Last week was a frenetic few days, with five intakes all in one day and 13 total for the week…in addition to the 12 already in care. LWR is about officially at capacity, even with releases and euthanasias balancing out the number.

Where to begin? Although he came in mid-week, let’s start with the adult Mississippi kite (MIKI) who was found in the middle of a four-lane road on Wednesday. Two cars stopped to check on him, and the ladies in one car and gentleman in the other worked together to box the bird and get him to LWR, where—to my great delight—he appeared only stunned. Y’all have to understand that adult MIKIs seldom come into rehab with even fixable injuries, much less totally uninjured.
​
He was bouncing off the walls by Thursday afternoon, so I released him and he took off across the hayfield in short order. Gorgeous!

​Another mild head trauma case came in Tuesday, an adult barred owl. By today he was also ready to go and was released. Got video of his release but no post-release photos.

​Also on Tuesday a second nestling Coop arrived, a transfer from Bubba & Friends raptor rehab. He’s considerably younger than the first Coop who arrived a couple of weeks ago but is already self-feeding.

​The first Coop was released today after passing his live prey test. I didn’t manage video but he did pause long enough for one really good post-release shot.

​A nestling what-I-thought-was-a-phoebe came in Tuesday, as well, but as he matured, feathers came in and he started vocalizing, he’s looking and sounding more like great crested flycatcher—although he’s very small for a great crested. He was found sopping wet on the ground after a storm, and he’s still struggling from the aftereffects of that, I think.

​And a way-too-friendly fledgling blue jay came in Tuesday, after his finder reported he followed her around her yard for several hours and even came on her porch, begging for food. When he arrived he was less than half the weight of my somewhat younger other pair of jays, leading me to believe he’d been raised illegally on a crap diet and had MBD (metabolic bone disease) from a calcium-poor diet. He didn’t last 24 hours, poor baby.

Y’all, THIS is why it’s important to have the proper training and permits to work with ANY wildlife. There’s a helluva lot more to raising a wild bird than just feeding it some crap recommended by some fool on the Internet. In addition to a getting proper diet while it’s maturing, the bird must learn to self-feed on the diet it would find in the wild, have properly waterproofed feathers, build its flight muscles, etc. These wannabes who feed their egos by breaking the law and consigning the birds they screw up to death infuriate me.

Another brown thrasher arrived Tuesday, also—cat-attacked. He came in Tuesday night and though I started meds on intake, he didn’t survive the night.
​
In addition to the aforementioned MIKI, an adult great horned owl came in Wednesday. He was found in a ditch in a neighboring county and looked quite rough on intake, although nothing was broken and he showed no signs of frounce. Sadly, his condition deteriorated over the next few days, to the point he couldn’t even grip a perch. He was humanely euthanized.

​A red shoulder who arrived Wednesday also required euthanasia, as his right wing and leg were broken at the joint and his right eye was swollen shut. The eye we could’ve worked with; the joint fractures weren’t fixable.

​Friday people cut down a snag without checking first for nests and destroyed the home of three pre-fledgling bluebirds. Another 48 hours and they’d’ve been out of the nest—the first “fledged” from his box at LWR this afternoon. They’re not happy campers, bless their sweet little hearts, and I can’t blame them.

Also Friday, a nestling barn owl arrived after being found with dead siblings in a toppled deer stand. Since Bubba & Friends has two barnies currently, this leather-lunged little rascal will be headed to form a trio tomorrow.

​In news of ongoing guests at LWR, the brown thrashers and grackle were released.

​I tried the blue jays in the mini-pen and they were none too pleased so they’re back inside for the moment.

​The mourning doves are also less than pleased with me at the moment, as I’ve cut back on their feedings to encourage self-feeding. They scatter the seed like pros but actually EAT it? Hah!

​The barred owl is now in the raptor flight; he’s only a brancher but he needed room to stretch his wings.

​And since the blue jays hated the mini-pen it was freed up for the screeches, who had me in stitches at their expressions in their new digs.

​There will be no update next Sunday—just a heads-up this week.

Yeah, so last Sunday I blithely announced just how the fruit basket turnover would go as birds were released and moved around, and of course, none of it panned out the way I’d intended, so nobody’s where I’d planned—aside from the releases, that is. Typical…
​
Before getting to the releases, last week was loosely bookended with the arrivals of two blue jays. Wednesday’s jay was a true nestling and adorable as only baby jays can be.

​Friday’s jay was *thisfar* from fledging—if he’d been able to stay nested for another couple of days he could have properly fledged. However, he and the younger jay have bonded nicely—young jays are neat in that respect—and are doing beautifully together.

​The only other new intake, early in the week, was a young female sharpie who apparently just had some minor head trauma; she was released Saturday, along with the red tail and both red shoulders.

​No video of the red shoulder releases; they were in the same box and shot out in different directions. But I did track them down by listening to the nuthatches in the woods raising Cain, so I managed a couple of photos of them post-release.

​The red tail didn’t hang around for post-release photos; I barely managed the video of his release.

​The plan last Sunday was to move the screeches into the mini-pen once the red tail was released; the brown thrashers, grackle and flicker needed to be outside sooner, though. The flicker self-released, not ideal but always a risk using a pen not really designed for songbirds while the songbird flight remains out of commission. The other three are more content to keep the handouts going.

​So the screeches went into a slightly larger box for another week or so, bless their impatient little hearts.

​The mourning doves, as I predicted last Sunday, aren’t even recognizable as the same little “cactus fuzz” babies! They’re starting to flap those wings in the nest, too.

​The Coop with the black eye is self-feeding entirely now, whole mice, and in the raptor flight as of today. I’d really planned to hold off and place him in the mini-pen after the screeches but he’s a Coop. He was literally bouncing off the walls of his box, so…

​And the original plan was for the barred owl to go in the raptor flight, rather than the Coop, but the barred refuses to eat whole mice. As long as they have to be cut up, they’ll attract ants too quickly in the raptor flight, so…picky eaters have to stay inside a while longer. But look at how this baby has grown!

You know, wildlife rehabbers emphasize over and over the importance of getting orphaned, injured or ill wildlife to us ASAP. Last week LWR had a prime example of exactly why this is so important.

Monday a caller reported having found a downed baby red tail, probably unnested in Sunday night’s storms. Wrong time of year for red tails to be nesting, so I suspected late-breeding red shoulders. When she arrived with the bird it was a nestling Cooper’s hawk.  Oh joy…if any hawk makes a rehabber cringe, it’s a pissy, psychotic Coop—and yeah, the babies are just as bad as the adults.
​
ANYway…his intake exam revealed a beauty of a shiner on his left eye and some bruising under his left wing, both most likely sustained when he fell from the nest. Aside from that, he was textbook Coop. And because his finder had sought help immediately, he suffered no lasting damage or nutritional deficiencies. Today he’s started attempting to feed himself, to this rehabber’s delight. Fighting with a Coop to get him fed ain’t on my Top 10 list of favorite things to do!

And then we have nestling Coop 2. Coop 2 came in Friday. The urgency of the call suggested the caller had just found the bird, but when he arrived he said he’d had the poor nestling Cooper’s hawk a WEEK, feeding it CATFISH  and CHICKEN—and based on the dark green in his poop, not a lot of that. And as for the poop, it was CAKED to his butt and his cloaca (his rectum) was red and swollen from sitting in his own waste for a week—he had a pelvic fracture and was unable to stand at all. So for a week this bird sat in a chainsmoker’s house (his car reeked when I retrieved the bird), being fed too little of an inappropriate diet and sitting in his own waste—and the finder admitted this isn’t the first time he and his wife have screwed over our native wildlife, because they “just looove nature” and are “real animal lovers.” (And yes, they’ve been reported.)

Initially, I’d planned to euthanize as soon as the poor bird had experienced a couple of decent meals comprised of proper food. But he went from feet dangling uselessly to at least tucking them against his body when I picked him up to feed him. And consultations with Kathryn Dudeck of Chattahoochee Nature Center and Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends Raptor Rehab led us all to the conclusion that maybe giving him the weekend wasn’t a bad idea—and he seemed to be making promising progress: After he’d been soaked in warm water to remove as much of the caked-on poop as possible, he was flaring and spreading his tail feathers. Saturday morning he’d sliced (pooped) a wee bit outside the nest, cast a small pellet, and was moving his tail feathers more. And the swelling and redness in his cloaca had diminished considerably after just one night in a clean nest. Another soak Saturday night removed even more of the caked-on waste, and there was slightly more motion in his legs this morning. Sadly, a week of crap nutrition was more than his little body could take, and he died sometime after his first feeding this morning. He was sprawled in his nest when I went in to give him his second feeding.

Could his fractured pelvis have been treated when it was a fresh fracture? We’ll never know now. In a young bird whose body is still growing, a week of improper caging, diet and nesting is an eternity of improper healing and malnutrition, as well. Pelvic fractures can frequently be successfully treated. This poor fellow had no chance, though, because some fool decided it would be fun to try and raise an injured baby with no clue what he was doing.

​Also on Monday, a nestling grackle came in, another storm victim. Young grackles aren’t especially attractive and their call is harsh and demanding. But their personalities are so endearing it’s impossible not to love ‘em. I’ve seen them called the “poor man’s crow” but they’re not corvids; they're icterids--in the blackbird family. Adults have long, slender bodies, dark iridescent feathers and striking yellow eyes—it’s an utterly gorgeous combination. But their poor voice never changes! This little fellow has matured rapidly over the past week and is ready for new digs with a perch.

​And Monday also saw the arrival of a pre-fledgling flicker, thoroughly stressed from being unnested when the tree his nest cavity was in was felled. Flickers are in the woodpecker family but the feather pattern and coloration on young flickers is noticeably different from either young red-bellied or red-headed woodpeckers. Stress isn’t an issue now, as he calls loudly if I’m two minutes late feeding him!

​Thursday two nestling mourning doves were found on the ground after a storm—it was a week of hit-and-miss storms throughout Georgia. They’re growing nicely; by next week you won’t recognize them as the same birds!

​An impossibly tiny pre-fledgling blue-gray gnatcatcher also arrived Thursday, weak and lethargic from an extended period without food before she was found. She rallied with warmth and appropriate food and I thought the danger was past, but she died overnight Friday.

​Thursday night a caller reported an unnested brown thrasher and was willing to bring it immediately, even though it was after 10 pm. He was placed with the surviving of the two cat-attacked thrashers, and both are thriving.

​The barred owl is now self-feeding and testing his wings.

The red tail will be released as soon as we have three consecutive days of low/no rain chances—this gives released birds time to acclimate to their new surroundings before experiencing any inclement weather.

​The red shoulders are also rarin’ to go.

​And the screeches will go into the mini pen as soon as the red tail’s released. And yeah, they do make just that big a mess in their box overnight…

And I obviously got to see a really neat bird last week—an anhinga! In twenty years I’ve only had one other anhinga, an adult male. This one was either a juvenile or an adult female—their coloration is the same. I’m leaning toward juvie, as this guy wasn’t nearly as aggressive as the only other one I’ve seen.

Friday evening one of the local game wardens called with the anhinga—also called water turkey for their turkeylike tail feathers or snake bird due to their unique method of swimming with their bodies submerged and only their head and neck above water.

This anhinga had a fish hook embedded in his neck. Initially I thought the game warden and I could probably handle it but it was embedded too deeply, so I called vet Jim Hobby of Smalley’s after hours to give him a heads-up I’d be bringing the bird in Monday, as Smalley’s is closed on the weekend. Jim, God love him, told me to bring the bird by Saturday morning while they were feeding and medicating the animals at the clinic. It took him less than five minutes to remove the hook—skill is everything!

While the anhinga ate the fish I force-fed him, he was not thrilled at the method of delivery and refused to eat the live fish from a deep dish of water. They’re more diving birds—and those beaks have sharp edges in addition to that pointed end. I sliced my fingers through gloves at every feeding—it was like rubbing a razor blade.
​
So given that I’d medicated the entry and exit sites for the hook for a couple of days, I decided today to release him. Sorry the for the quality of the video; my “real” camera froze—wouldn’t zoom, wouldn’t start recording, wouldn’t take photos, wouldn’t turn off—so thank God for cell phones, even if it is a really awful digitally zoomed video—at least you can see how anhingas earned the nickname snake bird!

The anhinga bookended a week that started with a nestling barred owl who’d been found May 29 and fed NOTHING until June 1, when he was fed “a few worms and 10 crickets.” Yeah. Some cretin kept a BABY owl all weekend and fed it NOTHING until Monday morning, and it was Monday EVENING before the bird arrived at LWR.

Angry doesn’t come remotely close to describing me at that moment. The poor bird was begging for food and so hungry he was trying to eat my fingers. I couldn’t slice up his mice fast enough—and he inhaled them like the starving baby he was.

For the record, if you wouldn’t let a human child go an entire weekend with no food, what the hell makes you think it’s okay to let a baby raptor go hungry all weekend? I won’t even get started on that rant again; I’m furious all over again just thinking about it.
​
The sweet little fellow is doing well, despite his harrowing weekend. He’s alert, when he’s awake, and eating very well. Below are some shots of him, and a short video of him sleeping. Baby owls face-plant to sleep—they literally fall face forward, legs outstretched, and sleep. It’s adorable.

​Friday and Saturday saw two cat-attacked brown thrasher fledglings come in, from two different counties. Both are doing well and on meds. Friday’s bird has some nerve damage to his right leg; Saturday’s has a neck wound.

​An adult barred owl also arrived Saturday, emaciated and lethargic. Nothing was broken but his left eye was totally trashed, and it was an old wound. Normally an owl with only one good eye will still be able to hunt and survive, as they hunt primarily by hearing rather than sight. Apparently this poor bird never adapted to having only one good eye. I’d planned to euthanize but he died quietly before I could.

​The blue jay I thought I might have to evict from the mini-pen decided to leave on his own and is, of course, still screaming down for handouts. I love blue jays; they’re such intelligent clowns.

​The red shoulder juvies are in the raptor flight and doing well. As soon as they pass their live prey test, they’ll be releasable.

​The red tail is in the mini-pen and intimating he’s ready to go. I disagree; he needs another week to ten days. I have opposable thumbs and can work the lock; he doesn’t and can't. He’s staying another 7-10 days.

​The juvie barred owl from last Sunday’s update not only has the wing fracture to deal with; he also has some vision issues and he’s still really loopy. Head trauma can take a while to fully resolve. We’ll see how this plays out.

​And the screeches would very much like their turn in the mini-pen, which should come soon. They’re getting antsy!