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Not much to report this week…

8/25/2019

…And I’m not complaining. A slow week is a good thing at this point in the season. I’ll gladly take it.

The MIKIs were released; since they’re aerial insectivores and not a threat to my songbirds, I just opened the raptor flight door—for THREE DAYS in a row—and let them decide when to leave. Interestingly enough, they all chose to leave on the same day, one at a time. I snagged a photo of two of ‘em sitting on the open raptor flight door a few hours before they flew the coop.

The killdeer was also released; as usual with songbirds, I opened the “escape hatch” on the songbird flight and let him leave at his leisure. He didn’t hang around the yard once he left, so no photos of him.

An adult mocker was DOA; he actually died en route. I suspect, given his necrotic leg, sepsis had set in.

Yesterday a male barred owl came in with an unfixable wing fracture: it was broken right in the shoulder and, as you can see in the post-euthanasia shot below, it was trashed. When a wing will twist in an unnatural position like that, it’s done for.

The two young mockers are in the songbird flight as of today; no photos this week, as they’re still in full-blown panic mode. Takes a day or so for ‘em to settle down enough for photos.

The red tail will be moving from the mini-pen into the raptor flight for a few days pre-release, to make sure he’s good to go. The goal is to release him by week’s end.

And the ducks should be releasable by the end of this week…which will actually be the end of the month, as well!

The vultures still visit one or two days a week, sometimes singly, sometimes together. Last week they visited as a pair, so I snagged a few zoom shots of those gorgeous faces.

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A new (for me) bird, along with the usual routine

8/18/2019

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Late in the week, a fledgling song sparrow was cat-attacked after his initial finders did everything right by monitoring him and leaving him alone in their yard. The poor baby wandered into their neighbor’s yard, however, and the neighbor had a free-roaming outdoor cat. So the song sparrow is now on meds at LWR, and thanks to Virginia colleague Maureen Eiger for helping me ID the little cutie, as it’s not a species I’ve previously seen in rehab. Little brown jobs can be difficult to ID; I’ve threatened to just start listing them as LBJs on my annual reports, but like the Elephant’s Child, my ‘satiable curiosity gets the better of me and I spend hours poring over nestling and fledgling ID charts, comparing “baby” pix and videos and calling colleagues who enjoy a good bird mystery as much as I do. Song sparrows can be especially difficult to ID because it seems there’s wide variation in the appearance of the young. Despite being on meds, he’s not as perky today as he has been the past couple of days, so…fingers crossed…

Earlier in the week a second-year broad-winged hawk came in with an open left wrist fracture. I don’t see broadies often, so I hated that there was nothing I could do for the poor bird but end his suffering.

Yesterday another mocker came in, a late nestling—too young to be out of the nest, as his wing feathers are still mostly encased in keratin. He was nearly a dog-attack victim. He’s in with the older mocker.

A juvenile Cooper’s hawk also came in yesterday, with a wing fracture. En route to LWR, the Coop, true to the species’ psychotic nature, decided to rip open the swollen flesh around the fracture, so it was oozing copious amounts of blood upon his arrival. It took forever to get the bleeding under control, even using styptic powder, and he still died overnight, probably from a combination of shock and blood loss.

In better news, LWR had three releases this week: the great horned owl, the barred owl and the juvie red tail.
The great horned owl wasted no time skedaddling. While I saw the tree he landed in some distance away, when I got about halfway to it for a post-release photo, he headed even deeper into the woods—no paparazzi, thanks!

The barred owl flew low and landed on the ground, but when I headed in his direction to see if I needed to recapture him, he took off into the trees and kept flying farther away as I tried to get a post-release photo of him.

The red tail shot out of the box and circled behind me—and I didn’t press the record button hard enough and missed gorgeous footage. He was considerate enough to remain perched for some post-release photos, though.

The oldest wood duck is good to go; the younger three aren’t far behind. I figure another 7-10 days and they should all be on their merry way. They weren’t as cooperative with the “cute” stuff for a video this week—just peeping and sipping water.

The killdeer remains inside; I don’t want him doing something stupid before he’s able to fly well. He’s also too spastic for photos; just changing his paper and giving him food and water nearly stresses the poor bird to death.

The MIKIs are in the raptor flight as of yesterday and flying pretty well; their landings, however, are still just downright ugly. It’s a work in progress…

The second-year red tail is in the mini-pen and looking good. He offered an impressive threat display when I fed him this morning. Red tails are so gorgeous!

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And we continue apace

8/11/2019

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No true slowdown in sight yet, if last week is any indication, with six new intakes.

Early in the week, a hit-by-car barred owl came in. Nothing is broken; he just had a concussion and some lingering head trauma but should be releasable soon.

Another juvenile MIKI came in, again transferred from Bubba & Friends. This one’s about the same age as the earlier transfer from Bubba & Friends. Sending the MIKIs to LWR puts them a little closer to their final winter destination in Central America. All three are ready for the flight pen, as soon as the red tail is out.

Speaking of which, yesterday FWS brought another red tail, this one about a second year bird—already getting those signature red tail feathers. He’s a bit on the thin side but alert. No signs of frounce but capillaria is always a possibility, so he’s being treated for that.

And as y’all may have noticed, the MIKIs are back inside. Their brief foray into the mini-pen ended when I realized the great horned owl from last week’s update needed to be outside first. He’s slated for release ASAP, as he’s doing quite well and moving about in the mini-pen will keep his muscle tone up.

Another new intake was a juvenile hummer, probably a ruby-throat and most likely female. She was kept for nearly a week before the initial rescuer took her to a neighbor who had numerous hummer feeders in her yard. The neighbor contacted LWR and shortly afterward, the hummer was transported here. It was hard on intake to tell what might have been scabs and what was dried, sticky nectar, as you can see in her photos. Had the initial finder sought help earlier, there might have been a chance to repair the injury; as it is, the wing has healed at an awkward angle that looks as if it will preclude flight. I’m giving her some time to be sure, but odds are she’ll require euthanasia.

A late-nestling mocker was found in the road with no nest in sight and the finder called LWR after searching for a nest until dark, with no luck. Since the finder would’ve had to travel unfamiliar back roads in the dark to bring the bird that night, I suggested she bed the bird down for the night and gave her feeding instructions for the next day, until she could get the wee one to LWR. Happily, she followed my instructions to the letter and a sassy, noisy, well-fed mocker arrived the next day.

A Laurens County deputy brought an adult MIKI found in a local fast-food joint’s parking lot yesterday. Sadly, he had multiple injuries, one of which required euthanasia. His right wing was dinged at the wrist; his left leg was broken mid-bone; his chest had an open wound. The fatal injury, however, was the broken left wing—the fracture was right in the joint. That, as y’all know by now, cannot be fixed, especially in an aerial insectivore that absolutely must have 100% use of both wings. More than likely he was hit by car while in pursuit of an insect.

The juvie red tail in the raptor flight is flying beautifully; he just needs to pass his live prey test and he’s good to go.

The adult killdeer attempts escape with every paper change and food/water freshening, despite the fact that he has almost no primaries on one wing. He’s off meds for his exposure to cat saliva and wants his freedom badly. They’re such stressy birds, even as adults, that I’m actually considering sticking him in the songbird flight to see how well he can fly. If he shows me he can fly well enough, we may release ASAP, to avoid any further stress on the poor fellow.

The juvie barnie would very much like to join the killdeer in escape; she’s not a happy camper either. I’ve put out word she’s nonreleasable and am attempting to place her as an ed bird.

No photos of either of these two this week; not worth the fight to get a decent shot while deflecting escape attempts.

The wood ducks continue to grow rapidly; the older one is actually good to go but I don’t want to release him alone, so he’s stuck at LWR till the younger three are also ready for release—which won’t be long, judging by the feather development on their wings! (Sorry about the white balance; the camera decided to screw it up in the midst of filming...)

And look who visited this week! Early in the week both juvie black vultures showed together up for a day or two, then they disappeared again, and yesterday only one of the sibs showed up. As you can clearly see from the poop on his back, he’s roosting at night with other vultures. I seldom get to do soft releases with raptors since I can’t very well release them in my yard along with the songbirds, so I’m enjoying this to the max. (First photo is overprocessed; I used HDR to pull the vultures out of the shadow in the original phone camera image. That's why I don't use HDR too often...)

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And the birds keep comin’

8/4/2019

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July 2019 marked LWR’s heaviest ever intakes for that month, so hopefully August will see a slowdown, with baby season winding down. We shall see…

I was rather proud of myself for getting last Sunday’s update done early in the day, despite the back issues (still twingy but not excruciating; thanks for asking). HAH. Within half an hour of posting it, LWR received notice of three birds en route from two different locations…

A volunteer transporter delivered two of the birds, a first-year red tail and an adult great horned owl.

There was nothing to be done for the red tail, who’d been crammed into a box much too small for a bird his size that was then lavishly slathered with packing tape, as if the poor bird were some sort of vicious monster. His near-wrist fracture apparently had been an open one and maggots had eaten all the flesh, tendons and ligaments from the bird’s right wing. He was humanely euthanized.

The great horned also came via the volunteer transporter—slightly bigger box but still taped out the wazoo. Really y’all, for future reference—in case y’all ever need to know this—a cardboard box with the flaps closed and maybe a couple of strips of tape to hold them closed if the bird gets antsy, and you’re good to go. Taping every exposed surface of the box is massive overkill!

At any rate, aside from the area around his cere being a bit bloody, the owl was fine; he now awaits his turn in the raptor flight.

Shortly after these two arrived, a family brought an approximately three-month-old barn owl with a wing injury. We have a fair approximation of age because the father knew the nest was in his deer stand in May and had been checking it periodically to monitor the progress of the babies. This bird is old enough to be on its own but the wing felt dislocated in the elbow to me. Sure enough, X-rays at Smalley’s confirmed a dislocation, but it had already started healing in that position. Vet Jim Hobby and I agreed it was worth trying to pop the bone back into place, and so we gassed down the barnie and Jim attempted to manipulate the bones back into proper alignment. It wasn’t happenin’, however, and Jim was afraid he’d end up breaking the bones if he kept at it. So this young barnie, full of piss and vinegar, is a nonreleasable bird and I’ve already put out overtures to see if any in-state educational facilities would be interested in her.

Tuesday, a brown thrasher nestling fell from its nest at a local daycare. One of the workers brought it to LWR, where an intake exam revealed its right leg was broken at the hip. Even though I know hip fractures can’t be fixed, I gave the poor baby 24 hours’ observation to make sure the lack of neural response wasn’t just from swelling from the injury before making the call to euthanize.

That same day, a hatchling woodpecker, probably red-belly, came in with a pretty nasty belly bruise from his fall from the nest. I was hopeful but not optimistic that there was no internal bleeding, as it wasn’t hard and swollen…yet…but sadly, he died the next morning. Belly bruises on a bird that young almost always indicate internal bleeding.

Wednesday morning a barred owl with a broken wing arrived at LWR. I was pretty sure the fracture was fatal but took him in for X-rays anyway. The x-rays confirmed the shoulder was trashed beyond repair and he was humanely euthanized.

That evening, an adult killdeer arrived, most likely a cat-attack victim. His finder said they’d had a stray cat show up on their property recently. He’s missing tail feathers and most of the primaries on his left wing but is on antibiotics and doing well.

All four red shoulders were released, finally for three of them; the fourth was the bird who’d come in with frounce and spent his last few days at LWR in the raptor flight with the other three birds. I managed short videos of two of the releases—the two who sat on the ground for a few minutes, threat-displaying, before flying away. The other two took off like greased lightning. Hey, vids of two outta four ain’t bad…

The remaining red tail is now in the raptor flight; his buddy in the mini-pen self-released when I went in to replace their water late in the week. I saw where he landed and took both a net and camera, so if I couldn’t recapture him—which I knew was unlikely—I could at least get a few shots of him after his self-release.

The ducks continue to grow; the oldest of the four has maybe another week or two before he’s releasable.

With the remaining red tail in the raptor flight, the MIKIs are now in the mini-pen. They’re still not real sure they like it, but whether they realize it or not, we’re working against a migration deadline with them, so as soon as the red tail is flying well and passes the live prey test, he’s outta here so the MIKIs can get fully migration-ready in the raptor flight. These two tickle me to death with their polar opposite attitudes toward food. The younger bird, who’s been at LWR since he was a downy handful, is like, “Oh, eating is so overrated; don’t you think? I ate yesterday, so I’m not really sure I want anything today.” The older one, the transfer from Bubba & Friends, is like, “Ooooh, grub! Praise the Lord and pass the mouse bits!”

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Not much to report this week…

A new (for me) bird, along with the usual routine

And we continue apace

And the birds keep comin’

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