside a crate, so she’ll need to go back in the raptor flight after the barreds and red shoulder have their turns.

​And the flyers got spooked by something last night and all six were out of their box, even though the light was still on, when I went in to freshen their food and water for the night. I took advantage of what will probably be the last time we’ll see all six at once to get some photos and video. (And yes, that’s duct tape over the AC vent in the photos and video—I learned the hard way years back to cover the vents during the winter when I have the flyer cage sitting in front of the AC; otherwise, I get all sorts of crud blown out when it’s first turned on for the summer—see all the stuff on the rest of the unit?)

​Songbirds are nesting now; one of our bluebird boxes has a nest with, as of today, three eggs in it—there will be more; bluebirds lay an egg a day for five or six days, rarely more. Another of the bluebird boxes has been commandeered by a chickadee—at least it looks like a chickadee nest. No eggs in it yet, though.

​And why am I telling you this? To make you aware that nesting season has begun for songbirds so you can check around your own yards and know the locations of various nests. If you know where the nests are and what’s using them, you can often re-nest unnested babies, and as any rehabber will tell you, no matter how skilled we are or how much we love wild babies, it’s always best if the parents can continue to raise their young whenever possible.

It was a busy but fairly non-eventful week, which is not nearly the non sequitur it seems.
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First, the red shoulder and barred owl recovering from fractures were given “flight clearance.” While the barred’s x-rays didn’t show the prettiest of calluses, after two months with his wing wrapped, it was the best we were gonna get and he was getting antsy, so vet Peggy Hobby of Smalley’s Animal Hospital and I agreed that time in the raptor flight would be the determining factor in the bird’s ultimate fate.

​The red shoulder’s x-ray showed a lovely callus on his “hand,” meaning he was also cleared for the raptor flight.

​The news wasn’t as good for the screech with the bad eye. Upon closer examination, we discovered that his eyelid had recently ruptured and the eyeball itself had actually “migrated” to the point that it was almost in his ear. The eyeball was also marble-hard. Peggy said it was trauma-induced glaucoma; we agreed—reluctantly, as we both adore screeches—that the most humane option was euthanasia, given the continued deterioration of the eye.

​The Screech Who Wouldn’t Leave finally decided it was time to go. Initially, I had my doubts, as he started out with the same reluctance he’d shown previously; however, when I cut off the camera and started to lower him back into the box, he decided he’d had enough of that, thanks very much, and hightailed it into the trees.

 ​While Miss Feisty the red-tail flew well in the raptor flight, she refused to eat well. Since I needed the raptor flight for the barreds, I opted to bring her sassy arse back in, where she immediately started eating well again. Go figure…I had a photo of her ready to post but Weebly is being stupid today and suddenly won't let me rotate photos. And technology was supposed to make our lives easier...yeah, right...

 ​With her back in, we did some fruit basket turnover and put both barreds in the raptor flight. Remember, in addition to the one recovering from a wing fracture, we had the fellow recovering from a dislocated wing. Honestly, at the moment, neither is impressing me with their flight skills, but the raptor flight is theirs for the next week. I also had a photo of Barred 1 on a perch in the raptor flight but again, after allowing me to rotate the screech photo above, the rotate function suddenly decided to elongate and pixelate my photos instead of rotating...Hey, it's free website hosting, so I can't really complain...much...about free.

​After that, the red shoulder gets his turn, which he’s quite eagerly awaiting, I assure you. I suspect his turn in the raptor flight will be more impressive from the get-go!

The oriole is showing little to no improvement in wing use. Sometimes coracoid fractures don’t heal for flight, and I’m afraid that may be what we’re seeing here. He’s got another week or so before I make a call on him.
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And the flyers, with the return to cooler temps, are rarely seen outside their nest box during the day. I’m hoping conditions are favorable for their release by mid-month.