Blog Archives

Bustin’ at the seams

9/26/2021

It’s turning out to be a busy fall, with raptors out the wazoo. At one point this week LWR had 10 raptors crammed into flight pens and the rehab room. I was doing the rehab version of gymnastics just to move around between boxes to feed everybody and change their paper.

Yet another red tail came in, another first-year bird. This fellow has a fracture right at the elbow. It’s pretty close to the joint but not badly displaced, so we’re gonna give him some time and hope the joint doesn’t freeze.

My game warden sent me a first-year sharpie—we debated whether Coop or sharpie, as neither of us was sure and the juvies and adults of both species are remarkably similar. His behavior initially suggested Coop but his size suggested sharpie. Now I’m pretty sure he’s a sharpie. His x-rays showed no wing fractures but he does have a broken toe on his left foot, so he’ll stay with me for a while to give it time to heal.

The Coop that came in last Sunday didn’t survive; he was standing up glaring at me and then half an hour later he’d keeled over. Coops are really stressy birds, so it could have been internal injuries or it could have been sheer stress.

About the smallest male barred owl I’ve seen in a while came in from DNR. He has some head trauma but no fractures.

A juvenile turkey vulture wasn’t as lucky; he was seen flailing by the side of the road in the rain. Initially, because he was still wet, I thought he was a black vulture, but as the feathers began drying the brown began to show. Sadly, he had no neural response in his legs and required euthanasia.

The former stargazing red tail was transferred to a falconer for further training. I’d planned to release him but the more I watched his behavior, the more convinced I was he wouldn’t survive in the wild without better hunting skills. Transfer to a licensed falconer will give him additional time to learn those hunting skills and when the falconer releases him in a couple of years, he’ll be a skilled and confident hunter.

Red tail #2, with the eye injury, is looking excellent. The eye is probably always gonna be a little scarred but he’s seeing out of it and flying beautifully in the raptor flight, so in another week or so, he’ll be released.

And red tail #3, with the hand fracture, is healing nicely. He’ll move from the mini-pen into the raptor flight when his hand is sufficiently healed.

The red shoulder is eating like a vacuum cleaner and looking good. Once the mini-pen opens up, I’ll draw straws to see if he or the sharpie goes into it first.

The great horned owl’s eyes still look funky but he’s finding his food with no problem at all and is getting antsy at his captivity. I’d prefer at least one of those eyes to look “normal” before release but I’m beginning to think this is as normal as they’re gonna get.

The screech’s dislocated shoulder appears to be healing nicely. Most of the time he’s holding it perfectly level with the “good” shoulder so I’m fairly optimistic at the moment that he’ll continue to heal for release.

And, of course, the black vulture twins are still hanging around...I end up with more photos of them than the rehabbing birds each week because they tend to follow me as I go about my daily activities. It’s a vulture thing; they will eventually stop coming around. It just seems to take vultures longer!

0 Comments

It’s that time of year again...

9/19/2021

0 Comments

With fall right around the corner, injured first-year birds start filling rehab centers everywhere. LWR is bustin’ at the seams at the moment, and the calls keep coming.

Where to start...let’s start with last week’s screech with the potentially broken wing. As luck would have it, it’s merely dislocated—see the x-rays below of the normal left wing and the dislocated right wing. Given the already fragile nature of bird bones, this is a toughie—twisting and popping it back into place could actually result in a shoulder fracture. Vet Peggy Hobby of Smalley’s Animal Hospital and I discussed options and decided supportive care was the best option, allowing the muscles and tendons to gradually pull the wing back into near-normal position. The wing is actually looking less droopy and he’s able to extend it to assume threat stance, so it may be working. Below you can see the “fun” involved in getting photos of screeches when they go into “bob and weave” mode, too...

Today a first-year sharpie with a right leg fracture came in. He’s rail-thin and his scruffy tail feathers would indicate he’s been down a while. The leg itself seems fairly stable, as if the fracture has already started healing, but it’s right at the joint so we’ll wait for x-rays to make any definitive statements.

The former stargazing red tail is STILL awaiting good weather for his release. And most of next week also looks wet, so... We need at least three days of low-to-no rain chances, and last week it rained nearly every other day; this week shows no clear skies till around the end of the week.

The red tail with the swollen eye still has a blood clot sitting right on the pupil but the eye itself looks much, much better. Swelling is down and it’s pretty clear aside from the clot. He’s eating well and I may move him outside into the raptor flight this week, rain notwithstanding. The raptor flight has a sheltered area for inclement weather.

The third red tail, with the hand fracture, is in the mini-pen after staging three jailbreaks and wreaking havoc each time in the rehab room. He’ll remain there until the hand heals well enough for the raptor flight.

The great horned’s eyes still look weird, with dilated pupils and the right pupil still misshapen, but he’s finding his food when I hide it under the paper lining his box to test his ability to locate it, leading me to think that as weird as they look to me—and to vet Jim Hobby—this may be the norm for the bird. I mean, he’s finding that food... And they might look “normal” again once he’s fully over the head trauma.

The red shoulder is alert, aggressive and eating well as he recovers from the soft tissue damage to his elbow.

And the vultures are still hanging around, sometimes together, sometimes separately. How often I see them seems to depend to a great extent on the weather and whether they can find carcasses in the woods. They know the LWR diner is open if the wild pickin’s (not possessive; apostrophe replaces the ‘g’) get slim.

0 Comments

The inn is getting crowded

9/12/2021

2 Comments

Currently LWR has three red tails, a red shoulder, a great horned owl, and a screech owl—and, of course, the vulture twins continue to visit at least once daily. Space is getting tight inside, as of the six recovering birds, only one is in a flight pen—the former stargazer.

He’s doing well and would have been released last week except for significant rain chances that cropped up beginning early in the week. And this week is looking to be the same—too few rain-free days to get him released, so he’ll be in the raptor flight another week, poor fellow. He’s so ready to go!

The second red tail, the one with the massively swollen eye, has equally massive amounts of blood in that eye and still squints badly with it. On his vet visit we did determine his eye is intact; it was so swollen and draining so much I worried it had ruptured. Vet Jim Hobby at Smalley’s said he’s got a blood clot right on the pupil, so we’ll just have to give him time—and eye drops—to see how it heals.

The third red tail, if you recall, I suspected was a spray-and-pray victim since dove season opened the first Saturday in September and he came in the very next day with a wound that, to me, screamed gunshot. X-rays proved me right, although he wasn’t shot with normal birdshot (shows up as pellets on x-rays). His “hand” is pretty mangled but Jim and I think that with proper management he should heal for flight, given that none of the damage is near a joint. Again, time will tell.

The red shoulder does not, in fact, have an elbow fracture as I suspected; the elbow remains swollen but the x-rays were clear. Jim manipulated it a bit and found the problem; he has a seriously pulled muscle or possibly torn tendon that’s causing some dislocation of the elbow. It’s not an injury we can treat with anything but time. Soft tissue damage is the most uncertain, honestly: It may or may not heal for flight. I’m beginning to sound like a broken record, but time will tell.

The great horned owl has a few scraped toes, a broken blood feather—he’s in a molt—a bloody beak, and some serious head trauma. He’s literally blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other. Given the misshapen right pupil, I was afraid the lens was luxated but it’s not. Jim said lens and retina looked fine, so we’re not sure why the pupil is misshapen unless it’s just from sheer blunt force trauma. Neither pupil is responsive to light, however, so again—say it with me—“Time will tell.”

The screech came in Saturday afternoon and hasn’t been to the vet yet; aiming at x-rays Monday. His right wing droops badly and there’s some scabbing at the shoulder and elbow that may be hiding exposed bone—hard to tell. He’s a typical feisty screech with a hearty appetite, though. Fingers crossed for this peeved little fellow!

And, of course, the vultures are still dropping by. Apparently carcasses were in short supply this week, as they hung around a bit more than usual, demanding handouts. Yeah, some of y’all saw this video when I posted it on my personal page yesterday, but it’s too good to share with everybody!

2 Comments

Red tail-palooza

9/5/2021

2 Comments

Well, okay, a red tail trio, to be more accurate. Still...been a while since LWR’s hosted three red tails simultaneously. This is the time of year the juvies start running into trouble, though, so it’s not surprising I’m seeing more.

The former stargazing red tail is flying well and antsy, and the weather is looking good for release early in the week.

A second red tail came in late Friday from Eatonton, home of Joel Chandler Harris of Uncle Remus fame. A huge thanks to the Eatonton PD for making sure this gorgeous fellow arrived. He’s got a massively swollen left eye and had had a bloody nose before intake. He may also have a wing fracture; we’ll need x-rays to be sure. He’s alert but still reluctant to eat.

The third red tail arrived just a few minutes ago, and the bloody left wrist wound and possible fracture near that joint lead me to believe he might have been a victim of “spray and pray” dove hunters, as Saturday was the opening of dove season in Georgia. Again, we’ll need x-rays to be sure.

The red shoulder still hasn’t gotten his x-rays yet; the sooner the better is the general rule but scheduling conflicts on my end prevented a vet trip last week. He’ll also go in this week for those delayed x-rays.

The vultures ditched their wild buddy and are now showing up in shifts, for the most part: one in the morning, one in the evening. And yes, I can tell them apart by the differences in their heads, so I know which is which when they show. And one is a bigger clown while the other tends to be more serious and apparently thoughtful. They definitely have their own personalities!

We reached 85% of our goal on the fundraiser, for a total of $2555. Thanks to the 17 donors who made this possible. For those who missed the fundraiser deadline, there are PayPal links on each page of the website; you don’t have to wait for another fundraiser to donate.

2 Comments

Bustin’ at the seams

It’s that time of year again...

The inn is getting crowded

Red tail-palooza

Archives

Categories