Possibly so! If you’ll recall, last Sunday I had three nestling finches. This past week, three more came in, only slightly younger than the original three, so they’re now all in a reptarium inside, pre-outside flight pen, until their flight skills improve and they start eating some on their own. They’re active and vocal little rascals as they half-fly, half-walk from perch to perch.  I love this awkward, silly stage. They’ve also discovered the joys of bathing!

And today, four more house finches, hatchlings this time, came in. The nest, built in a wreath, fell yesterday, and the couple whose house hosted the wreath did everything right. They first attempted to put the nest back in place, but it fell again, this time breaking apart. The couple then took the remnants of the nest and placed them in a more secure spot, about two feet away from the wreath, according to the wife. The parents should have found the babies by their peeping for food, but they didn’t. The mother never returned to her babies, so these featherless, eyes-closed wee ones remained without brooding all night.

The couple worried about them all night, even going so far as to find a recording of finches and play it near the nest before dark, hoping to attract the mother to her babies. This morning they were cold and listless, so the wife called me in tears and described what they’d done. It should have worked. It’s worked in the past. I told her they’d done exactly what I would’ve recommended but now, since Mama Finch hadn’t returned, those babies needed to be on low heat immediately and then gotten to me ASAP.

Within about 90 minutes I had three warm but lethargic babies. The fourth had died en route.  Once they were rehydrated, they perked up and we started small feedings—they’re tiny, so the feedings are small, anyway! They’re gaping for me now, and I think they’ve at least got a fighting chance.

So…yeah. Nine house finches (HOFI) now…Not my all-time HOFI record this early in the season, but pretty darn close!

Sadly, the Eastern bluebird eggs are gonna be a bust, it appears. One started pipping yesterday, and I got really excited, thinking that I’d have a hatchling within hours. Bluebird eggs normally take 1-6 hours to hatch. By hour 12, I knew we had a problem.  Sadly, the poor baby pipped but never finished absorbing the yolk sac prior to hatching. It basically “died a-bornin’.” Putting it in human terms, it would be like a woman carrying a child to term, healthy right up to birth, and then it being stillborn for no apparent reason.

The other bluebird egg seems to’ve stopped developing. I’ll give it several more days to see what happens, but my guess is that it won’t hatch and when I declare it a lost cause and open it to see what happened, I’ll find a gray sludge of half-developed embryo. I’ve seen it before when I removed unhatched eggs from my bluebird box the fourth day after the others have hatched, and again, the best human analogy here would be a miscarriage late in the pregnancy.

Whenever LWR gets a call about baby birds in really odd places—boat motors, grilles of seldom-used vehicles, tractor tires, pants pockets (no joke!), inside apparently sealed boxes—I’m 99% sure we’ve got Carolina wrens coming in. Sure enough, last week a recycling business called and said someone had brought in an old air conditioning unit for scrap metal, and the business owner heard a racket inside…yep, five nestling Carolina wrens, eyes just beginning to open!

They weren’t too long without food, so they were in good shape when they came in and remain hungry little rascals. I adore these loud-mouthed, perky little birds with their amazingly long, slender beaks—even as babies, their beaks are so distinctive!

And I don’t see pied-billed grebes too often at all. The last one was several falls ago, and because he was out of breeding mode, he was actually a sweet little fellow. The grebe who came in last week, however, is in full breeding mode and thinks he’s loon-size—with all the attendant aggression. To give you an idea of how tiny he is, when I needed my personal tub back last night for a shower (the domestic mallard duckling is currently in the “rehab” tub), I took a plastic storage tub (app. 30 inches long, 20 inches wide and 24 inches deep) and filled it with water, and the aggressive little fellow not only has room to swim; he has depth enough to dive!  The video below of him glaring at the camcorder was while he was still in my tub; he freaks out when I walk near him in his storage tub “pond.”

Pied-billed grebes are not known for their flight skills; in fact, they seldom fly. Their legs, ending with funky lobed feet, are set so far back on their bodies that they’re very awkward on land,  so they spend the vast majority of their lives in the water and are amazingly skilled divers. That makes it all the more surprising that this little guy was found grounded in an industrial complex. His left wing was at some point broken in the wild and healed at the odd angle you can see above and in the photo below. For a bird that relied on flight for survival, this would be a death sentence; for a bird like a grebe that seldom flies, it simply means he needs a safe, predator-proof pond. I’ve already got a place in mind for this guy and just received permission from the landowners to release him there, so thank you to Chris and Shelley Baumann!

And finally, Amazon.com has a great new program, Amazon Smile, that allows you to have 0.5% of the cost of your eligible purchases donated to the charity of your choice, as long as it’s registered with their program—and LWR is, of course, registered.  As an avid Amazon user myself (in their early days I used to joke that I was the reason they turned a profit), I know that 0.5% can add up over time, so click on the link below and the landing page should show LWR as your charity of choice—then remember to shop Smile.amazon.com in the future, and you benefit LWR with almost no effort.  I mean, you don’t even have to get dressed and leave the house.  Seriously, folks—it can’t get much easier than that!

The red-tailed hawk in the photos below was retrieved from an elderly woman’s grille on 4-21 by a deputy in a neighboring county, who then took the bird to an individual in that county who apparently claims to be a licensed rehabber. After holding the bird for two days, during which it sat in its own excrement, she contacted me, claiming she was “all about helping animals” and that she was licensed.

I looked at the GA rehab list and told her I didn’t see her on the list, and she immediately retracted her lie, admitting that she was NOT, in fact, licensed but that she’d “rehabbed” several owls before. I informed her that holding birds without the proper permits was a violation of state and federal law, and she quickly said she knew this; she was a former law enforcement officer but she didn’t know who to call. Odd that she managed to locate me after the novelty of having the hawk wore off...

She then said this bird had “ligament damage” and offered me a steak supper to drive to her county to pick it up—a 45-mile one way trip for me (90 miles round-trip). I informed her she was out of luck on two counts: I’m vegetarian and I currently have baby songbirds requiring feeding every half hour, so she would have to get the bird to me. She managed to get the same deputy who initially rescued the bird to get it to me.

Upon first glance at the bird, it was obvious the leg was broken, and I could smell that nasty odor from the excrement indicating that there were internal injuries, as well. Additionally, the right eye was filled with blood and a whitish speck in the pupil led me to believe there was either a luxated lens or a detached retina—not that it mattered. The right leg was snapped at the knee—an unfixable fracture. The bird could not stand; it was lethargic; its breathing was shallow—in short, the bird was dying. I ended his suffering quickly and humanely—which I could have done two days earlier had he been brought to me in a timely fashion. Oral bleeding upon euthanasia indicated that my initial assessment of internal injuries was correct.

This Hall of Shamer had allowed this bird to sit in its own shit, in unspeakable pain, for TWO days while she told everyone, including the deputy who took her the bird, that she was a licensed rehabber. I informed him that she was NOT and gave him my contact information, which he will be sharing with the entire sheriff’s office in his county.

In the meantime, it would be LOVELY if DNR and FWS would make very public examples of some of these untrained, unlicensed individuals who do more harm than good, both to the wildlife they hold illegally and to the reputations of properly permitted rehabbers throughout the state.

Folks, THIS is why I hate people. And believe me, I’m not nearly as calm as this entry would indicate. I’m fuming, and reporting this individual to the state and feds and making her my first Hall of Shamer for 2014 is my way of venting that fury.

First, a fond fare-thee-well to the three GHOs: they were transferred to Bubba & Friends late last week. Below are a photo and short video clip of the clueless clan in their box for transport. Steve Hicks reports they’re doing well and have, after some initial hesitation, decided a fourth GHO he has is “good people”. Let the GHO fun and games begin…but not here! (Sorry, Steve...)

Last week this lovely male Eastern bluebird was a late-evening window-strike victim, as best his rescuer could tell. Following standard protocol, she kept him inside in a box overnight and attempted to release him the next morning. He could fly but was unable to perch, so she scooped him up and brought him to LWR. His left leg seemed weak, so I was worried that he might have a pelvic fracture. With some meds and a little R&R, however, he’d regained full use of his leg within a couple of days and was talking to me in that sweet, quiet little bluebird voice, letting me know he was ready to go.

His rescuer picked him back up and released him in her yard—his territory—where she reported he flew straight to the bluebird box she has up (and which she’d checked for eggs already, finding none). Sounds like he has a mate waiting out there somewhere and there’ll be eggs in that box soon enough!

This young Eastern cottontail was not as fortunate. He was taken from a dog and had no obvious injuries but couldn’t move his back legs and had no feeling in them. Rabbits have the unique ability to snap their own spines when in the clutches of a predator, which is probably what this young fellow did. There was nothing to be done for him but end his suffering humanely.

When a young woman was helping a relative move, she picked up a potted plant and loaded it onto her truck late in the evening. The next morning, she heard noise and found this nest of house finches under the foliage. House finches, in addition to having sweet voices, are sweet little birds. These little darlings have grown like weeds in the six days they’ve been at LWR and are starting to flutter their wings like crazy in their nest.

This little hatchling came in yesterday. He was found on the pavement in the rain and is a very recent hatch—he still has his egg tooth—see the little whitish dot on the tip of his beak?—and yesterday he still had a swollen “hatch belly”. His rescuer kept him warm but he was without food for at least six hours. He gaped first thing this morning but I’ve had to force-feed since then. We’ll just take it a day at a time with the little guy, hope he makes it,  and wait and see what species he turns out to be.

And…saving the big news for last: the Eastern bluebird eggs that I removed from the abandoned nest showed a network of blood vessels within four days of retrieval and as of yesterday, I could see the embryos moving slightly!

Here are photos from day 4:

And from yesterday, day 8:

Note the lessened opacity of the eggs as the embryos develop. Bluebird eggs have an incubation range of 11-19 days, and based on these eggs’ development at 8 days, I’m gonna guess we’re looking at somewhere near the outside range before they hatch—IF they hatch. As exciting as it is that they’re growing and developing, fully developed babies sometimes just don’t hatch, and “hand-hatched” babies don’t always thrive or survive. So yes, be excited with me, but temper that excitement with the knowledge that this still might not end well. We might have hatchlings by next week’s update, or we could still be waiting anxiously and hoping we have hatchlings!

I don’t mind admitting that this was one of those weeks that makes me question my sanity—I mean, really, what sane person continues to put themselves through one heartbreak after another, right?

Don’t worry, I’m not planning to give up rehabbing—not just yet, anyway. I just had a really crappy week, is all…

First off, no pix of the GHOs this week—I just honestly didn’t get around to snapping photos of them. They’re doing fine and getting footy when I clean their crate, which is a good thing—that and their beak clicking and hissing means they’ve totally retained their wildness, which is what we want.

And second—and the main cause of my moroseness today—the sweet little female flyer died earlier this afternoon.  She showed no signs of illness or injury; she was eating more and more solids but still taking some formula; she was alert and active…I’d just last week moved her into a larger indoor cage so she’d have more room to play until she was fully weaned, and she seemed to be quite happy, peering at me from the opening to her little nest box. This morning she took her formula as usual; four hours later, I walked into the rehab area and glanced at her cage out of habit, and she was sprawled on her belly on the bottom of the cage, dead. I have no clue what happened, but it definitely took the wind out of my sails today, I can tell you. I don’t like losing babies, period, but I especially don’t like losing them for no apparent reason.

Several days earlier, LWR had a ruby-throated hummingbird come in with a broken wing and, I suspected, internal injuries. I knew his chances of release were slim—hummers’ wings must be able to move in a figure-eight, and usually when they’re broken, they freeze upon healing, so the hummer doesn’t have full range of motion and can’t fly. Still, hummers generally do well in rehab, so it was worth a shot. Every now and then, a fracture will heal properly. This little guy was eating on his own but somewhat lethargic and any rehabber who’s ever worked with a hummer can tell you that they’re usually quite active, even with  broken wings. I was hopeful but not optimistic, and sure enough, he didn’t survive the night.

At the beginning of last week, we had a couple of days of what can only be described as a frog-strangler—it rained nonstop for nearly 48 hours: heavy, steady rain and wind. During all this inclement weather, several common loons migrating back to Parts North crash-landed on various pavements and tarmacs around the midstate area. As they were found in areas north of LWR, they went to a vet clinic in that area not skilled or experienced in dealing with migratory waterfowl and from there to a rehabber not licensed for birds. This rehabber did get the birds to LWR, but they were on the verge of being in bad shape when I got them.

Waterfowl MUST be in water at least once a day, to maintain waterproofing on their feathers and for the health of their eyes. For a loon, which cannot function at all on land—their feet are positioned so far back on their bodies that they cannot stand or walk on land—being in water becomes even more imperative. Two of these loons, the two who had been with the inexperienced vet the longest, showed definite signs of having been out of water too long. Add to that the fact that they had been kept for nearly four days, and in addition to their health nearly being compromised, they were behind the rest of the migrating flock.

After ensuring the birds were ready to resume their migration, I enlisted my nephew, niece-in-law and a couple of their friends to aid me with the release, so I could video while they let the loons go. There’s a lot of chatter on the release vid, as a result—sorry ‘bout that…

And rounding out a less-than-stellar week, a concerned landowner with a bluebird box up contacted LWR when the bluebirds who had built a nest in the box disappeared after the female laid two eggs. Being familiar with bluebird nesting habits, the landowner wasn’t overly concerned to begin with, but after 5 days had passed with only two eggs in the box, showing no signs of incubation, worry set in. The fear was that something had happened to one of the pair, leading to the abandonment of the eggs.

For a quick bluebird natural history lesson, the female usually lays one egg a morning for 3-6 days, sometimes skipping one day, for a clutch size ranging from 3-6 eggs. A young female might lay only two eggs. She won’t start incubating until the last egg is laid, but she will spend brief periods on the eggs before full incubation starts, so they usually feel as warm as or slightly warmer than the surrounding air. Once the last egg is laid, she may wait 4-5 days before beginning full-fledged incubation.

We were at the 5-day window of opportunity when the landowner became concerned at the lack of activity in and around the nest box. Not only had the mated pair disappeared; the eggs were cold, indicating not even the limited egg-laying incubation was taking place.

After assessing the situation and, because this was nearby, visiting the nest box for myself, I agreed that something was not right.  I removed the eggs from the nest and determined that they appeared to be viable, despite the lack of incubation to this point.  I made the executive decision to remove the eggs, as we were at the outside window of opportunity had the female been around to incubate. So…now we wait and see what happens. They may or may not hatch, but given the alternative—leaving them in an abandoned nest to rot—attempting to hatch them seemed like a better option.

To be perfectly clear on this, I do NOT recommend taking eggs from nests. It is a violation of federal law to disturb an active nest. If you’re unsure whether the female is incubating the eggs, lightly touch them. They should feel as warm as or slightly warmer than the surrounding air. Most eggs will have some feces on them from the laying process. Observe them closely; lay the feces-spotted side up and check back several hours later to see if the eggs have been turned. If the feces-stained side is facing down or to the side, the female is caring for her eggs; if not, be aware that, as I mentioned above, most birds wait several days after their last egg is laid before beginning the approximately two-week-long incubation period. If you know when the first egg was laid, you have a timetable to work with, which is why being aware of the bird activity in and around your yard is so important. 

If you’re still uncertain, please, PLEASE call your local songbird rehabber for further guidance. Never, ever remove eggs or babies from the nest unless instructed to do so by a federally licensed songbird rehabber who has determined that the removal is necessary--and I promise you, those instances are few and far between. This is only the second time in over 10 years that I’ve needed to do so, and I honestly don’t like doing it: it’s a fairly complicated and time-consuming undertaking, there’s no guarantee the eggs will hatch, and the survival of any hatchlings is iffy, at best.

Yeah, I actually had a lady call me last week with house finches she’d had for two weeks, and “now they’re getting ready for release, so I thought you might want them. I called you about some birds last year.”

Okay, so you had my number; you knew what you were doing was illegal—what’s your excuse?

“I thought they were sparrows.”

Hmmm…there are a zillion different species of sparrows, and only the house sparrow isn’t federally protected; how did you know these weren’t one of the numerous protected species?

“Well, they turned out to be house finches.”

Which you knew about a week into your illegal activities, so why didn’t you call me then?

Silence…

Okay, what have you been feeding them?

“[A commercial handfeeding diet for exotic birds], dairy products and [various other foods this bird wouldn’t have in the wild].” (I’m not listing specifics to avoid giving anyone else the bright idea to attempt this.)

None of that is appropriate for those birds. They now have severe nutritional deficiencies.

“They look just fine to me.”

Yeah, and I’ve had people bring me half-starved birds, covered with food and feces, with diarrhea that was pure water, and they told me they’d been taking “good care” of the birds.

I never saw the birds, but the Law Enforcement Division of DNR in this woman’s area is now investigating the situation. Yeah, I reported her; she was breaking the law and totally unrepentant about it. Don’t screw around with the wildlife I bust my butt to save, expect me to clean up your mess, and further expect me not to report your illegal activity.  Ain’t gonna happen.

And in another instance of “why the hell are your cats outside, anyway?” LWR received two young but independent (i.e., out of the nest and own their own) Eastern cottontails. The caller originally took one from her cat, then called me back less than an hour later with a second, also taken from her cat. Neither was injured but since cat saliva is toxic to rabbits if they ingest it while grooming themselves or each other—and also because I wasn’t letting her put the poor babies back out for the cat to kill the second go-round—I took the rabbits, wiped them down with a rabbit-safe cleaning cloth (designed for cleaning domestic rabbits), medicated them to be on the safe side, observed overnight and released the stressed little darlings in the deep woods behind my house. Rabbits don’t do well in rehab settings, so the sooner we can get them back out, the better.

There's not really much to see here; rabbits "freeze" when they feel threatened...and having some crazy woman standing over you with a camcorder HAS to feel like a threat!

The probable mocker hatchling from last week, sadly, didn’t make it. I fought to keep this bird alive for the entire week. He stopped gaping (begging for food). He had random diarrhea. His eyes never fully opened. And finally, Friday, everything resolved: he started gaping; the diarrhea cleared up; one eye was nearly fully open; he was twitching those little wings in true begging fashion…and Saturday morning, he was dead. There is very little more frustrating than struggling to keep a bird alive, seeing him “turn the corner” and seem to be on the right track, and then losing him…

Yet another GHO came in, so now I have The Three Stooges. Honestly, GHOs are such clueless rascals…The good news is that they’re all semi-self-feeding now. I cut up the food and place it in their crate; they eat on their own. Next step is feeding whole rodents.

Sorry for the crappy vid quality; it was very dark so I allowed YouTube to "fix" the lighting. You can see the GHOs better, but it's grainy. 

All the overwintering flyers but one have left the release caging, and I suspect the lone straggler will be gone within the next couple of days. That will leave just the youngest girl, about 7 weeks old now, who’s still taking formula but has discovered the joys of solid foods, as well. Yesterday I decided she was eating all the “good” stuff well enough to have a treat: her first pecan. Pecans are kinda like candy bars for squirrels in general—tasty but not exactly nutritious. She adored her pecan!

And finally, the local paper quite graciously ran a very lengthy article I wrote on baby bird season. It begins on page one of the .pdf below and continues on page 3. If you’re interested in further reading today, have at it!