I was recently in contact with a person who offers fundraising advice to nonprofits. This person’s suggestions to me mostly covered tactics I was already using to little avail, but the big suggestion that really stuck in my craw was to de-emphasize the crappy aspects of rehab and focus near-exclusively on the “cute” stuff.

I stewed a while and finally decided to address this issue openly. Keep in mind that I offer the plain, unvarnished truth and that tact is not one of my many skills or talents.

Folks, I’d like nothing better than to report every week on the cute, sweet babies and adults that I put back into the wild. That, however, isn’t reality—not by a long shot. I don’t post these blogs to reinforce the “Disney” version of wildlife rehab, where all we do all day is play with healthy, happy animals who miraculously learn to be wild despite our constant cuddling. No, I post them to show what we really do—that while we do have successes and cute critters sometimes, this is frequently the exception rather than the norm. People need to understand how brutal and heartbreaking wildlife rehab can be sometimes; it may help them grasp why we’re as a whole an irritable, cynical lot.

Case in point: this past week. It was a hellacious, frustrating, heartbreaking week. Damn little went right from a rehab perspective. Every new intake except one either died within 24 hours or required euthanasia. I lost one of the screech owls to a rat snake (who will never eat another bird again). The single intake who survived this hellacious week may end up requiring euthanasia. Some fools left an unnested young hawk (of indeterminate species) on the ground for two days and only alerted me AFTER it had disappeared—like I could do anything at THAT point. And the “cherry on top” of this horrific week was the death this morning of the little bluebird I’d been fighting for two weeks to save. These are the weeks that make any rehabber with any vestigial shreds of sanity question their usefulness, efficacy and future as a rehabber.

So tell me, where’s the “cute” in that that’ll supposedly cause potential donors to open their checkbooks? Sometimes there IS no “cute”, only frustration, anger and sorrow. I don’t create fantasies where every intake is healthy, happy and releasable. I offer an inside look at a rehabber’s world, showing our struggle to retain some small degree of sanity, the constant scrabbling for funding, the frustration at unexplained deaths, the sorrow when a struggling animal loses the battle, the anger when people do stupid things—that’s our reality. I don’t hold back, openly admitting my mistakes and venting my frustrations, as well as sharing my successes and my sorrow for the ones I can’t save; otherwise I’d come across as some sort of superhuman hero—and I’m not. I’m an ordinary wildlife rehabber, flying by the seat of my pants and hoping like hell my britches don’t rip.

So…sorry if my lack of constant “cute” seals people’s checkbooks shut—and a final comment on that: the “cute”, healthy critters don’t usually need financial support as badly; it’s the ones who require more extensive care who eat through our limited resources most quickly, and if they’re not “cute” enough for people to help, then maybe those people are the ones with a problem, not me or any other rehabber.

On to this week’s litany of woes…

As I mentioned, the Eastern bluebird fledgling I’d been fighting to save lost her battle this morning.  A vet visit ruled out parasites but she was losing weight despite being fed every half hour. We tried a few last-ditch measures to see if they’d help, and yesterday she’d perked up and was not only gaping fairly consistently but was eating a few mealworms on her own.  I was hopeful that she’d turned the corner, was over whatever her mystery ailment was, and would begin to thrive again. Shortly after sunrise today, she died.

Earlier in the week, I got in a dog-attacked adult male bluebird. The only injury that I could find was a broken leg, and although the break was close to the joint, I thought he had a chance.  Setting the leg was probably the easiest such task I’ve ever engaged in, and he was flexing his foot within seconds of my final wrap. I was so excited! Two hours later he had one grand mal seizure and died. There were probably internal injuries, but there was no swelling or hardness indicative of internal injuries.

The red-shouldered hawk stubbornly refuses to eat on his own but continues to shriek like a banshee when I feed him—or look at him, for that matter.

This blue jay came in as a pre-fledgling early in the week, and while I found no injuries, when he hopped out of his nest within a day of intake, he refused to place any weight on his left leg. A vet visit for him confirmed no injuries, with the possible exception of nerve or soft tissue damage, neither of which will show on an x-ray or can be felt with a physical exam. I had started steroids prior to his vet visit; we opted to continue this treatment. I stopped, however, when swelling developed in the joint above his foot. To date, the swelling remains; Epsom salt soaks have made little difference, although they have reduced the hardness of the swelling. If we can’t get this issue straightened out, he has no future to look forward to; he can’t even stand properly at the moment. Keep your fingers crossed for the little guy—and for me. I desperately need a success story—and soon.

The screech owls should have been safe, but yesterday within the space of 30 minutes, a rat snake managed to get into their pen and eat one of my babies. Had I not been doing 30-minute checks, he probably would have eaten the other one, too; as it is, when I went to check on them, one of the babies was hanging from the top of the pen and I thought he’d gotten hung. I pried him loose and started to put him back into the shadowed area with his sib and the damn rat snake, hiding in the shadows, bit me—and to be honest, I was too pissed that he’d eaten one of my babies to even be alarmed that I’d been bitten (and rat snakes are non-poisonous, anyway, people, c’mon…). Needless to say, he was terminated with extreme prejudice. I realize it didn’t help the screech he’d eaten, but he’ll never kill another baby bird.

The surviving screech was pretty traumatized yesterday but has recovered and is full of piss and vinegar today. He's also been placed inside in a snake-proof reptarium, with a cardboard nest box.

The flyer has been moved to pre-release caging; the short clip below is from earlier in the week, when she was still taking small bits of formula from me. Sorry for the background roar; the AC in the rehab area is shot and I'm awaiting delivery of a new unit, so in the meantime we have fans set at max.

Here’s hoping this week is less fatal and less nerve-wracking. I really need a good week about now…

It was a pretty typical week, if any week in a wildlife rehabber’s life can be called typical: intakes, DOAs, euthanasias and releases. Oh, and the scattered phone calls/messages from people determined that despite the fact that my voicemail clearly states I’m taking only birds and flying squirrels, I was gonna by-God take whatever critter they had. (Helpful hint for anyone else thinking of attempting that approach: don’t ever engage in a battle of wills with me. I promise you, you will lose.)

Where to begin? Let’s start with some good news: the brown thrashers and Carolina wrens have been released, although the thrashers in particular are still hanging around. Nothing slack about brown thrashers—I leave the flight pen door open and keep a dish inside stocked with mealworms, and when they can’t find enough outside, they dart in for a quick buffet. And they’ll still take formula, although they’re getting a bit shamefaced about that! Georgia’s legislators did at least one thing right in their long history of screw-ups when they chose the brown thrasher as our state bird. They’re pretty, smart, have pleasant voices, and are just generally delightful birds.


The first set of photos and video clips is the Carolina wrens; the second set is the brown thrashers.

This poor cat-attacked adult great crested flycatcher didn’t even make it home. Rigor had set in by the time I walked in the door with her—and it was only a 15-minute drive to pick her up; 30 minutes round-trip. I say “her”; there’s actually no difference in male and female great cresteds, so…Point is, male or female, this time of year there were probably eggs or babies in the nest who lost a parent, meaning their chances of hatching/survival diminished pretty much to null.

I really thought maybe this female red-bellied woodpecker had a fighting chance when she came in. Her wounds also looked consistent with a cat attack and had already been covered with maggot eggs, but she was alert and feisty, so I cleaned the maggot eggs off, medicated the wounds and started her on meds. There may have been some fractures beneath all the bruising and swelling, but she didn’t make it through the night for me to get x-rays and find out. Again, she probably had eggs or babies in the nest who now will never hatch or die from hypothermia (hatchlings cannot regulate their body temperatures and must be brooded by the female in order to survive). 

Folks, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: cats belong INSIDE where they can’t murder songbirds.  I don’t know how to get this point across to people who stubbornly refuse to grasp the concept that their cat is a natural predator and will hunt and kill prey whether s/he’s hungry or not. It’s just what cats do. Accept this fact and KEEP YOUR CATS INSIDE!!!

The young red shouldered hawk—and we’re all in general agreement now that that’s what he is—continues to be a paranoid, vocal little snot. His cries are so loud that I can honestly FEEL my eardrums vibrating as I feed him—and he refuses to even attempt self-feeding yet.

I love the close-up below, as you can see the down on his head really well. Doesn’t it strongly resemble dandelion fluff?!

When the caller said this brancher/juvenile barred owl hit the side of his elderly mother’s house, waking her at 1AM and badly breaking his wing, I was a little surprised that a barred owl smacking a house could do the extensive damage the caller described. It didn’t seem to follow. When I got the poor fellow, I immediately told the caller, who picked up the bird from his mother’s and got it to me, that the damage wasn’t caused by hitting a house. This young barred owl had been attempting to escape from and possibly in the grasp of a great horned owl.  When people talk about “nature taking its course,” THIS is a prime example of that phrase in action: no humans or human activity caused this damage. The open fracture on the right wing was a result of this poor little guy’s attempt to avoid being eaten, but it resulted in his having to be euthanized, anyway. And as I told another rehabber when we were discussing this very likely scenario, not only did the poor barred owl end up losing his life anyway, the GHO went hungry. Talk about a lose-lose situation…

When another caller early in the week said she’d found a mockingbird in the middle of the road, I really wasn’t surprised, even though the little nestling was much too young to be out of the nest. Unnested mockers seldom stay near their nests; they hop/walk/hobble to odd places like the middle of the road. This little guy had some mild bruising but was otherwise in good physical condition, or so it initially seemed. There was, however, something systemic going on with the poor little fellow. He sat in his own poop and slung/drooled food all over himself, necessitating a swab-down or outright bath nearly every single time he was fed.  He also suffered from what we call “failure to thrive.” This means that while he was alive—barely—he wasn’t developing as he should have and was just generally not in good shape. As his condition continued to worsen, I made the decision to euthanize, as it seemed to be the kindest option for the poor baby. The photo below was post-feeding/pre-bathing.

The bluebird remains inconsistent: gape for one feeding, wait to be force-fed for the next. She also tends to be up and down physically; I honestly thought a couple of times this past week I was losing her, as well. When she’s “up” she’s a perky, vocal little sweetheart; when she’s “down” she breaks my heart as she sits silently, eyes closed. She also has issues flying, which she should be doing by now. She can barely break a fall, though.  I’ve started interacting with her more than I normally do with rehabs, as there is a distinct possibility at this point that she might be nonreleasable. My goal and my fervent hope is to see her back in the wild where she belongs; if this turns out not to be the case, we’ll explore the possibilities of making her an educational bird, because she does have a wonderful little disposition.

No photos of the flyer this week, just a short video clip of her first experience with a pecan. She can’t decide whether to eat it on the spot or take it into her nest box and hide to chow down! The birdcall you hear as she bolts out of sight is actually my phone ringtone: brown thrasher.

And finally, we have two tiny bundles of impossible cuteness: when a resident near a local lake began pressure washing his boat, an odd noise made him stop. As he investigated, he found these two drenched, half-grown screech owls. As best I can guess, their nest may have been in some cavity on the boat and was destroyed during the pressure washing. They were hungry and somewhat bedraggled when they came in, and the finder was beside himself with worry over the little rascals. As a precautionary measure, in case they got water in their lungs during their unscheduled pressure washing, they’re on meds. They have healthy appetites, though, and are starting to try and tear at their own food, so that’s a good sign.

In this video clip, they’re pretty ravenous.

In this one, they’re satiated.

And this is just adorable! I dare you to watch this and not yawn and grin! This little guy’s belly was full and his eyes were heavy. He fought sleep valiantly, but sleep won…

We’ll lead with the release: both brown thrashers and the mockingbird went into the flight pen this past week; the mocker continued his manic behavior, as you can see in the video clip below. 

Since all three were mostly self-feeding and I do soft releases anyway, I opened the flight pen door to see if anyone was ready to leave. The mocker hauled his little feathered butt out and didn’t look back. The brown thrashers, however, realizing that it’s nice not to have to hunt for your food, opted to hang around in the flight pen for a while longer. They don't wanna give up that guaranteed supply of mealworms!

The remaining three Carolina wrens checked out this week. I don’t normally lose an entire nest of even Caros, and to be honest, this loss was partially my fault. Caros need to be released as soon as possible after they begin self-feeding; with this lot, I had the larger birds in the flight pen and I was reluctant to put the Caros in there, too, because they tend to flit along the ground right at your feet and I’m paranoid that I’ll step on and crush one of them while walking around feeding the larger birds. I’ve come close a couple of times, to the point that I now shuffle my feet rather than pick them up when I have Caros in the flight pen. Anyway, I delayed putting these babies in while I waited to see whether the thrashers and mocker would decide to fly the coop…and that single day’s delay was enough to do those last Caros in. They quite literally went from chipper and active in the morning to dying by early afternoon. I’m not happy, but I can’t blame anybody but myself; I knew better than to delay…

However, it being baby season and Carolina wrens being one of LWR’s “frequent fliers”, another nest of 5 came in last week, the day before I lost the last three from the first nest. These babies were already partially feathered when they arrived, so honestly, the chances of all 5 surviving are slightly better. I like to call Caros little feathered rabbits—they’re that fragile and stressy, yep. 

The flying squirrel is eating solids quite well now but still also enthusiastically taking her formula. Of course, during the day when I’m taking photos, she’s generally asleep, but that makes for some adorable shots!

And now I just know y’all’re eager to find out about the “oopses”, right? Well, the downy raptor I was so sure was a Mississippi kite last week actually doesn’t seem to be either a kite OR a red shouldered hawk! He’s hypervocal, hates to be handled, is very “footy” and now has to be force-fed, although he wants the food. I’ve even discussed him with other raptor rehabbers and none of us are quite sure what his exact species is, although Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends and I are entertaining the possibility that he might be a broad-winged hawk.  Don’t see a lot of broad-wings, adult or otherwise, in rehab, so…we’ll have to wait and see on this guy!

And the final “oops” is an absolute delight. Remember last week’s mystery nestling? The one I tentatively ID’d as a barn swallow? Yeah, well, so did a rehabber who specializes in swifts and swallows, so I don’t feel too bad about this mixup…

When she came in, her feathers were still mostly keratin-encased and strangely dark; she was stressed and nonvocal and rather lethargic. BUT…as her feathers broke through, the meds kicked in and she started vocalizing, she turned out to be a gorgeous little female Eastern bluebird! I was thrilled when I thought she was a barn swallow, as they’re adorable little birds and among my favorites to rehab; I was ecstatic when I discovered she was a bluebird, as I’d have to rank bluebirds at the top of my rather lengthy “favorites” list.

In the video above, she couldn’t quite figure out the whole “mealworms are to eat" concept so she just kept vocalizing and turning but wouldn’t get out of the dish!

Yeah, it’s been a weird, weird week, with intakes, losses and a mystery nestling who’s not looking real good at the moment…Where to start?

The Carolina wrens have dropped in number; there are three left.  For some reason, I seldom have a full nest of Caros make it, so while I’m not happy about losing two babies, it is almost a given that it’s gonna happen. These three seem to be doing well, though, so fingers crossed for them. Carolina wrens are stressy little birds.

The nest of house finch hatchlings that came in last week after being alone all night didn’t survive. I had high hopes for the wee ones, but apparently there were some underlying issues that didn’t show on a physical exam, poor babies. They were alert and eating well…and then they were gone, just that quickly. Died in their sleep. This is one of the frustrations of wildlife rehab: critters that should have every chance at eventual release just keel over for no apparent reason.

On the bright side, the six older finches were all released this weekend, after a week of daily rain delayed their release to the point that they were as eager to go as I was for them to go. They flew the coop and didn’t look back. I managed one shot of the last one to leave.

Two brown thrashers came for an extended stay at the LWR B&B this week, one confiscated by school officials from a child who brought it from home and another that a lady had kept illegally for a week, but “now it’s ready to put out and I don’t know how.” I commented on how interesting it was that she kept the bird a week, looking up how to feed it online—a diet that wasn’t the worst I’ve seen but wasn’t balanced, either—and yet none of those sites apparently mentioned the illegality of her actions, but now suddenly, when the novelty wore off, she discovered she was breaking the law and was miraculously able to find my contact info.  Didn’t faze her. Some people are hopeless.

At any rate, both thrashers are doing fine, other than not being able to decide if they like or hate each other. Sometimes they’re cuddled together; other times they’re at opposite corners of the cage. They’ve been given some water and “big bird” food. So far they play with the mealworms but they do know what the bath water’s for!

When a call about downed pileated woodpeckers came in after a particularly nasty, rainy, windy day last week, I was saddened to hear that four of the six babies were found dead after their nest was destroyed when the snag it was in split in two. Of the surviving two babies, one didn’t look good and the finders thought maybe the second had a chance. The first one died en route. The second, suffering from exposure in unseasonably cool, rainy weather; maggot eggs in his nose, ears, beak and pretty much everywhere else; a broken leg and massive internal bleeding, lasted about five minutes after I walked in the door with him. As I adore pileated woodpeckers, this really sucked. These babies’ eyes were just starting to open…

The grebe was released, and never was there a happier little bird. He dove under the water and disappeared; we started looking for him, and within seconds, his little head popped up like a cork a third of the way across a large pond…and then it disappeared again…and bobbed up even farther away! Grebes are expert divers; they dive to escape predators, since they’re such lousy flyers. One source actually describes them as part bird and part submarine! They even build floating nests, because they can’t maneuver on land. Talk about neat birds…

No baby season would be complete without a mockingbird or two, but honestly this little guy is psychotic. He acts like there’s some Cooper’s hawk somewhere in his ancestry! (NOT possible, folks, but it’s the best analogy to explain his insane behavior.) I’ve even had to move him back into a cardboard box because he managed to scrape and bloody his beak on the pen I had him in—he flings himself at the sides of whatever he’s in…over and over and over and…

This red-tailed hawk was hit by a truck Saturday and not gotten to LWR until today because the callers “got your voicemail yesterday”. Okay people, what part of “LEAVE A MESSAGE” is in Swahili?? If you don’t leave a message, I presume you have a species I’m not currently taking or live outside the area I serve. This ain’t rocket science, folks—leave a message! Nine times out of ten, I call back within 5 minutes!

At any rate, the RT isn’t lookin’ real good. His legs dangle limply but do respond when tested for feeling, so…we’re trying a little anti-inflammatory to see if maybe there’s just swelling compressing the nerves. My gut says we have an unfixable spinal injury, but I’m not willing to give up on the guy without a fight.

And here we have a downy…well, I originally said red shoulder, but it’s actually a Mississippi kite. I have a history of confusing the young of these two species, but he’s a kite. He was found on the ground with a dead sib nearby, and his rescuers drove about two hours one-way to get him to me, so he’d have a chance at life. Given his relish for food, I think he’ll be just fine.

This little flying squirrel was also driven quite a distance to get to LWR after she was found on the ground in the rain. She’s about 6 weeks old and loves her formula but doesn’t care much for solids yet, aside from blueberries.  She can chow down on a blueberry! Mostly, she still sleeps, though.

And rounding out today’s update, we have…I dunno. It’s a bird. It’s a nestling. I can reel off all the birds it’s NOT, but right now, I’m not sure what it IS. Too small for a mocker, too big for a blue-gray gnatcatcher…And it may not matter in the long run. This baby was gotten to me within an hour of being found but he’s weak-eyed and somewhat lethargic, and I’m not happy with his breathing—it’s too labored.  Antibiotics to the rescue—we hope.  We’ll see how the meds work and hope for the best. (And if any of my fellow rehabbers recognize the species, let me know!)

EDIT: Pretty sure my mystery nestling is a barn swallow. (But still willing to entertain suggestions from fellow rehabbers!)