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Fall slowdown may be in progress

8/30/2015

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Only one new intake this week, and it didn’t end well. Following the standard media “if it bleeds it leads” mentality, let’s get the negative out of the way first.

This young barred owl was found hung by one leg in the slats of a wooden fence. He’d rubbed the flesh completely off the leg in his attempts to free himself, but as nasty as it looked, there was a good chance it was fixable. It would’ve been a slow process but the wound probably would’ve healed.

Unfortunately, in his thrashing he’d broken the other leg in multiple places near the joint. It was an open fracture, as well, spelling doom for the poor owl.

Aside from the photo of him in the box immediately upon intake, the other photos were taken after euthanasia. No sense making the poor fellow suffer any longer than necessary.
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Last week’s barred owl turned out to be blind. If you’ll recall, last week I blamed potential soft tissue damage for his refusal to fly. I’d been placing his mice right in front of him, almost on his feet. When I moved them even a foot away, still on the ground, he couldn’t find them. He wasn’t flying because he couldn’t see to fly. While there was a very slim chance he might’ve recovered his sight, I opted for euthanasia, as that slim chance has never worked out for blind owls in my care in the past.

We also lost the runt red-headed woodpecker. Bless his little heart, he reached the stage of development you saw in last week’s photos and just stopped growing. No further feather growth, no weight gain—nothing. But as long as he’d eat, I was willing to give him a chance. He died in his sleep mid-week.

In better news, the surviving red-headed woodpecker is in the flight pen, flying nicely and awaiting several days with low rain predictions so he can be released.
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The weather hasn’t been conducive to another attempted hummer release, either, so although I forgot to get any new photos of the little guy, he’s still buzzing around happily.

The screeches finally made it into the flight pen, where they expressed their unhappiness by refusing to eat. Too soon, I guess, or it may’ve been weather-related. Screeches seem to be very sensitive to changes in barometric pressure, and we were having a bout of high-humidity, rainy days… They’re back inside for a day or two, and then we’ll try again.
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And finally, I’m getting a lot of calls from people unsure whether they have gray or flying squirrels. They’re pretty distinctive in terms of size, and flyers have that skin flap, or patagium, running from each front leg to each back leg. Below are a couple of quick comparison photos. In the top photo, they’re not in the same positions, but still, you can clearly see the size difference and the lack of patagia in the gray squirrel. Note also the WHITE nails on the flyer—that’s a pretty dead giveaway, too.

The bottom photo provides close-ups of their faces/heads, not quite to scale—the flyer’s face/head will be noticeably smaller than a gray’s.
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L, gray; R, flyer
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L, flyer; R, gray
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You did it!

8/23/2015

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Thanks to your generous donations, we met and slightly exceeded our $2000 fundraising goal--$2037, to be exact. Heartfelt thanks to those of you who donated to help us “give Nature’s children a second chance.”

Just three new intakes this week. The most recent was a nestling mocker found in a parking lot. Unfortunately, he died the night of his intake. Based on the blood pooled around his beak the next morning, I suspect he got into chemicals while on the ground—God knows what kinds of residue he could have gotten on his skin and ingested as he preened his growing feathers…

This barred owl was luckier—he was found by the roadside favoring a wing and with one eye closed. Upon intake and examination, there were no broken bones, just some really trashed feathers. Within a few days he was alert enough for the raptor flight pen, but there may be soft tissue damage, as so far he refuses to fly. 
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Just a day after the barred owl came in, this great horned owl came in with similar injuries, although he was found grounded in a park. His eye was in worse shape, though, and he didn’t respond to treatment, continuing to decline instead. He was euthanized to provide a humane end to his suffering.
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Sadly, it’s that time of year when the good outcomes will diminish considerably, but this week wasn’t all gloom and doom.

The screeches continue to thrive and are still in indoor caging only because the barred owl is in the raptor flight. Unlike songbirds, raptors don’t play well together, so the screeches are stuck inside until we see if the barred owl’s soft tissue damage will resolve to allow flight.
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I have a big mea culpa to confess this week, too…remember last week’s nestling red bellied woodpeckers? Well…ummm…as the feathers came in, it became glaringly obvious that I had, in fact, two red-HEADED woodpeckers! Don’t let the black heads throw you off; juvy red-headeds have black heads.
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Hey, the size was right; the vocalizations were similar enough to fool a tired rehabber at the end of baby season…

The runt is still struggling, bless his little heart, but he IS trying and he eats well. He’s just so far behind his sib developmentally that I worry about him. 
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Photo taken while they were out of their nest box so I could clean it.
And the hummer was a no-go yet again, although this week he did show more interest in the world outside his cage, so…persistence is key! We’ll keep trying and hope the migratory instinct kicks in pretty quickly. (That godawful racket you hear in the video is a Japanese quail that someone mistook for an injured nighthawk and brought to LWR for treatment. Not native, not protected by MBTA, so still trying to find someone who wants the cute, albeit noisome, rascal as a pet. Any takers? Anyone? No? Oh well…)
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Yeah, we have a little molt going on there!
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And still the babies come…

8/16/2015

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…in the form of two nearly-naked nestling red-bellied woodpeckers. Yep, baby-babies…in mid-August…Go figure!
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The tree these babies were in fell and the family who found them tried to place a makeshift nest in its stead but the parents were having nothing to do with their replacement nest. The finders had them for four days before getting them to LWR, during which time their feeding schedule was extremely erratic, to say the least. Despite the extended period of insufficient feedings of inappropriate foods, they’re doing well now; however, the results of that period are likely to show as “stress bars” in their feathers.
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The runt is developmentally behind his older sibling and would probably have starved in the nest, given his sib’s aggressive feeding habits. In rehab, of course, both have equal access to food, so Runt will have a better chance at life.

Three, sometimes four, of the released juvy red bellies are still sporadically strafing me for handouts. Below is a shot of one of the little beggars.
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Both mockers from last week died with 24 hours of each other. Seems to me that happened with another mocker pair not too long ago. Weird…

The female screech is most definitely eating on her own now, so the screeches are now flight pen-ready. They’d’ve been in the flight already, except that in short order after the red tail’s release, it was overrun with three separate wasps’ nests and I had to find a bird-safe wasp spray and then wait 24 hours after each application for it to dry thoroughly. The goal now is to get them in the raptor flight this week.

Meanwhile, they’re pretty much little goofballs.
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No clue what she was doing here; I just grabbed my cellphone--closest camera I had access to--and snapped the pic.
The hummer was offered THREE chances at freedom last week. Apparently he really, really likes the accommodations at LWR, as he refuses to leave. Below is a vid of the most recent attempt, just this morning. Cage door wide open, me standing way off to the side using the zoom to film…and the brat preens unconcernedly, ignoring the open door. *sigh* We’ll keep trying…
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It’s always nice to see a release weeks later and know it’s doing well. Last week I was at the release site for the green heron, who was released in mid-July, and guess who was in the trees? All I had was a limited-zoom waterproof camera, but I was still mighty pleased to get even this short albeit distant clip of him!
And finally, don’t forget that this is the last week for the LWR online fundraiser, which ends Friday, August 21. As of yesterday, we were at $1562 via online and offline donations, so there’s just $438 to go to meet our goal of $2000. Heartfelt thanks to those who’ve donated, and if you’re the procrastinating sort, time’s runnin’ out on ya! You can donate though the PayPal links found on every page of this website or by clicking on the photo below.
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Baby season’s not over yet…

8/9/2015

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…although it has slowed considerably. Only two new intakes this week, both nestling mockers. Mocker 1 came in a day ahead of Mocker 2 but both were so close in age that they’ve been nestmates since intake.
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As is typical of mockers, when they fell from the nest, rather than staying near the nest so their finders might have a chance to renest them, they hopped along to explore Parts Unknown and ended up in the middle of a yard in one instance and the middle of a driveway in the other, with no nest in sight.

The hummer should be ready for release, weather cooperating, this week.
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The screeches are…well…screeches. The female appears to be eating some on her own; her weight is holding fairly steady on one measly hand-feeding a day and “free-choice” mice at night, which is a good indicator that she’s feeding herself, finally. The male, as you can see below, still favors the “stink-eye treatment”. They’ll be going into the raptor flight this week.
And they’ll be able to roam that for-them gargantuan space because the red tail has been released! And oh, the look she gave me when I opened her box at the release site…if looks could kill, y’all’d be writing your eulogies for me right now. See the vid below; sorry for the lack of focus at the end—when I went to turn the box so she was looking toward freedom and not at me, she shot out of it like a rocket!
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Of course, there are still moochers visiting regularly and irregularly. The red bellies are a constant; there are still five of them who’re convinced they simply cannot survive without handouts. A couple of the blue jays will take occasional advantage of the red belly handouts; the brown thrashers almost never show up anymore. The robins are hit and miss; for a day or two I don’t see either, then one will hang around, then both…Sheer luck allowed me to capture these gorgeous pix of one of the robins sunning last week. I love sunning birds!
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And finally, don’t forget that we still have a fundraiser in progress. As of yesterday, your generosity totaled $1242, so we have $758 to go to meet our $2000 goal. Heartfelt thanks to those who’ve donated; for those still waiting, the fundraiser ends in 11 days, so time’s a-wastin’—don’t delay! Every donation helps! You can donate through the PayPal links on this website or by clicking on the photo below.
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Temporary lull or the end of baby season?

8/2/2015

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I’m almost scared to type that question, as the rehab gods and Murphy might take it as a challenge…But this past week saw only two intakes, a nestling mocker and a cat-attacked hummer.

The juvy Mississippi kite is with a new buddy at Bubba & Friends now, giving him a pal for when they migrate toward the end of this month.

The wobbly thrasher was released last week and has joined the “Mooch Mob” in demanding handouts.
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Two of the three swifts have been released. While they were in the flight pen, there was always one bird who was clinging to the mesh or on the ground; I couldn’t tell if it was the same bird or not, so when they started chittering noisily and developing cabin fever, I decided it was time to go; after all, these birds have a migration to prepare for, as well. Two of them flew straight into the group above us; the third is the reason there’s no video or photos of the release. She headed straight for the ground and laid there, wings outstretched. So…this doesn’t bode well for her, to be honest, but on the off chance that she just needs a little more time, we’re giving her a grace period to see if she can get her act together. Otherwise, there’s only one option: euthanasia.
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The red tail is quite content to have guaranteed daily meals but we’re…ummm…negotiating a release here. In a switch on the usual order of things, the “captor” is ready to grant the “captive” her freedom, but thus far, she ain’t havin’ it. We’ll see how talks progress this week.
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When this nestling mocker was found on the ground, we were experiencing one of Georgia’s trademark scorching summer days with humidity matching the thermometer. The poor baby was dehydrated but responded well to fluid therapy and by end of day was alert and eating like a pro. Unfortunately, there must have been some underlying issues, as the wee one died in his sleep that night.
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The two screeches are roomies now and that, my friends, is—pardon the pun—a hoot. The younger screech—the one with eating issues—is, as we suspected, a female; even though she’s a few weeks younger than the male, she’s noticeably larger and somewhat more laid back.  The male is a paranoid little rascal. So we get constant stink-eye, head bobbing, beak clicking—the works, almost none of which is evidenced in the video, ‘cause, you know, that would be COOPERATING.  But being with a buddy does seem to’ve encouraged the female to eat; she’s still being hand-fed but is showing more interest in her meals and may have eaten part of a mouse on her own last night. There were two in the cage, and both had been mauled this morning—and the male generally eats only about half his mouse each night.
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And finally, this young ruby-throated hummer was being used as a bat-a-ball by a cat so he looked a bit rough on intake. Thankfully, there were no punctures or fractures, although he’s on meds to be sure. He’s been alert from intake, preening vigorously to remove the last traces of what appeared to be a bath in red-dye nectar.
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Two associated rants here:

1.      KEEP CATS INDOORS for the safety of all our wildlife—and for the safety of the cats.

2.      Please, please, PLEASE don’t use that nasty red dye hummer food. Did you know you can make your own hummer nectar much more cheaply using just sugar and water? One part sugar to four parts water—i.e., 1 cup sugar and 4 cups water—mixed well and heated for a few minutes on the stove or in the microwave to further dissolve the sugar and destroy any bacteria in the water. Allow to cool and place in your feeders.

And there ya go—hummer nectar that’s easier on your pocketbook and, more importantly, easier on the hummers’ kidneys.

As of today, he’s looking better; his feathers are less ruffled. He buzzes around his cage and can hover and fly well, so he’s a candidate for release ASAP.
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Geez, lady, it's barely sunup; what's your problem?
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He hopped on my finger while I was trading out feeders this morning. Didn't stay there long!
And just a reminder, LWR is still engaged in a fundraiser. With 186 intakes to date, another month to go as baby season winds down, and migration looming, with its concomitant injured/starving intakes, we’re in need of extra funds to see us through the end of the year. As of today, we’ve raised $1002 of the $2000 goal, so we’re halfway there!

Your donation, regardless of size, does make a difference, so donate today! Your donation, regardless of size, does make a difference, so donate today! You can click on the photo below to go directly to the FundRazr page for LWR.
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