Blog Archives

They’re still a-comin’…

7/26/2015

The birds, that is, and since the funds are getting on the dangerously low side with just under half the year remaining, LWR has an active fundraising campaign in place through August 21:

Thus far $20 has been donated through Fundrazr and $417 outside Fundrazr, for a total of $437. We have $1563 to go to meet our goal, folks, so please donate generously and share our fundraiser with your friends.

Now, on to the birds…

The red shoulder has been released!

And immediately replaced in the flight pen by the juvy red tail.

The chimney swifts are progressing nicely and should be flight pen-ready in a day or two.

We had several songbird releases this past week, as well: both robins, the brown thrasher and the mocker.

This juvenile cormorant came in with an old eye injury; it looked nasty but it had healed in the wild and had been injured for so long that he’d already learned to adapt, and adapt well. After a couple of days’ observation, he was released.

Unfortunately, the great blue heron who came in weak and emaciated was not as lucky, dying overnight.

A late-night call about a hit-by-car owl resulted in the intake of this youngish barred owl, whose right wing was shattered at the wrist, in addition to an eye injury. The wrist fracture was the deal-breaker, though, as the break was in the joint and this isn’t a fixable injury—at least, not one that will allow flight.

When these two mockers were found in the road with no nest in sight, it seemed a little odd for birds so young—older mockers will simply hop away from the tree their nest is in when they fall, but these babies were just getting their wing feathers in good, so it was a bit puzzling. They did well for several days and then both crashed the same day, leading me to believe there were issues that may’ve caused the parents to eject them from the nest.

The juvy kite is looking gorgeous and will be transferred to Bubba & Friends this week. Steve Hicks has a juvy slightly older than my guy, and with migration looming in the very near future for these birds, we wanted them to be able to pair up and at least have each other until they can join up with a migrating flock. Steve’s pretty much at capacity at the moment, but he does have his kite already in a flight pen. Recall, if you will, that my raptor flight is sorta occupied at the moment by that gorgeous red tail, who would definitely not “play nice” with the kite, so my kite will join Steve’s kite.

The wobbly brown thrasher has improved drastically in the past week and is in the songbird flight building up flight strength and skill.

The older screech is still a pissy little snot and needs to be in the flight pen, but red tails and screeches don’t exactly mix well, so he’s stuck inside until the red tail can be released.

The younger screech is, quite frankly, on borrowed time at the moment. If you’ll recall, since her initial intake, she’s had eating issues. She’s now at the point that while she refuses to even attempt self-feeding she’s also resisting being hand-fed and spitting back pretty much everything she’s fed. I’ve consulted with colleagues Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends and Kathryn Dudeck of Chattahoochee Nature Center, as well as the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and no one can come up with a reason the screech refuses to self-feed and likes to spit out her food—nor have we found a solution aside from a liquid diet, which is not helping her build any sort of survival skills. Bottom line: a bird that has so little self-preservation instinct that it won’t even attempt self-feeding has very little chance of survival in the wild. Her chances are looking grimmer by the day…

Given the wide range of territory LWR covers, reuniting nestlings or fledglings with their parents is usually impossible, but sometimes luck is on our side. My nephew saw this fledgling barn swallow, one of the colony who’s had nests under my parents’ carport this year, grounded; he started to pick the bird up and it flitted another 10-12 feet and landed in the hay field, wings outspread and unable to lift off again.

My nephew scooped him up and brought him to LWR, where we determined that he’d probably been the last to hatch and fledged too early under pressure from his newly-fledged sibs and parents. He was NOT a happy camper, but I kept him for a couple of days to give him time to finish maturing to flight-readiness and then took him back to my parents’ carport, camera at the ready, to release him back into the colony…

…And the little snot took off before I could even focus the camera on him, happily rejoining his family. So no pix or video of the actual release, but a very happy little barn swallow when he regained his freedom! The video below, taken from inside my parents’ laundry room, gives you an idea of the level of swallow activity under their carport. Pretty amazing, huh?!

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Still baby season, yep…

7/19/2015

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And the babies, juvies and adults keep rollin’ in. Now, however, we’re getting to the “ugly” part of the season, where intakes are severely dehydrated from the heat or are already badly compromised from injury or illness when they come in. Late baby season is never pretty…

The red shoulder is about ready for release and is pouncing on his food very aggressively—always a good sign.

The hatchling blue jay didn’t make it, poor baby. His little eyes began to open and he began to decline. Antibiotics didn’t help; he died overnight.

All red bellies have been released but about half are still mooching. No pix of that yet; it’s kind hard to photograph six sibilant red bellies while feeding ‘em and keeping ‘em from attacking the other moochers too! Still have two blue jays and two mockers as regular moochers, as well. The jays, of course, are hysterical, swooping down with strangled cries around beaksful of food that they carefully reposition in their beaks so they can beg for a handout from me…

The great crested flycatcher and house finch flew the coop when offered the option and didn’t look back.

The lighting and focus are off on this shot, but the expression on the finch's face is priceless!

Still in the flight pen, we have two robins, a brown thrasher and a mocker. Robins remain big babies for the longest time, but their personalities make their prolonged dependence tolerable. And the thrasher bonded with the robins when they were housed together pre-flight pen, so she’s not goin’ anywhere till her buddies do! The mocker tends to shadow the thrasher for some reason.

The adult brown thrasher who’d been kept as a pet for a year wilded up nicely with limited human contact and is now flitting around outside the flight pen. Sometimes she’ll hop back in for an hour or two or a day or two and then demand to be let out again. Because of her circumstances this form of very soft release is working well to re-introduce her to the wild.

The swifts were released and nearly immediately “replaced” by four others, a clutch of three transferred from Chattahoochee Nature Center near Atlanta and a singleton from a nearby county. Sadly, the singleton was in pretty bad shape on intake and struggled for 24 hours before giving up the fight. The trio from CNC is doing well, though.

Their finders took them to CNC in the remnants of their nest, which was sent on to LWR in the transfer, so you get to see what a chimney swift nest looks like! The parents “glue” the twigs together using their saliva, so their nests are quite literally held together by spit and a prayer.

The kite continues to grow like a weed; we tried self-feeding today to see how it went and he was not happy, so he’s since been hand-fed his morning mice.

Trying the same for the youngest screech, hoping this will resolve her reluctance to be hand-fed. She seems to be a little more willing to at least scatter her mouse nuggets, so…we’ll see…

The older screech is fine—an aggressive, self-feeding little snot that I totally forgot to snap any pix of this past week…

Early last week an adult kite came in with a shattered shoulder and was euthanized. Below is a photo of one of his wings, taken after euthanasia, to show the gorgeous coloration of the adult birds.

This adult great blue heron didn’t appear to have any fractures but couldn’t stand. He was otherwise alert and attempting self-feeding but given the difficulty of healing what was probably a pelvic or hip fracture in a bird this size, we opted for humane euthanasia.

This fledgling cardinal wandered into the rescuer’s chicken yard and was set upon by the chickens. Aside from a few scrapes and a badly damaged eye, he seemed alert and ate well, but died overnight.

When a young man called about an injured hawk, he was afraid the bird might have a broken wing. Happily, the juvy red tail, who still makes baby ki-ki-ki cries when upset, had only sustained a concussion. He’s still a bit woozy and reluctant to eat, but that’s normal for up to 48 hours after a concussion.

And this sweet fledgling brown thrasher was observed the previous day being fed by her parents but was on her side on the ground the next morning. On intake she reeled drunkenly, was unable to perch and tossed her neck back in the most godawful position to swallow her food… She has a healthy appetite but remains sorta klutzy. She’s less wobbly than at intake but she still has room for improvement.

And the green heron was released! Given his emaciated state on intake, I’m quite pleased that he rebounded so quickly. I went back a few days later to check on him, as I’d released him in a very isolated area in keeping with the shy nature of his species. I really didn’t expect to see him, but the release site is rich in minnows—a veritable heron buffet—so he was still there and alarm-called and disappeared into the surrounding brush immediately upon seeing me.

Digital zoom, so not the greatest photo in the world, but still...

And finally, as most of you know, wildlife rehabbers operate using their own funds, small grants and donations from the public and from people who bring wildlife to us. Only about 10% of the people who bring us wildlife make a donation, and it’s usually nowhere near enough to cover care for that critter.

Thus far this year LWR has received 178 critters, the vast majority birds. Last year our total intakes for the ENTIRE YEAR were 191. There are still 5 ½ months left in this year, and yes, baby season is about to wind down but then we start getting in the injured migrants, so I expect LWR to top 200 intakes for this year.

This takes funds, and our coffers are running low, so this is a heads-up that later this week I’ll be organizing an online fundraiser in hopes of garnering enough funds to see us through the remainder of the year. Start hoarding those pennies (although dollars buy more rodents) with this in mind, please, and look for the fundraiser announcement later in the week.

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A fruit basket turnover sort of week

7/12/2015

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Between releases and moving birds from inside caging to the flight pens, it’s just been a topsy-turvy week.

The two red shoulders who were nutting up in the raptor flight were released. One headed straight into a thicket and disappeared; the other headed in the opposite direction and landed just long enough to get his bearings before taking off again, deeper into the woods.

With these two released, the third red shoulder was deemed flight pen ready. He wasn’t so sure about it to begin with but is enjoying his freedom of movement now.

One clutch of red bellied woodpeckers not only headed for the flight pen early last week but has since been released and joined the growing mob of moochers who hang around the “feeding tree.” Woodpeckers, like blue jays, are “slow to independence”—which is just a polite way to say they’ll mooch for as long as you let them.

Other releases include the mourning dove from April—finally—the cardinal, the blue jay, two mockers, and the great crested flycatcher.

The third clutch of red bellies is now in the flight pen, as are the robins and the brown thrasher.

The screech continues to grow apace, although he still has eating issues. He’s beginning to bob his little head around as his eyes begin to truly focus.

The Mississippi kite is also growing by leaps and bounds. It’s odd, but as he’s getting in his feathers, he’s remained on the cute side; the poor screech just looks like an under-bed dust bunny. The first two photos below were taken four days apart. Look at the feather growth!

The swifts should be releasable next week. I’d worried because I hadn’t seen the local colony this year and was searching for a new group but it turns out I just wasn’t looking at the right time, as I was distracted near dusk with trying to get everybody settled in for the night. These babies are spending their days in the flight pen and their nights back inside and aren’t especially happy with that arrangement, as they’d prefer I didn’t touch them anymore. We’re beginning to resist after-feeding face cleaning too…

Intakes this week included yet another mocker, who’s already in the flight pen.

This fledgling house finch was found grounded next to his dead siblings after a storm and is nearly ready for the flight pen now. All the other current residents, though, are so much larger than he is that I’ll probably keep him inside a while longer.

A fledgling green heron should weigh considerably more than 101g, which is what this poor guy weighed on intake. He was so close to starvation that he could only manage to keep down one small minnow every half hour, and it had to be force-fed to him. He’s now not only eating seven or eight minnows at a time; he’s lunging for them himself!

Another screech owl arrived last week, as well—a fledgling full of attitude, all bad. But at least he self-feeds. That’s always nice!

Another great crested flycatcher came in also, a late nestling. As is the case with most flycatchers, she’s (gender arbitrarily assigned) a vocal little darling.

And this hatchling came in early last week. I know what it is; do you? (Look below the “bonus” video at the end to find out!)

Ending on a bit of a philosophical note, let me state that wildlife rehab is not an exact science. It’s more an art, although the science end of it has improved drastically since I was first licensed. That being said, there’s still often no rhyme or reason behind which intakes live and which die. For example, two clutches of Carolina wrens come in, approximately the same age. They receive the exact same diet and housing, and one entire clutch dies while the other thrives and is released. Why? Who knows? There may have been factors at play before the birds came in that the finder was unaware of or didn’t want to admit; one clutch may have been too long without food before reaching help; maybe one clutch was exposed to chemicals and the other wasn’t. The list could go on ad infinitum, ad nauseum—and frequently does as rehabbers debate endlessly why they lost those babies but not these. This led me to develop an adage that I think sums up the rehabber’s situation perfectly:

Wildlife rehabbers fly by the seats of their pants and hope like hell their britches don’t rip.

(The mystery hatchling is…a blue jay! Now you understand the origin of the expression “nekkid as a jaybird”!)

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Last “peak” month for baby season begins with a bang

7/5/2015

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And I’m not referring to fireworks on the Fourth, either. Got in everything from wrens to a hawk this past week, and more on the way today.

The swifts continue to do well, although the wry-necked one did require euthanasia, so there are six left. The older clutch, the most recent intakes, are actually pretty close to heading for the flight pen; the younger two, the first two to come in, are about a week behind them, I think.

Below are two short clips of the swifts hungry and fed.

The kite is growing like a weed; he’s almost doubled his weight since intake and is starting to feather out.

And the screech’s eyes opened, although I’m not really sure when, as he has a tendency to keep them closed when he’s being fed. He has some eating issues that we’re working on, refusing to gape or lunge for food and spitting his entire meal back at me if he’s offered one piece more than he wants. Despite this, he’s almost quadrupled his weight since intake. He’s also feathering out quite nicely and cast his first pellet last night.

Last week’s red bellied woodpeckers are now clinging to the side of their nest and peering over the edge, so they should be in the flight pen next week.

And another storm unnested yet another clutch of red bellies in a neighboring county, so we have two clutches of woodpeckers about a week apart in age. This second clutch, which is actually the third clutch LWR has seen this year, has a bully bird in it; I sometimes have to remove him from the nest in order to feed his sibs because he pecks the living crap out of ‘em if given half a chance.

The red shoulders in the raptor flight need to be released but the weather hasn’t cooperated yet. We need the rain so I’m not complaining, though. They’re feisty, vocal rascals who can nail a mouse lightning-quick!

And another red shoulder came in last week, as well, but he’s a bit younger than the two currently in the flight.

When these Carolina wrens were found in a pool pipe, the finder tried to do the right thing and was given bad advice by DNR’s answering service and worse advice by a backyard exotic bird breeder. The result was that when the birds finally made their way to LWR, two didn’t even survive the drive home. These two are doing well, though; hopefully no lingering issues will crop up.

It actually amazes me how many people don’t realize possessing wildlife without a permit is a violation of state law and, in the case of birds, is a violation of federal law, as well. However, the person who had this brown thrasher with limited vision in one eye for a year—yeah, you read that right, A YEAR—was not native to the US and didn’t know the law. When the person was informed by someone in their city that it was illegal, the person contacted one of LWR’s volunteers, who coordinated with another volunteer to transport the bird from several counties away to LWR.

Aside from feather damage from being caged and total lack of flight conditioning, the thrasher was in pretty decent shape, all things considered. His erstwhile captor had provided a wide variety of food for him, and most of that food was fairly species-appropriate. He’s actually doing better than expected in terms of wilding up but the flight muscles will take some time to build up.

And this pre-fledgling brown thrasher was seen falling from the nest and the rescuer initially tried to leave him where he was, as the parents were feeding him. He began heading for a dog pen, though, and no amount of shooing him in the opposite direction was working, so the sweet little fellow is now at LWR.

As a rule, I generally see robins as “onlies” so getting these two little darlings in has been a real treat. Robins are big, sweet goofballs with the best personalities. But then, they’re the largest members of the North American thrush family, and I adore thrushes of all species, so I may be a bit biased in that assessment.

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They’re still a-comin’…

Still baby season, yep…

A fruit basket turnover sort of week

Last “peak” month for baby season begins with a bang

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