With no new babies for two weeks, it appears baby season might be over, for feathers, at least; it’s just hitting full swing for flying squirrels. No flyer calls yet, though. That’s a hit-and-miss thing; some years we don’t see any in rehab; others, like last year, we see flyers out the wazoo. And we could still see some late-season mourning doves; I’ve had them come in as late as early October—but not often.

So now, as early migration begins, we’ll start seeing the injured migrants—there’s always something “in season” for wildlife rehabbers. Nothing is quite as intense and exhausting as baby season, though!
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The mourning dove is in the songbird flight now and unsure if she’s happy about that or not. Poor baby wants to remain a baby forever, and that’s not happening!

​The screech finally passed his live prey test late in the week and was subsequently released.

​So now the MIKIs are in the raptor flight, and I have to confess it’s not looking promising for any of the three. Nobody can fly; nobody’s even attempting to “ladder up” the perches for added height.  We’ll see what happens over the course of next week, but at the moment their futures are in serious doubt.

​We had two hit-by-car victims this week, a quail and a great horned owl (GHO). The quail, a juvy, had open fractures of the left leg and wing and was DOA.

​The GHO was luckier; he had a deep cut to his cere (right above beak) and a scraped eyelid. He also had a little road rash on his legs and a shallow puncture wound on his chest, but no obvious wing fractures. He came in late Saturday, so we’ll play it by ear and see how he’s faring Monday morning before planning a vet visit. As of this afternoon, he’s looking more alert, so that’s a good sign! His mouth looks a little pale, so he’ll get treatment for capillaria before release, just to be on the safe side.

Not as impressive as last week, but still not a bad week, overall. Just keep your fingers crossed for those MIKIs…

This update will be the very essence of brevity itself: only one new intake, FIFTEEN releases, and just five still under care!
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The screech is doing the typical owl doofus routine and hasn’t mastered the live prey skill yet, so he’s still in the raptor flight.

​However, he’s got to get his act together, because all three MIKIs are rarin’ for their turn in the raptor flight. 

​The mourning dove needs to figure out the self-feeding bit so she can go into the songbird flight.

The single new intake was a juvenile barred owl, most likely hit by car, who presented with a right leg fracture that felt like it was near the hip and extreme lethargy, making me suspect internal injuries—which must have been the case; he died 20 minutes after intake.

The remainder of the week was pretty darn upbeat, with those FIFTEEN releases.
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The Eurasian collared dove was released and still shows up occasionally to eat where I scatter seed on the walkway.

​The red-headed woodpeckers, after most of the week in the songbird flight, took leave of LWR’s facilities and didn’t look back. I’ve noticed red-headeds as a rule tend to cut the apron strings, as it were, much more quickly than other woodpeckers.

​And the mockers also spent most of the week in the songbird flight before heading for freedom when offered the chance. 

​The Canada geese—remember them from months ago?—were finally released…

​…as were all seven wood ducks.

​And the barred owl who’d come in the previous week with a concussion was released, as well.

​And YES, in case you’re wondering, it’s a mighty fine feeling to see so many successful releases in one week!

August does mean a slowdown in baby intakes, which no bird rehabber I know of complains about; by this time of year we’re all rehab “krispy kritters” and ready for a break—was just discussing this with a colleague yesterday, in fact. Of course, for mammal rehabbers, second baby season for gray squirrels is now in full swing, so they’ll be busy right up till late fall/early winter. We bird rehabbers will start seeing migrating birds in our facilities in the next month or so; sadly, many of them will be beyond help.
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Including today, LWR saw another six birds come in over the past week; number six arrived earlier this afternoon—another Mississippi kite (MIKI), this one a little older than the previous two. He’d been found the previous night when a dog was circling him in a field. Finders reported him circling on the ground with one wing sort of thrown out; an intake exam revealed no obvious fractures, so…we’ll see how things look in the morning and decide whether x-rays are warranted.

​MIKIs 1 and 2 were already bunkmates, so MIKI 3 is now in with them. Honestly, once the screech currently occupying the raptor flight passes the live prey test, these three fierce little rascals should be next in line to try their wings.

​And look at the feather regrowth we have on MIKI 1! If you’ll recall, he came in with a huge chunk of feathers and flesh ripped out of his wing. We were initially worried the missing flesh might have resulted in follicle damage that might hinder feather regrowth, but this is looking pretty darn promising.

​The screech, as previously mentioned, is good to go flight-wise; he’s just gotta pass that all-important live prey test to ensure he can feed himself upon release.

The Eurasian collared dove is also good to go as soon as we have three days of low/no rain predicted.
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As for the erstwhile common ground dove…weeellll…as the little darlin’ feathered out, she turned out to be a mourning dove! Honestly, the poor little thing must’ve been only a few days old on intake; her tiny size had me convinced she was a common ground dove. And then she started growing…She’s still a beauty, though!

​The wood ducks are also good to go; rain shouldn’t be an issue for them—I mean, they’re ducks, right? Still, it’s just so ingrained in me not to release unless there’s a three-day good weather prediction…In the meantime, they can get in and out of the tub as they please, so this is frequently what I walk in to find when they're swimming…

​Sadly, the red tail we thought had capillaria began spitting back his food, completely undigested, last Sunday night and was dead by Monday morning. I honestly suspect secondary rodenticide poisoning, given his overall lethargy.
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While I was NOT happy that the tree these red-headed woodpeckers’ nest was in was cut down, apparently at the homeowner’s insistence, I will give credit to the person who cut it down—as soon as he saw the babies in the remains of their nest, he had his wife call LWR and got them here ASAP. They’re doing great and should be ready for the songbird flight within the next week.

​As is typical for mockers, these two unnested clowns were found wandering down a road in an area infested with feral cats, with no nest and no parents in sight. Mockers are the world’s worst about not staying near their nest when they fall out or are frightened out. These babies were very close to fledge-age, so within a few days of intake they were already perching and have started testing those wings, so they’ll also be in the songbird flight within the week.

When this barred owl was seen by the roadside in the early morning, the passerby didn’t think much about it; when he came back by near midday and the bird was still sitting there, he knew there was an issue. He took the bird to his local sheriff’s office, where he remained until late afternoon, when a county employee in another department got off work and volunteered to drive the owl the two hours to get him to LWR. Kudos to him and his co-worker for their willingness to spend four hours round-trip on the road after working a full day.
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The owl has no fractures and while both eyes are clear, he does favor that left one. He’s eating well, though, so he should be releasable as soon as we get that owl equivalent of a black eye healed. Basically, he just needs a safe place to get over a massive concussion.

While the fundraiser officially ended with just $2775 raised of the $5500 goal, the earlier Paul grant application was approved for the maximum $2000; that, along with a couple of late individual donations, pushed us to $4900, just $600 shy of the goal. So barring another clutch of four late-season, garbage-disposal barnies, we should be able to hang in there for the remainder of the year. Massive, heartfelt thanks to all those who donated to help us continue to “give Nature’s children a second chance.”

Sadly, after too many “second chances” we had to call it on the kingbird this week. If you’ll recall, the poor little fellow had been struggling from intake. I took him to the vet mid-week to see if there was anything I’d missed. Vet Peggy Hobby of Smalley’s Animal Hospital and two vet techs ran several fecals to make sure they didn’t miss anything; everything looked normal across the board. But by that afternoon, he was “stargazing” uncontrollably—this is also called wry-neck, when the neck twists so that the bird’s head is essentially upside down. The poor little one tried to control his head but it kept jerking back upside down. He refused to open his eyes and had to be force-fed. It was time to call it; he’d put up a good fight but it wasn’t gonna happen for him.

In better news, colleague Kathryn Dudeck of Chattahoochee Nature Center, who’d taken the little juvie broadwing from LWR last week, reported that he’d been released into a family of broadies who immediately accepted him as one of the gang. Good news indeed!
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This little common ground dove nestling was found with a slight abrasion at the base of his wing; although the finder said her indoor/outdoor cat was “too old” to hunt, I’ve never found this to be the case with cats, so the wee one has been on antibiotics as a safety measure. He’s doing well and growing like a weed. The first photo is from day of intake, August 1; the second was taken today.

​This red-tailed hawk was “pointed” by the finders’ dog. The two pre-teen boys were in the yard when the dog alerted them to something in the bushes. They walked over to find this mature bird on the ground, and they and their mother delivered the bird to LWR the next morning. Aside from a slight ding on the wing, which x-rays showed wasn’t a fracture, his main issue seemed to be near-starvation, probably due to capillaria (worms that fill the crop and make the bird feel full even as he starves to death). He’s being treated for that now and while still lethargic and requiring hand-feeding, he is showing slight signs of improvement. 

As an aside, major kudos to the vet techs at Smalley’s who took the x-rays in this update. The light on their machine that allows them to ensure proper positioning of the wings, etc., for x-rays was blown, so they were shooting blind while they awaited the arrival of the new light. I think they did a great job!

​Unfortunately, this red-shouldered hawk wasn’t as lucky. He was hit by a car; the person who hit him stopped, gathered him up and got him to LWR as quickly as possible. Kudos to them for doing the right and responsible thing. However, his wing was trashed—broken at the shoulder and elbow. He was euthanized.

​Large dog versus small bird is never a good scenario; when this adult brown thrasher was rescued from the jaws of a Husky, he appeared to have no outward injuries but couldn’t fly. His finder followed my advice to give him a few hours to see if he was just in shock or stunned. When he still couldn’t fly she brought him to LWR, where he died overnight, most likely from internal injuries.

​The wood ducks are ready to go this week, and I’m not sure who’s happier about that, me or them. It’s a toss-up.

​The Eurasian collared dove is in the songbird flight now and should be good to go later this week.

​The older Mississippi kite (MIKI) looks like he might be regrowing those flight feathers. It’s still too early to say for sure, and they don’t show well in photos yet, but by next week we should definitely know. It’s actually kind of exciting to think he may be able to make migration, after all, but we’ll curb our enthusiasm till we’re sure of what we’re seeing on that wing…

​And he was joined early in the week by a younger MIKI, a transfer from colleague Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends. He needed x-rays to see how bad a broken wing actually was. It’s iffy; Peggy said the radius and ulna looked as if they were fusing together as they healed, which could be a Very Bad Thing for this vocal little rascal. Time will tell. Meanwhile, he’s not shy about voicing his opinions on everything!

​And finally, the screech is now in the raptor flight, where he perches in a corner and glares at me when I go in to freshen his water and put out his food.  He’s flying well enough; he just needs to pass the live prey test and he’ll be slated for release immediately afterward.