Remember that breezy comment last week that the previous week had been a bit “easier”? Yeah, well, the rehab gods and Murphy were listening and collaborated to make sure this past week was a killer.

So here’s a list of what LWR received last week alone, bringing the total intakes thus far for JUNE only to 65 (at about 150 for the year, I think)—an all-time high for a single month: 5 nestling mockers, 3 nestling barn swallows, adult cardinal, fledgling downy woodpecker, pre-fledgling brown thrasher, 1st-year red tailed hawk; adult Mississippi kite, downy screech owl, 2 unrelated fledgling mockers, downy Mississippi kite, 3 red bellied woodpecker nestlings, 5 nestling chimney swifts, another fledgling mocker, 3 unidentified hatchlings, and a nestling mocker.

Good Lord, I’m exhausted just typing that. Okay, that’s this week’s update. Gonna go nap between stuffing gaping beaks…

Seriously, it really was a killer week.

Okay, let’s start with releases: all four red bellies flew the coop, and as luck would have it, I was in the flight when the last one to leave took advantage of the escape hatch, so we have a very short video clip of that to augment the release pix.

The cardinal also flew the coop, as did the blue jay.

The adult red shoulder with the wing injury is now flying like a pro around the raptor flight, as is the juvy red shoulder.  The juvy has yet to kill his first live prey, but that should happen this week. I’m waiting to hear back from the man who brought me the adult, as I’m hoping to release the juvy with him. No photos of them this week; they were uncooperative snots all week long.

The mourning dove is still not growing back the feathers ripped out by the cat attack several months ago now, so I’m beginning to lose hope she’ll be releasable.

The great crested flycatcher also has some lingering issues from her probable spinal injury. Her balance is off, making perching an iffy proposition for her on small branches, and she’s managed to ruin her tail feathers spending so much time on the ground in the flight. Still, she’s a sweet bird and as long as she’s eating I’ll give her a while longer to see how things develop.

And there are currently so many mockers in the flight I feel like I’m breeding the noisome little rascals. I haven’t even attempted pix of them; they’re all doing the typical mocker fledgling thing of staying on the ground begging. Right under foot. Constantly. I no longer walk in the songbird flight; I shuffle to make sure I don’t inadvertently step on a mocker underfoot!

Early last week a nest of hatchling mockers came in. The rescuers had been enjoying watching the parents feed the babies, and then suddenly both parents disappeared.  The hatchlings did very well the first two days and then began a steep decline. As I mentioned last week, birds hatch with sterile guts and their parents’ saliva as they feed them insects provides the gut flora they need to be healthy. My guess is these babies didn’t get enough of that gut flora; they didn’t make it.

Brown thrashers this young shouldn’t be in the middle of the road. That’s how this little fellow ended up at LWR. He’s skinny, so apparently his parents were having trouble finding enough food. We’re working on that…

This first-year red tail was confiscated from people who’d apparently been trying to raise it as a pet. The right wing was injured, probably broken. Steve Hicks of Bubba and Friends transferred him to LWR for x-rays to assess the severity of the fracture, but weeks, possibly months, of a crappy diet, took its toll and the bird died overnight.

Another transfer for x-rays from Steve was this adult Mississippi kite, whose wing was too badly damaged to be repaired. He was euthanized.

It took three rehabbers and two volunteers to get this downy screech owl to LWR. He was dragged in by the finder’s cat, so God knows what happened to his sibs.  She couldn’t drive to meet me; I had too many birds to drive halfway across the state to meet her…We seemed to be at an impasse. Luckily, one of my volunteers suggested contacting a deer/small mammal rehabber couple in a town halfway between me and the screech finder. They in turn contacted one of their volunteers, who not only drove all the way to get the screech but then drove it all the way to me. God bless the network we have going here!

As you can see, he’s still very, very young, likely only a few days old when the cat dragged him from his nest. There will be no further photos of him until his eyes open; he stays in a dark “nest cavity” just like he would in the wild to avoid potential damage to his vision.

Hot on his heels came a downy Mississippi kite. The rescuer had been watching the nest and found it destroyed on the ground after a severe storm in her area. This little darling’s sib was killed in the fall.

Barn swallow nests tend to be fairly sturdy initially, but they will reuse them year after year, and time, weather and the added weight of “repair” mud and nest lining can cause a nest to fall. That’s what happened to these babies. Their rescuer found them and a dead sib in the remnants of the nest and tried to place it where the parents would return, but when her efforts—which were logical and well-thought-out—were unsuccessful, she called LWR.

In case you’ve never seen the inside of a barn swallow nest, here are a couple of photos, one with the babies still in place and one after they’d been moved to an easier-to-clean nest. Pretty neat how they use the feathers from larger birds to line their nests, huh? My parents’ barn swallows use cattle egret feathers; some of the ones on this nest look like mallard breast feathers!

And here we have the sweet little loves in “rehab nesting”—easier for us to keep clean!

After another storm, callers reported having unnested blue jays, which turned out to be three nestling red bellied woodpeckers instead! They had no clue where the nest cavity might have been. These are voracious, aggressive little rascals, nowhere near the calm temperament of the nest of red bellies just released. That makes me think food was scarce for these babies, although they weren’t skinny at all on intake.

When people call about unnested chimney swifts, I always try to encourage them to give the parents a chance to feed the babies at the bottom of the fireplace.  A rehabber’s mantra is “The parents can raise them better if there’s a chance for that to happen.”  In this case the finder not only removed the unnested babies from the chimney, he WASHED them, as they were “dirty”. Well, DUH. They nest in chimneys—not exactly a sterile surgical environment there. Adding insult to injury he placed them sopping wet on a bed of leaves, broke up a Vienna sausage around them, making no further attempt to feed them, and offered them water FOUR times in 24 hours.

First, NEVER give baby birds water or other fluids. It’s all too easy to get into their lungs and kill them almost immediately. (Hummers are the exception to the “don’t feed” rule. Offer them nectar, preferably homemade and not the nasty red stuff, ASAP.) Second, would you deprive your CHILD of food for 24 hours??? I mean, really…I was not a happy camper when I got these babies and honestly, the jury’s still out on the damage done by the lack of food and bath/wet nest. They looked good for a couple of days; today, not so much. But they’re still eating eagerly, so we’ll see…

They’re in with the two swifts who came in as 5g hatchlings, so now I have seven swifts. One of the drowned swifts has a bad case of wry neck—his neck twists at an unnatural angle, which makes perching difficult for him and will make flight impossible. I suspect this is a “nest injury”, but he’s got another few days before I call it, as I want to make sure it’s not just a jammed nerve from the fall.

These hatchlings were found on the ground by young children, who called their mother, who got them to me. These babies were tiny-tiny, as you can see, so again the worry about whether they’d gotten enough gut flora from their parents kicked in…And they did so well the day of intake, pooping like little troopers, gaping properly—all normal behavior. So I was actually kinda hopeful we might pull this off and have these babies live to be properly identified.

Unfortunately, all three died overnight…And yeah, it sucks when that happens, especially before you even have a chance to know what they are…Although I’m thinking possibly chickadees…

And this morning, this cat-attacked nestling mocker came in. He’s on meds, of course, because as you should know by now—Lord knows I preach it enough—cat saliva and the bacteria in their claws are toxic to birds. That may be the least of his worries, though, as the cat managed to rip off the leading portion of his right wing—part of where the flight feathers would grow in. We’ll just have to wait and see if he’ll ever be capable of flight…

Folks, please, PLEASE…KEEP YOUR CATS INDOORS. It’s safer for them, and it’s damn sure safer for our wildlife.

Not quite at last week’s intensity, but not far off.  So between the older “inmates” and the newer ones, releases and rearranged living quarters, plus the shameless beggars still showing up for handouts, it’s been a “don’t take time to breathe” week.

The house finch and mocker that were in the flight last week have been released. The mocker is an infrequent beggar; the finch shows up more often.  The blue jay who was released last week is a demanding little beggar who’s quite aware he’s gorgeous!

The big news, however, is that the great horned owl passed his live prey test and was released! (And high time, too; two red shoulders were chomping at the bit to move into the raptor flight.)

Continuing with updates on last week’s babies, the chimney swifts have TRIPLED their weight! Remember they came in at 5g each; as of last night’s weigh-in, they were at 15g and 18g. They’re also now clinging like “proper” swifts, although their box remains on low heat in case they want it.

The red bellied woodpeckers “fledged” from their nest box over a 24-hour period and are now in the flight pen. As well as they’re flying, though, I suspect they’ll be released by this time next week.

The great crested flycatcher with suspected pelvic/spinal trauma is now perching and taking short flights; she’ll be in the flight pen by next week.

She briefly had a companion, as early last week a lady called with a fledgling great crested flycatcher with “wing damage.” Turns out the people had a ceiling fan on their front porch, knew the nest was there and the babies were about to fledge, and left the damn ceiling fan on anyway. This poor baby fledged right into the fan. Surprisingly, nothing was broken, probably because of her relatively slow fledgling flight. The flesh was chewed up, though.

Despite oral and topical antibiotics, the wounds abscessed, and draining did no good. The poor little thing died in her sleep.

Folks, if you KNOW there’s a nest near your porch, carport, dog pen—whatever—monitor it, even from a distance, and make sure YOUR actions or lack thereof don’t doom fledglings to death before they have a chance at life. It’s not that difficult: keep your dog or cat inside or confined somewhere away from the nest. Make sure there are no flystrips or other potentially deadly traps that poorly flighted new fledges can hit. Close up chemical containers and clean up any spills—thoroughly. Turn off any outside ceiling or other fans unless you’re outside using them. It ain’t rocket science, people; it’s just plain common sense and caring about your native wildlife.

Two additional mockers came in after a hawk raided their nest and they jumped to safety. Luckily, they were close to fledging so when their rescuer, who had witnessed the attack and subsequent escape, found them, they were unharmed.

These recent hatchlings were brought to LWR after the person monitoring their nest realized that one of the babies had disappeared overnight and the remaining three were cold and lethargic, indicating that whatever took the fourth baby also likely took the mama. With babies this young, it’s a crap shoot. The odds are stacked against them, and they usually don’t fare well. Two of these poor wee ones died within an hour of intake; the third lasted until dark.

Birds hatch with sterile guts; they get the proper gut flora from their parents’ saliva as they feed them insects and such. While rehabbers do use probiotics to mimic the parents’ gut flora, what we use is a sort of broad spectrum stuff. It works well for older hatchlings on up in age; it’s hit and miss with babies this young, who really need their parents’ gut flora to get them started.

When a friend called about a dove her husband had found with a deformed beak, I agreed to meet her and see what could be done. The poor dove—probably a Eurasian collared, although I didn’t see the tell-tale neck band—was starvation thin on intake and, given the severity of the damage to the beak, would have required euthanasia anyway, had he not died on the way home.

The Carolina wrens who came in last week began getting really scruffy-looking and dying, one by one. We don’t know the full story—how long were they without food in that jet-ski nest? What other factors were at play? How many people handled them before they came to LWR? All of these are factors that could cause them to “fail to thrive.”

These three Carolinas were found in a field, with no nest in sight. How they got there is anybody’s guess; luckily the lady who found them near dark called LWR the next morning. They’re doing quite well and even act more alert and “with it” than the four Carolinas from last week who didn’t make it. Who knows what factors are at play when these birds come in from the wild?

The cardinal remains in the flight pen and the fledgling blue jay from last week has joined her and the mockers and mourning dove and now the red bellies.

And like a Depression-era flophouse, the raptor flight didn’t have time to “cool” from the great horned owl’s departure before two red-shouldered hawks took up residence.

The adult red shoulder may have tendon/ligament damage. He’ll fully extend the wing but is incapable yet of real flight. For the moment, though, he gives the juvy red shoulder some company and an example of how to be a “real” red shoulder.

The juvy’s head feathers, as they come in, are giving him a nice punk rocker look. Kinda fits, considering that all he does is scream…

Take your pick.  Apparently last Sunday’s perfectly innocent observation that the month had started slowly was seen as a challenge to the rehab gods, who proceeded to royally slam LWR with intakes last week. Remind me to keep my big mouth shut…

So…Lordy, I’m too tired and scattered to even know where to begin…

The Eastern phoebe and blue jay were released; the blue jay is still swooping in for handouts. Blue jays are opportunistic little beggars, so like the pileated—who is also still showing up for treats—he’ll be around a while. The barn swallow died overnight during the week—fine, alert and happy at lights-out; dead the next morning, still in nesting position…

The cardinal and house finch joined the mocker and mourning dove in the flight pen.

The GHO was offered and ignored live prey, so he’s still in the raptor flight—and not too happy about it. The red shoulder NEEDS to be in the raptor flight, but Doofus in there has to figure out what to do with live food first, so I can release him. For those who may not be aware of it, raptors don’t play nice together; the GHO would gladly eat the red shoulder—well, a GHO with a well-developed predatory instinct would…

Two additional red shoulders came in, one a first- or second-year bird and the other an adult. The adult bird was brought by a game warden from several counties away and had been shot. A cursory parking lot exam led me to believe the injury might not be too severe; a more detailed exam when I got the bird home revealed that the wrist was shattered. This was not a fixable injury, and the bird was euthanized.

Folks, a reminder here: it is against state and federal law to go taking potshots at birds protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. And what birds would those be, you ask? Pretty much everything but house sparrows, starlings and pigeons. It’s also against the law to disturb a protected bird’s nest, eggs or young—and yes, that includes even those species some people consider nuisances, like crows, or a bird as tiny as a wren. They’re ALL protected by state and federal law, people!

As required by law, the gunshot red shoulder was reported to US Fish and Wildlife and to GA DNR, although the game warden from that county was already investigating the incident and knew that it was an unsupervised child who’d shot the bird. And oh Lordy, that brings on another rant—adults, teach your children how to handle guns properly! You think that child won’t move from potshots at birds to shooting cats and dogs and then maybe siblings or random strangers???  No child should be allowed to roam around unsupervised with a gun! Teach them proper respect for that weapon and what it can do!

The other red shoulder was found grounded on private property and I initially thought the wing was broken; what I thought was possibly a near-open fracture turned out upon closer examination to be a broken feather shaft—this is why parking lot exams are cursory, at best—with a lot of bruising.  The wing is still tender but the bird is doing well and should be releasable unless there’s tendon damage—no way to determine that until he’s put into a flight pen. (And see above on that; thankyaverymuch, Doofus GHO!)

Knowing they had fledgling blue jays in their back yard, the people who brought me the next two birds continued to allow their dogs and cats to roam that area and were shocked when they found one of the fledglings on the ground covered with ants and the other about to be cornered by a dog. They snatched up both birds and proceeded to spray the ant-covered baby with the water hose, filling his lungs with water and effectively drowning him. Then, as he struggled to breathe, they took his open beak as a sign that he was thirsty and plunged more water into his lungs. He barely survived the drive to meet me; he didn’t survive my drive home. The video clip below was shot in the car before leaving the parking lot.

Folks, if you find wildlife covered with ants, yes, water will remove them, but use extreme caution around the eyes, ears and mouth/beak.  It’s all too easy to get water into those tiny lungs, and it can be fatal almost immediately.

Fortunately, his sib is doing well, although not flying well enough for the flight pen yet.

When a tree trimmer got word that a rotten pecan tree was about to fall on a church, he did all the right things before cutting the dead tree down, so he was not happy when the tree fell to find a nest of woodpeckers on the ground. Woodpeckers are cavity nesters, so it’s very unlikely he would’ve seen the nest. Acting quickly, he called his wife to contact LWR while he drove the babies back to her; she brought them on to LWR while he finished his work.

It was a nest of four red-bellied woodpeckers, eyes barely open. Because they were brought to LWR within hours of being found, they were in good shape upon arrival and are thriving.

Here we have hungry red bellies:

And here we have just-fed red bellies:

Hear the difference? Yeah, me either. They actually do stop the sibilant calling after a few minutes; it takes their mouths a few seconds to catch up to their full crops. How they don’t manage to alert every predator in the universe to their location is beyond me!

The lady who found these Carolina wrens also acted responsibly. They were in a jet ski brought in for repairs, and since she worked elsewhere and was about to head to her shift when they were found, she called to see what she needed to do to keep them going until the next morning. I explained the emergency measures she needed to take, and the next morning all four little darlings came to LWR.

Here they are yesterday:

This pre-fledgling great crested flycatcher kept jumping from her nest and the people whose nest the property was on kept putting her back; they finally decided enough was enough and called LWR. After listening to their explanation, I agreed to take the bird, even though its parents and sibs were still around. Something’s just not right when a nestling bird won’t stay in the nest.

Upon receiving the bird, I saw at least part of the problem: the baby was massively mite-infested, which meant the nest and sibs were too. I explained to the rescuer what she needed to do for the remaining nestlings and took this baby home to begin “de-miting”. It took TWO HOURS to totally de-mite the poor bird, during which time I also began to suspect we might have a fractured pelvis from all the falls from the nest. The baby was placed in a soft “donut” nest, where she remains today, although she is showing some signs of improved foot/leg function. We’ll have to wait and see what happens, but I’m more optimistic than I was a few days ago.

And when a lady from a nearby county called with what she was pretty sure were chimney swifts, I shuddered in dread. Chimney swifts are sweet, sweet little birds, mind you, but they’re notoriously stressy and very labor-intensive wee ones.

Even the photo she texted me of them in her fireplace didn’t prepare me for how tiny these babies were upon intake: six recently hatched, totally naked (not all birds have hatchling down/fuzz) swifts weighing just 5 grams each. Tiny, tiny!

Unfortunately, one died on the way home and three more that night. This is not unusual, especially for such young birds. My Canadian colleagues at Swift Care Ontario are always a lifeline when I get in chimney swifts, and this lot was no exception. From intake onward, we had ongoing communication to ensure these babies had every chance possible, although Debbie at Swift Care Ontario acknowledged from the outset that it was very iffy with such recent hatchlings.

The two surviving swifts are doing well; one was a little lethargic on the day after intake but both are noisily demanding food now, which is always a good sign!

And to get a bit preachy again, aside from the illegality of possessing wildlife without a permit, people who do so are on their own, relying on utterly crappy information they find online, much of which should be titled “How to kill wildlife in 24-48 hours”.  They have no support network at all, aside from their ego-stroking buddies who encourage their scofflawery (and if that’s not a word, it should be). I’m grateful beyond words to my many colleagues across the globe, who provide advice, best practices, commiseration, humor, encouragement and that thin thread that keeps my sanity—and temper—from snapping entirely!

Oddly enough, after last week’s comment that May and June were usually the busiest months for LWR, this week has belied that assertion. Not that I’m complaining, mind you—fewer intakes means fewer critters in distress (hopefully), which is always a Good Thing.

No new releases for this past week, although the Eastern phoebe and blue jay are headed that way pretty soon.  

One of the mockers died with no warning overnight, which is always frustrating. They’re perfectly healthy at the last feeding for the night, and stiff the next morning—it happens more often than any rehabber would care to experience.

The other mocker is doing well, though, and chasing crickets around the flight pen. He’s getting pretty good at it, too!

The great horned owl continues to mature and is now flying AT the door as often as away from it; his time in the raptor flight is drawing to a close.

Of the three (just three—can ya believe it?!) new intakes for the past week, two were healthy and one had a life-ending injury.

When LWR volunteer Amy called about a great blue heron with what the finders told her was a leg injury, we weren’t real hopeful this was a fixable problem. Still, she arranged for a neighbor who works for DNR to capture the bird and get it to volunteers Laurie and Marshall, who transported it to me.

When I examined the bird I found only a small “ding” on the right hip, but a gaping open wound with exposed bone at the right elbow. Because it was a fresh injury and there was still a lot of swelling, I medicated for pain, cleaned the wound, started antibiotics and planned to get the bird to the vet the next morning.

Unfortunately, when I re-examined the wound the next morning, the swelling had gone down to the point I was able to see the full extent of the injury. While the joint seemed intact, the flesh was missing from the elbow and about an inch on either side of it.  It was basically ripped loose, as were the muscles, and given the location, sutures wouldn’t have held it closed—every time the bird flexed his wing, they would’ve ripped out. And because it was an open wound, there was no way to bind it against his body because of the very high risk of infection, even on antibiotics. Despite my cleaning it the previous night and starting antibiotics, the wound had already hatched maggots and started getting infected the next morning.  I suspect there might have been other internal injuries, as well, as he was the least aggressive great blue heron I’ve ever handled. He was euthanized.

The young red shoulder continues to scream his displeasure at life in general. He starts at daybreak to inform the world I’m allowing him to starve. Then, when I go to feed him, he screams as he runs around his cage, alerting the universe to my nefarious plan. He screams while he eats. He screams when his crop is so full the scream comes out as a gurgle. He screams when I look at him. He screams when I don’t look at him. He screams at nightfall when I turn out the lights. Basically, he just screams. He does shut up shortly after the lights go off. Thank God.

The house finch that was the sole survivor of his crashed nest has grown like a weed and is attempting short flights already—what a difference a week can make!

The people who found this pre-fledgling cardinal kept it for three days, feeding it watered-down dog food, the remnants of which you can still see in his neck feathers. A lady who’d brought me a bird several months ago found out about their idiocy and secured the bird, getting him to volunteer Amy ASAP—and just in time, too. When Amy opened the box for me to look at the bird, he shot a stream of projectile diarrhea a good six inches.

Folks, feathers need to be PRISTINE on birds. First, goop on the feathers as they’re coming in and growing out can lead to deadly infections. Second, gooped-up feathers can interfere with flight capability, making a fledgling who’s already at a disadvantage as a “learner” flyer an even easier target for predators.  Third, cat or dog food is an acceptable emergency diet ONLY for 12-24 hours because IT WILL CAUSE MASSIVE DIARRHEA, AS WELL AS NUTRITIONAL DEFICIENCIES.

Fortunately, with a proper diet his diarrhea resolved. The feathers—well, they’ve been cleaned as much as possible; only so much can be done without risking pulling them out. The consolation here is that since these are neck feathers and not wing feathers, his flight shouldn’t be compromised—and in fact, doesn’t seem to be, as he’s taking short flights already.

Along with the cardinal, Amy brought a nestling barn swallow. The finders said the nest had been destroyed in storms the previous night and this little darling was the only survivor.

Now, every rehabber has that handful of species that they just go gaga over. Among my weaknesses are barn swallows. Despite their pissy little faces, they’re among the sweetest birds in the world in rehab, and they’re such cheerful little things that they’ll put a smile on the weariest rehabber’s face. This wee one has had me grinning like an idiot all week.

Barn swallows are among those species that, in the wild, must be able to fly perfectly when they leave the nest.  The reason? Barn swallows spend the bulk of their lives in the air; their tiny little legs aren’t designed for prolonged perching. Those wide mouths that give them their pissy looks are designed to allow them to scoop up insects  in flight—they eat on the wing and even drink on the wing, diving down to snag a sip of water by flying low over the water source and scooping up a beakful. They’re little aerial acrobats with very little fear of humans –my parents have TWO active nests with nestlings under their carport as I type, and both sets of parents will sweep within inches of our faces as we go in and out the door.  While some might find their behavior a little Hitchcockian, we love it!

The nests pictured above, under my parents’ carport, are similar to what the barn swallow rescued from the destroyed nest would have come from. (We call the earlier nest, with the older babies, bottom pic, the high-rise, and the newer nest, top pic, with the younger babies, the low-rent due to the vast differences in their appearance.) Barn swallows build their nests of mud, one beakful at a time, so you can see the tremendous amount of labor that goes into their construction! The stability of these nests depends on where they’re built; the swallows who nest at my parents’ are lucky to have a flat base to build their nests on, as well as good shelter. A nest attached to the side of a wall without a supporting base could easily be dislodged in inclement weather, which is probably what happened with the nestling barn swallow currently a guest at the LWR B&B.