As if needlessly and mysteriously injured birds weren’t enough to make this past week crappy, yesterday we had two bands of severe storms move through, one in the morning and one in the evening, near dark. The first saturated already-damp soil; the second had high winds that uprooted an approximately 25-foot sweet gum tree…onto the new raptor flight pen.

By flashlight last night it looked as if the structure was undamaged—the tree appeared to be mostly leaning against the side—and the owl never even moved from his perch, so he was fine. 

In daylight the tree didn’t look quite as daunting leaning against the raptor flight. 

My father got his tractor and cable, hooked the cable to the tree and with one clean, smooth jerk, lifted it right off. To our delight, the only damage was a slight ding to the edge of the roof. It’s a testament to the skill of the young men who built the flight that it was structurally sound enough to withstand a tree crashing into the side with only a ding to show for it!

We’re still evaluating the owl for flight capability. He has at least moved to a new perch after spending most of last week on the “ladder” perch.

This adult mourning dove was attacked by a cat and kept by the finder for three days before being brought to LWR. How he survived without antibiotics is honestly beyond me. As you can see, his tail feathers have been ripped out; he’s missing most of the feathers on both wings, and he had a severe puncture wound on his left side and a lesser one on the right.

Folks, crap like this is why cats belong INDOORS. While feral cats are a large part of the problem, free-roaming house cats are just as culpable—maybe more. Studies have shown that well-fed cats are actually more successful predators, as they’re not starving and desperate and will stalk their prey more carefully.

Further, free-roaming and feral cats are exposed to dangers of their own, ranging from vehicles to coyotes to owls to poisons and traps intended for other victims. And that doesn’t even touch on the injuries from fighting and the diseases they both pick up and spread.

I have cats. I love my cats. But for their safety—and for the safety of the wildlife in and around my yard—my cats are indoor-only. It’s my considered opinion as both a cat owner and a wildlife rehabber that only irresponsible and uncaring individuals allow their cats to roam freely outdoors. If you love your cats “like family”, then by-God TREAT them like family and bring them in the house with you!

The good news for this dove is that his injuries seem to be healing nicely, so all we have to do now is wait for all those ripped-out feathers to grow back…He’s one of the lucky ones.

The cardinal is still inside, as the adorable little brat stubbornly refuses to self-feed.  As a rule, I don’t put birds in the flight pen unless they’re doing at least some limited self-feeding. 

And because we had alternating days of sun and rain all last week, the young mourning dove is still in the flight pen. The predictions are for several consecutive days of clear weather early this week, so my goal is to get him out while the weather’s cooperating.

This adult red-headed woodpecker came in at the height of yesterday’s morning storms. He was found by a utility pole near dark the previous day, and the finder thought he had a wing injury. Upon examination, however, it became evident that he had spinal trauma of some sort. His legs were limp and useless but he was able to poop, and he was alert and had a healthy appetite—and could self-feed from a low dish.  I started meds in hopes of reducing any swelling that might be pressing on spinal nerves, but thus far there’s been no improvement. His spine looks odd just above the tail, as you can see in the video, but it doesn’t feel broken and he can move his tail. We’ll give him some time and see what happens.

The possums eat at night and sleep all day, so I actually seldom see them out and about except when it’s cage-cleaning time.  I can report that they have healthy appetites!

Now that the gray squirrel is in pre-release caging, meaning limited human contact, he’s become quite camera-shy.  Based on his age, behavior and eating habits, he’s pretty close now to release.

The Northern rough-winged swallow is getting restless and vocal, so we’re gonna try her in the flight pen this week and see who she does. Again, I’m hopeful but not optimistic that she’ll be capable of the skillful flight she’ll need for release. Fingers crossed, though…

When a caller said her son found a young killdeer in their back yard near dark mid-week, I urged her to try to reunite the baby with its sibs and parents. Killdeer are stressy little birds, and the only ones I’ve had success with in the past have been mildly injured adults. She had tried to locate his family the previous evening and the morning that she called me, and even took off work to go back home and try again, with no luck. 

Fortunately for both the killdeer and me, he’s an older baby and is doing quite well. Me, maybe not so much.  As I learned with my first killdeer experience years ago, these birds apparently never sleep! (Just kidding…I think…) As you know by now, birds are generally either diurnal (active during the day) or nocturnal (active at night). Some species, like screech owls and the nightjar family, tend to be more active at dawn and dusk, the “in-between” hours. Killdeer, however, are active all day and all night. Guess what that means for a rehabber? Can we say severe sleep deprivation, boys and girls?

He’s a sweetheart, though, so sleep-deprived I’ll remain until he’s old enough for the flight pen…

Well, slowish for a monsoon-like week at the beginning of baby season, anyway. (And within a few weeks, I’ll probably be looking back fondly at this nice lull…)

Let’s start with the long-termer—the barred owl. He’s in the flight pen now, after almost a week’s delay thanks to the aforementioned daily downpours. However…I’m not real hopeful he’ll ever be able to fly. Apparently, as we feared, the tendons in his barbed-wire damaged wing tightened/shortened as they healed, despite physical therapy in hopes of avoiding that scenario, and he’s currently not able to extend it even far enough to flit.

Since he’s just been in the flight for a couple of days, though, I’m giving him some time to see what transpires. He may surprise me yet.

The mourning dove experienced the same rain delay and was about to go stir crazy by the time I got him out to the songbird flight. He’s got the flying thing pretty well under control, and he’s totally self-feeding, so basically he just needs another week or so to build up his flight muscles a little more.

Unfortunately, not all was cause for celebration at LWR last week. When the call came about a nest knocked from a tree in a parking lot some 50 miles away, volunteers Marshall and Laurie drove there and picked up the only baby found, who was in such bad shape that Laurie thought he’d died several times on the way to LWR.

This poor nestling grackle did, in fact, die just two hours after arriving at LWR. You can see some of the bruising on his little body in these photos, taken when I was trying to rehydrate him prior to his death. Because he had no use of his legs or feet, it seems likely he had spinal trauma of some sort, as well.

When the county seat’s water treatment plant called, reporting an owl just sitting in the open on one of their pipes, they were worried it was a baby. Because their description was more confusing than helpful, I asked them to send me a photo, since if it had been a brancher there was no reason to intervene, as the parents were likely nearby. However, it was an adult great horned owl in really bad shape.

Since this facility was within “baby-feeding” distance (feed the cardinal, drive like a madwoman to the site while cussing like a sailor at all the slowpokes in front of me, get the ailing owl and haul butt back home, arriving just in time for the cardinal’s next feeding) and due to…other factors related to the ability—or lack thereof—of the folks there to deal with the owl, I drove there to capture him myself. This wasn’t too difficult, as he was so far gone he pretty much just sat there and let me toss a small net over him.

A quick “parking lot” exam revealed he was starvation thin; a more thorough exam back at LWR indicated capillaria and possibly frounce, as well. Rehydration was the first order of business, followed by very small, frequent meals and meds for the capillaria and frounce. He kept all the food and fluids down, seemed more alert, and even hissed at me once—all promising signs. Unfortunately, by the next morning, he had relapsed to his lethargic intake state and died later that day.

The Northern rough-winged swallow is self-feeding, which is excellent news. As for her wing, it will be at least another week before we know anything for sure. I’m hopeful but not optimistic about her chances for release, but we’re gonna give her that long shot and keep our fingers crossed.

The squirrel is now in pre-release caging and doing well; another couple of weeks and he’ll be good to go.

Normally during baby season I don’t take on “fur” unless it’s flying squirrels, but when game warden Rodney Horne called to see if I could take 3 possums whose mother had been hit by a car, his description of their size indicated they should be self-feeding. That I can manage without feeling like either the fur or the feathers are getting short shrift, so these three hissy, pissy little rascals are now partaking of the LWR buffet until they’re big enough to release.

And saving the “best” for last…my, what a difference a week makes! For your convenience, I’ve re-posted a photo of the cardinal from last week.

Here’s the little rascal three days later:

He’s actually not gaping, or begging for food, here; I caught him in a yawn!

And below are two pix of him from Saturday. Guess who else will be in the flight pen by next week!

Nestling cardinals have naked, bulging eyes that I find adorable. They also have an endearing habit of “beak licking” after eating. Because all three of these videos were cute, you get three chances to watch this darling lick his beak and doze off after feedings! 

Late last Sunday, LWR received our first official baby of the season: a days-old wood duckling who still had his egg tooth (used by hatching birds to break through the eggshell; falls off a few days later); unfortunately, he hadn’t been with Mama Woodie long enough to learn how to self-feed—ducklings learn to eat by watching the adults scratch in the dirt and grass—and he was just too tiny to have a chance. He died overnight.

A couple of days later, callers in another county said they had an injured baby hawk; originally they thought it might be a baby eagle.  Volunteers AJ and Marshall “ponied” the baby bird to LWR. It was a fledgling mourning dove…Baby #2 for the season! He’s starting to scratch at the feed he’s being offered, so I suspect he’ll be in the flight pen next week.

And then an area college reported an injured great blue heron…that they’d known was injured for TWO WEEKS before anyone decided to quit picking their nose and scratching their butt and DO anything about it. Again, AJ, Marshall and Laurie “ponied” the bird to LWR. Unfortunately, the heron’s wing had an open fracture that had abscessed and, based on the viscosity and color of his poop, the infection had probably gone systemic.  Upon examining the bird, vet Jim Hobby at Smalley’s Animal Hospital agreed that our only option was to humanely end the heron’s suffering.

Next up was a call about a baby bird in a warehouse. When this bird arrived at LWR, it turned out to be an adult Northern rough-winged swallow, a very pretty little member of the swallow family. This little aerial insectivore (their diet is 100% insects, caught and eaten while flying, or “on the wing”) appears to have a coracoid fracture, which is—for lack of a better comparison to human anatomy—sort of like a broken shoulder blade. It’s not a totally accurate analogy, but you get the idea. I’ve mentioned the fractures before but don’t think I’ve provided a comparison previously. Swifts and swallows generally don’t heal well from these types of injuries, but we’ll remain hopeful.

This little lady (gender arbitrarily assigned) is a sweetheart but because she’s used to eating on the wing, she refuses thus far to self-feed from a dish of live insects. This means she has to be hand-fed every half hour, just like a baby bird. It will be several weeks before she can be placed in the flight pen to see if she will heal to 100% flight capability, so keep your fingers crossed for this sweet little bird. 

The barred owl is slated for movement to the flight pen this week, so we can see how well his wing has healed for flight. Remember, he had no broken bones, just severe tissue damage from being caught in a barbed-wire fence. Hopefully the damage wasn’t massive enough to impede his flight; we’ll soon see…

And the gray squirrel is getting camera-shy and ready to be moved into a pre-release enclosure, where he’ll stay until he’s ready for full release.

This darling little cardinal came in with a dead sibling; the couple who found the nestlings said when they called that they didn’t think the sib would make it, and it died en route. The babies had been placed back in the nest twice previously, but this last fall caused internal bleeding in the DOA nestling; his little belly was full of blood. This surviving nestling, however, is doing well and has a healthy appetite.

Finally,  in case you missed the casual references above to flight pen use, the flight pens are in fact ready for occupancy!!! Since I can’t very well hold an open house for y’all to tour ‘em in person, below are short video tours of each flight—as well as pix, of course. A huge and heartfelt THANK YOU to all the folks who helped make these pens a reality!

We had two releases and a resumed migration at LWR this week: the cranes, after a week of increasing restlessness, finally flew the coop, and we wish them good luck and Godspeed.  But I did manage to snag way too many new photos and videos of the stilt-legged beauties, so enjoy their last week hanging around LWR!

And after so long that his release seemed like an unlikely event, the cedar waxwing finally regained his freedom last week. Not sure who was happier, him or me. Probably him, but I won’t swear to that, as I nearly danced a celebratory jig!

AND…the red-tailed hawk who’d come in as a traumatized bird was also released. Her release was a bit of a nail-biter to begin with, but she quickly showed her stuff and soared to freedom.

This poor adult male red-shoulder hawk wasn’t as lucky. He came in with an old open fracture that had already begun healing incorrectly in the wild—that it didn’t get massively infected is a minor miracle, but not enough to save the bird. The wing was, unfortunately, trashed and he was euthanized.

The rabbits didn’t make it—no surprise, given the stats I quoted you last week. Cottontails and rehab are generally not a good mix, unfortunately.

The kingfisher, after a valiant struggle all last week, gave up Saturday. His wing wounds were healing nicely, so that wasn’t the cause. I suspect sheer stress was the culprit; he refused to self-feed so I had to force-feed several times a day, and I could feel his heart about to pound out of his chest each time. The colleagues I spoke with about kingfishers all mentioned their proclivity to extreme stress, so this seems a likely cause of death.

And the barred owl continues to heal nicely and gets more aggressive with each passing day—always a good sign, although I am worried about the possibility of limited mobility in that wing. We’ll have to wait and see…

The squirrel is more active and has been moved to more spacious digs.

And the fill dirt is completely down in the songbird flight and nearly done in the raptor flight. By next week the gravel should be down and hopefully we’ll have perches in place!