With the river too high to reach my preferred release site until late in the week and the rain moving in immediately after that, the hoped-for red tail releases were delayed yet again...

So currently LWR has two highly peeved red tails who’re ready to go and a highly peeved great horned owl who’d like to be in a raptor flight but is stuck inside till the red tails are released.

And why do rehabbers wait for low-to-no rain chances for releases, you may be asking? Well, most of the time we’re releasing birds into unfamiliar territory. Three days or so of minimal rain chances gives them time to acclimate to their new surroundings, rather than having to learn new territory while simultaneously coping with rain and less-than-ideal hunting conditions.

And yes, of course, in the wild, birds of all species fledge in the rain, near dark, etc.—in less-than-ideal conditions. This also lowers their chances of survival. A fledge—or in this case, release of two older birds—in good weather heightens chances of survival.

Birds of all species face enough of a struggle for survival as it is; anything we can do to improve their chances, we’re gonna do. (And also, from a purely practical human point of view, cameras with enough zoom to capture a good release flight and get post-release photos aren’t gonna be waterproof, so there’s that consideration, as well.)

The good news is that rain chances should slack off mid-week, and none of the rain before then should be heavy enough to cause the river to rise too much, so with any luck at all, next week I’ll be able to report two red tail releases and the great horned owl in the mini-pen!

The temps have been positively fall-like, and we had the outer bands of Hurricane Sally sweep through Wednesday and Thursday, with clouds moving in Tuesday and still hanging around Saturday—but it was still mostly a good week for wildlife at LWR.

Let’s start with a “minor miracle” bird—Friday, a caller reported hitting red tail with his truck, resulting in the bird getting caught in the grille. These types of vehicle vs. hawk encounters seldom end well for the hawk, so I wasn’t real optimistic when he showed up with the bird. Surprisingly, there were no fractures, and the red tail was alert, aggressive and angry at being confined. Upon further questioning, the rescuer clarified that he’d slowed to turn off the road just before the hawk hit his grille, and that’s probably what saved the hawk from serious injury.

So I boxed him up to give him a little more time to de-stress and gather his wits and went about my business. Didn’t take long for the red tail to stage a jailbreak and wreak havoc in the rehab room, at which point I decided he was probably good to go. He flew strong and straight! (And it only took half an hour to straighten up the mess he’d made during his jailbreak...)

The mourning dove was also released, this morning. Sorry for the crappy video; he flew off to the far reaches of the camera’s zoom and kept flying farther away when I tried to move closer for better images.

The hummer’s leg seems to be healing nicely; the wing is still very iffy.

The only euthanasia this week was a juvenile sharp-shinned hawk whose left shoulder was broken and badly displaced.  We thought we loaded the X-ray onto a flash drive at Smalley’s Friday but it didn’t load properly, and I didn’t realize it till they’d closed for the weekend.

The great horned owl really needs to be outside, but I have red tails in both the raptor flight and the mini pen.

However, both red tails are slated for release later this week, when the river drops and I can reach my preferred release site.

Murphy surely cackled with sadistic glee after that one… LWR had 7 intakes last week, 4 of them on Saturday alone.

Tuesday a pre-fledgling mourning dove came in after wandering into someone’s carport after falling from the nest. The finder said he could see the nest, such as it was—doves are notoriously lousy nest-builders—but he couldn’t reach it, and with good reason, as he was still in a boot from a broken ankle.

Then Wednesday a juvenile yellow-billed cuckoo came in with some sort of spinal trauma, or possibly a pelvic fracture—he could move his wings and his feet, even attempting to perch, but couldn’t stand or even squat and refused to stay in a donut. The original plan was to get him in for x-rays Thursday, but the poor fellow didn’t survive the night.

Friday a cattle egret—growing up, we called them cowbirds, and a lot of people still do—came in with a really nasty mangled wing. It was broken at the shoulder and the flesh was raw. He would have required euthanasia but he handled it himself, dying before I could euthanize.

Saturday started with a hummingbird with a definite broken right leg and a possible broken right wing. The leg should be fixable; the wing is a waiting game.

Then a juvenile mourning dove arrived with what appeared to be a gunshot wound. It’s dove season in Georgia, so this is highly likely. Aside from being swollen, the wound appears clean, so we’re doing meds and time to see what happens.

Then the third mourning dove for the week arrived, another juvie. This one had feathers fluffed and was cool to the touch. I started meds and low heat, but he didn’t survive the night.

And intake number four for the day was a second-to-third year red tail who’d been kept by his finder for at least two days. Nothing appears broken but his head feathers are disheveled and he still has a somewhat stunned look on his face. Yup, we have some head trauma goin’ on here.

In releases, the Eurasian collared dove gained his freedom early in the week. They’re such laid-back birds; he’d found a comfy perch and was napping when I snapped this photo.

Poe the crow also decided early in the week to stop the “come-and-go” soft release and go for full freedom. My cousin had just cut the hay behind the house, so flocks of crows were taking advantage of the exposed bug buffet, and Poe happily joined them. Then Thursday evening I heard a crow calling near dark—not normal—so I searched till I found Poe hanging by his wings in a magnolia tree, too weak to perch. I snatched him up and brought him inside. An examination revealed that his once-healthy red gape (inside of his mouth) was now pale white. The only color was the black spot on his tongue and even it was grayish. I started him on a slurry and waited for poop to see if it was black or loose or…whatever. It had a sharp chemical smell that usually indicates some sort of pesticide or insecticide poisoning. Obviously it wasn’t from anything in the hay, as it’s destined to feed cows and isn’t sprayed with anything, so we have no clue what poor Poe got into. He died overnight.

This is one of the benefits and drawbacks of soft releases: The birds are near a familiar face and environment should they get into trouble, and I can monitor for issues, but it’s heartbreaking to have one of your releases show up again a week or two after release, badly injured or ill from some sort of poisoning…It doesn’t happen often, thank goodness, but when it does, it hurts like hell.

The July 4th red tail awaits release; I’d planned on this coming week but the rain chances look too high for most of the week.

And once the head trauma red tail has recovered enough to go in the raptor flight, the great horned owl recovering from a hand fracture will go in the mini-pen.

Last week’s editing deadlines prevented me from getting the weekly update done; fortunately, it was a fairly slow couple of weeks. Let’s dive right in.

The catbird and blue jay were released within a day of each other and, after a few days of demanding handouts, stopped coming down.

Poe the crow is now in the mini-pen and even exploring outside it occasionally—but he expects the door to remain open so he can go back to his safety zone when he gets tired of flitting about the trees in the yard. He’s getting more independent, though, and doesn’t like to be touched anymore. The outside photo was taken near dark without a flash as I was waiting for him to come back to the mini-pen, hence the fuzzy image.

As always, there were intakes that couldn’t be saved; on August 25 and 27 a red shoulder and a barred owl, respectively, came in with fatal injuries. The red shoulder was euthanized; the barred owl was DOA.

A near-fledgling Eurasian collared dove came in August 24 and, aside from being stubborn about totally self-feeding, is doing well. Eurasian collareds are larger than mourning doves and not actually native to the US, as their name suggests, but all research indicates the two co-exist peacefully.

Two of the three red tails were released. My trusty old point-and-shoot zoom pocket camera apparently has moisture in the body, however, and the lens now stays permanently fogged—which I discovered when I tried to use it at their release—so the only photos I managed were with my phone camera, and I totally missed the first release while fiddling with the point-and-shoot camera. Time to replace “Old Faithful”… or just break down and use the larger one I seldom pull out...

The third red tail, the July 4 intake, is doing much better with no companions in the raptor flight; I think another week or two and he’ll be good for release.

An adult yellow-billed cuckoo, also known as a rain crow, came in August 27 and was released Tuesday, Sept. 1. He was missing most of his tail feathers but still flew strong and straight and was VERY unhappy at being confined—his migratory urges were in overdrive. I managed a few photos at maximum zoom (this was several days before the camera failure), as he took off like a shot straight for the tallest trees he could find.

And on August 30 an adult male great horned owl came in with what appeared to be a left wrist fracture, but x-rays at Smalley’s showed that it was actually a healing hand fracture, both bones. Given that it wasn’t too horribly displaced and was already forming a callus, vet Jim Hobby and I decided a couple of weeks of cage rest, followed by a week or two in the raptor flight, should be enough time to see if the fracture will heal for flight. At the moment it looks really promising, so fingers crossed.