Yep, LWR officially surpassed 200 intakes for the year this past week; we’re at 203 as of last week. Only seven of those intakes weren’t birds. This sort of volume is why I opted several years ago to “specialize” in birds and flying squirrels. One person, simultaneously rehabbing and working a paying job full-time, simply cannot rehab every single species that draws breath—at least, not effectively. Lord knows I tried for several years, but when I was struggling to juggle feeding possums, deer, rabbits, gray squirrels, birds of every species, and a few reptiles thrown into the mix—all at once, more or less—I felt my level of care dropped for all my charges. Focusing my energies on the species I most enjoy working with allowed me to raise the level of care I provide—and I do occasionally take in a few species other than birds or flyers, as you know, but never during baby bird season.
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The red shoulder whose fate was iffy before she made a miraculous recovery was released last week.  It was what rehabbers call an “ugly release.”  Instead of soaring to the trees, she flew out of the box straight to a clump of grass and sat there hurling expletives at me…and I replied in kind as I gloved up, fully expecting to have to nab her and return her to confinement.

​Fortunately for us both, she gathered her wits and flew off to a nearby tree as I approached. I’m not gonna lie and say I was happy with the release; I wasn’t. It was one of those I didn’t have a good feeling about afterwards but she was able to fly away and elude recapture, so…we’ll keep our fingers crossed that all went well post-release.

Early last week I received a call about a Canada goose that had probably been hit by a car (HBC). Upon intake, the goose had numerous nasty looking wounds: the head was raw and bleeding; both wrists were ripped open; the right wing was broken at the wrist; the right foot had at least one broken toe and an open wound that was bleeding profusely.
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Once all the open wounds were treated and the goose was given some pain meds, it calmed down somewhat. My goal was x-rays the next morning, but there were apparently also some major internal injuries. The goose bled out during the night.

​Hot on the heels of the DOA goose came a HBC pine warbler.  The driver of the vehicle said the bird flew up, initially avoided the windshield, and then bounced back into it. The bird was stunned and in shock on intake but there were no signs of any fractures. Again, however, there were internal injuries, as this poor little bird also bled out during the night.

​This barred owl came in with a wing fracture, right at the wrist. He’s slated for x-rays later this week to see if the break can be fixed. Honestly, my gut is saying it ain’t gonna happen, and his level of aggression rules out the possibility of him becoming an ed bird, so…we’ll see…

​The hummers are showing no signs that they’re ever gonna be flight-capable again, and with the window for migration fast closing, I really should call it on ‘em, but for some reason I find it incredibly difficult to make that call on hummers as long as they’re not in pain and are eating well. I think it’s because in the back of my mind I think that since hummers are such miraculous little birds anyway, maybe they’ll pull off a miracle and fly properly for me so I can release ‘em…Hope outrunning reason, the majority of the time, but there are always those one or two who defy the odds and give me cause to allow extra, extra, extra time to see what non-flighted hummers might do…

​And while the screeches haven’t passed the live prey test yet, their number has increased. Colleague Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends raptor rehab had a singleton late juvie screech that he felt needed to be with other screeches so they could learn to be aggressive little snots together. (And I say that with great affection—as you well know by now, screeches are my favorite nocturnal raptor.) So now there are three gorgeous screeches in the raptor flight who need to show me they can hunt their own food. 

Let’s lead with some good news for a change: the red shoulder whose future was highly questionable in last week’s update started eating again, and with great gusto! Better still, she’s standing evenly on both feet and jumping up to snatch her food with a foot! Next step is to try her out in the songbird flight—not ideal, but she can’t go in the raptor flight with the screeches. If all goes well, she’ll be released sometime this week. (And yes, that’s a mouse tail sticking out of her beak in the photo below.)

The hummers are still buzzing about but neither looks likely to make migration at this rate. To be honest, the female’s wing is more than likely gonna preclude sustained flight, period, and the male still simply cannot attain any real lift. In other words, neither appears to be releasable, but I’m going to give them a bit longer, just in case.

They were less cooperative on the photo front this week—I only take photos when I’m about to change their paper, so pardon the messy paper under them…Birds poop, and even tiny birds like hummers can make quite a mess!

This purple finch had an advanced case of mycoplasmic conjunctivitis, aka mycoplasma or “finch eye”—so called because it’s very common in finches. Unfortunately, it’s also highly contagious to other birds. If you see finches in particular flying uncertainly and unusually low to the ground, or if they’re on the ground and make little or no effort to escape when you approach, look for finch eye. (They could also just be injured, so don’t rule out that possibility—but finch eye is something to always look for.)

While finch eye can be treated, the high incidence of recurrence and the disease’s high rate of contagion lead many rehabbers, me among them, to euthanize infected intakes. Better to put down that one bird than end up with dozens of infected birds.

The finch was brought to me while I was at Smalley’s Animal Hospital, where vet Peggy Hobby agreed with my assessment and euthanized the poor fellow for me.

The screeches continue to be delightfully screechy. Of all the nocturnal raptors, screeches are probably my favorite, which I’m sure isn’t the least bit obvious…

We’re gonna attempt a live prey test this week, and if they can catch their own food, they’re good to go.

And we had a surprise visitor at LWR this week: a first-year Cooper’s hawk, female by the size of her feet. She lurked about the yard for several days but never caught anything that I could see—and usually when a hawk nabs a bird, there will be an explosion of feathers left behind. Because I knew the bird was likely starving to be hanging around and making little attempt to hide, I attempted to net her so I could confine her for a week or so, get some weight on her and make sure she could hunt properly. Of course, since she could fly, this was a no-go. I then placed some small mice out where she could see them, but they didn’t appeal to her. No sign of her in two days, so I’m hoping she’s okay.

This is the time of year we see so many first-year birds who come in starving to death. Their parents have cut off the gravy train; their hunting skills aren’t sufficiently developed; they keep getting driven out of territories already claimed by older birds...I can’t help wishing this bird had eaten the offered mice or that I’d been able to capture her and ensure she had sufficient hunting skills before placing her back in the wild.

And yes, I’m aware we can’t save ‘em all and that nature is cruelly efficient in weeding out those raptors lacking survival skills. But I also know that sometimes all a young raptor needs is a few extra days or weeks of help to ensure they have the skills to survive. And when a young raptor shows up in my yard and I suspect it needs help, because I have the skill, permits and means to assist it, I’ll do whatever I can for that bird. In the case of most of my readers who lack the training, supplies and required permits, if you suspect a raptor needs assistance, don’t hesitate to call your local rehabber ASAP. Sometimes even one day can mean the difference between life and death for that bird.

Only one new intake this week, a young male ruby-throated hummingbird that I mistakenly identified during his dusk pickup as female. Got the little rascal home and the light hit his throat just right, showing three glowing dots of red. Male, yep. 

He was found in the bushes at a local business with what appeared to be a wing injury. Seeing no other signs of trauma, I placed him in with the other two hummers and since it was near “bedtime”, all three settled in nicely for the night. Unfortunately, the new intake died during the night—from injuries? Starvation? Who knows? We’ll never know what he got into before he was found; there may have been pesticides on the bushes he was found in—it wouldn’t take a lot of exposure to be fatal to a bird as tiny as a hummer…

The other two hummers continue to do well but still show no signs of being able to sustain proper flight. We’re in a time crunch now; October is usually the latest hummers pass through Georgia during migration, so these two need to get their acts together soon.

The red shoulder has been half-standing and crouching in her donut this past week, which is good. She pitched such a fit during one paper change that I put her in the songbird flight to see if she could walk, perch or fly. Nope on all three counts. She tried to run, listed to the right and tumbled.  Never even made it off the ground. *sigh* Back to confinement and the donut.

More worrisome to me, however, is the fact that she’s gone from eagerly eating what I hand fed her to self-feeding to refusing all food, in the space of a week. For two days now she’s not eaten at all. Mouth and throat are clear; eyes are bright and clear; poop looks normal; she’s alert…I dunno; maybe she’s just not hungry. Rehabbers tend to be paranoid; we prefer heavy, eager eaters and lack of appetite/refusal of food is always a reason for concern. With raptors we pretty much always start treatment for internal parasites, as a precautionary measure, so this shouldn’t be her issue. Again, I dunno…I’ll usually give ‘em 48 hours to see if the appetite upset resolves itself; if not, more drastic measures are called for.

The screeches are being typically screechy, glaring and beak clicking and mouthing off. And the female is finally starting to get her adult head feathers, so she’s gone from cute fuzzy-head to scruffy half-fuzz, half-feathers this past week.  The male perches in one of the flight pen corners and glares at me; the female flits from perch to perch, weaving and bobbing to see what I’m putting out for supper. Next step is to test these two on live prey; if they can snag their own prey, they’re good to go!

And now for that philosophizing I mentioned…or maybe, more accurately, soapboxing…

I had someone recently—not a rehabber—call wildlife rehab a hobby. It took great self-restraint not to choke them on the spot.

Here’s the Merriam-Webster definition of “hobby”: a pursuit outside one's regular occupation engaged in especially for relaxation.

Hmmm…so what does Oxford have to say? An activity done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure.

Interesting…Cambridge? An ​activity that you do for ​pleasure when you are not ​working.  

So hobbies, then, while often expensive, are undertaken with the expectation of pleasure and engaged in in one’s free time—i.e., when not working at one’s “paying” job.

 Anyone see the issue I have with calling wildlife rehab a “hobby”? No? Well lemme explain it for ya, then.

Wildlife rehab is a passion, a calling, a way of life. It is NOT something engaged in as an afterthought—“Oh look, I have a couple of hours free; I think I’ll rehab some birds” or “Can’t wait till this weekend to rehab a bird or two.”

Rehabbers do experience pleasure in what we do; there’s no denying that. But the heartbreak outweighs the pleasure by far.  Do you know of any other field where the expectation going in is that you’ll lose 50% of your intakes every year? This is the harsh reality of wildlife rehab.

Most people’s “hobbies” don’t entail getting peed, pooped and puked on; bled on; scratched, bitten and clawed; and seeing animals mangled beyond repair.

Birdwatching—that’s a hobby. Wild bird rehab—that’s a vocation.

It matters not that the rehabber usually doesn’t receive a salary (and the vast majority of rehabbers around the globe are home-based, not working in large centers); the fact of the matter is, rehabbers are trained professionals.

Do we hold down “paying” jobs? Yeah, most of us do, because without some sort of income we can’t care for the wildlife we receive. It’s expensive, as most of you well know by now.  But most of us work those paying jobs around our wildlife rehab, not the other way around—which doesn’t exactly fit the definition of a hobby.

As for relaxation—well, you tell me: What’s so relaxing about feeding a dozen or more baby birds every 15-30 minutes 12-14 hours a day for 5 months out of the year, fighting with an angry raptor to feed or medicate it and treat its wounds, or watching a bird you’ve struggled to save give up the fight and having to euthanize it? Relaxing, my arse!

No rehabber will deny the pleasure—the sheer joy—of a successful release. That’s what keeps us going—the ones we get to release after weeks or months of hard work. But the physical, mental and emotional tolls, to say nothing of the financial drain, hardly qualify wildlife rehab as a mere “hobby.”

Please feel free to slap the fool out of anyone you hear say that (bearing in mind, of course, that no rehabber will have the money to go your bail; it’s all been spent on the wildlife in their care).

Baby season appears to be over; now, with the beginning of migration, the ill and injured are beginning to trickle in. Most rehabbers I know claim fall as their favorite time of year. I agree, as it signals the end of a long and usually grueling baby season. What we all conveniently ignore—or try to forget—is that with fall come the birds we usually can’t do a lot for, with such mangled bodies or so far gone with starvation that we just can’t do more than end their suffering.

There was good news to begin this past week, though, with the red-headed woodpecker finally opting for release—about time, too; I’d left the escape hatch open for most of two days before the rascal decided to leave! He’s still hanging around and getting handouts, of course, and will continue that for another couple of weeks.

Early in the week I got a panicked late-night call about a hawk that had been dog-attacked. The rescuers heard the ruckus after dark and searched until they found its source, shining a light just in time to scare off the attacking dog. Unfortunately, by the time they found the young Cooper’s hawk, his right wing was mangled beyond repair. In fact, there was little left aside from exposed bone, and that was broken at the wrist.

The poor bird was such a little fighter that even after I got him home and was setting up the euthanasia chamber, he pulled himself upright in the transport box, head feathers flared, determined to fight again if need be.  I stopped just long enough to snap a photo of his defiance in the face of death, then quickly and humanely ended his suffering.

The close-ups of the wing damage below were taken after he was euthanized.

Hummingbirds are also in their fall migration, and this little female was found in the back yard of a couple who said they had over a dozen hummer feeders up. They noticed her on the ground and called LWR. On intake, her left wing was at an angle that usually indicates irreparable damage, but over the past few days she’s begun keeping it almost level with the right wing, so…fingers crossed.

At least now the stubborn little male has a buddy of sorts. I’m beginning to think he had a coracoid fracture (for lack of a more precise analogy, it’s sorta like a collarbone fracture in humans) on intake. His rescuers said he was flying a bit but couldn’t get lift, and I’ve seen the same thing when he tried to fly out of his cage on yet another abortive release attempt. He actually made it out of the cage and glided to the ground; when I went to pick him back up, he flitted from my hand and glided back to the ground. Coracoid fractures usually heal to allow flight, but on the rare occasions they don’t, the bird can’t get lift for proper flight.  We’ll give this guy more time to see, but he and his new buddy need to be on their way pretty soon if they’re gonna make migration.

This red shoulder hawk was found grounded but with no apparent injuries. She just couldn’t stand. On intake she refused to flare her tail, which was skewed to the side, and she had no grip at all in her feet. I was hopeful but not optimistic that a steroidal anti-inflammatory would help, and I also suspected a pelvic fracture, which almost never shows on x-rays. She got her meds and a “donut” bed to ease the pressure on her pelvis, and over the past few days she’s shown marked improvement.  She still can’t stand, but her tail is flaring, she has strong grip in both feet and is kicking strongly with her legs, and she continually maneuvers herself out of the donut. 

I realize standing on her head isn’t exactly what we’re aiming for, but the fact that she can even manage that is nothing short of a miracle in my book. I’m guessing she whacked a window or plate-glass door head-on in pursuit of a bird. The impact would be enough to compress spinal nerves, fracture a pelvis, and—in extreme cases—even rupture a lung. So she’s actually a very lucky lady, all things considered.

The screeches are back in the raptor flight and are quite content there now. They’re eating well and building up flight muscles and stamina, so as soon as they prove they can capture live prey, they’re good to go. The female does worry me a bit, as she seems to be constantly trying to focus her vision, but she flies well and accurately and she has no trouble locating her food, so I’m probably just being paranoid.

And finally, I’m hearing all too many accounts of people spraying their yards with weed killers and other pesticides seeking the “perfect” lawn. Folks, regardless of the time of year, those chemicals KILL WILDLIFE, especially birds. What are you trying to get rid of—dandelions? Rabbits and deer eat those. Clover? Rabbits and deer eat those, too. And let’s not forget the bees and butterflies who rely on “weeds” for food. Is it worth an unnatural, pristine expanse of sterile grass, knowing you’re a mass murderer?  My yard may look a bit shaggy but it’s wildlife-friendly. I’ll take THAT over a “pretty” yard any day. Why don’t you aim at a wildlife-friendly yard, too, and educate others to do the same?