The goal of wildlife rehab is, of course, to release critters back into the wild, and rehabbers celebrate those releases. Sometimes, however, releases take a less pleasant but equally valuable form: euthanasia.  A release from pain and suffering is sometimes the only one we can offer wildlife in our care.
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Such was the case with the barred owl who came in late Monday. If you’ll recall, in that day-late update, I stated that his wing felt too “crunchy” to be good news. When he was x-rayed at Smalley’s Animal Hospital on Tuesday, vet tech Christy Harrell and I knew immediately upon seeing the x-ray that there was nothing to be done. Vet Richie Hatcher walked in, took one look at the image, and headed back out to get the euthanasia solution. You can see below why we all knew this was a done deal. The humerus is badly displaced but beyond that, if you look closely at the elbow joint, you can see that bone is shattered.  The only humane option for the poor bird was euthanasia.

​That same evening, a second-year female red-tailed hawk came in from mammal rehabber Libby Parker in Valdosta. She’d been brought to her the previous evening, when the finder claimed she couldn’t fly. She’d managed to escape her box that night at Libby’s; it took her all of half an hour to figure out an escape from her box at LWR. This gal was pissy and footy, and I immediately adored her! An exam showed no fractures, a well-fleshed keel, and a full crop. Libby said she hadn’t fed her the previous night, so I was pretty sure I knew her problem—she’d eaten too much, “cropped out,” as it were, and was too heavy and lethargic to fly when her “rescuer” found her.  The next morning, she went into the raptor flight, where she proved my theory correct by flying from one end of the flight to the other and back. Repeatedly. I was happy; she was NOT. She wanted her freedom back. NOW. I kept her for another 48 hours for observation, just to be sure—and in hopes she’d encourage the male red-tail to attempt flight—and then released her Saturday. She ate well during her stay at LWR, and it was a refreshing change to have a bird who was healthy and ready to go.

​Unfortunately, my attempt at dime-store psychology didn’t work and the male red-tail remains unflighted. The only thing the female encouraged him to do was mantle his food. It’s not looking promising for him.

​And the flyers are having a blast in their larger quarters, and being impossibly adorable in the process, of course!

Fall and winter are more or less the “slow times” for rehabbers, with sporadic bursts of intakes rather than a sustained influx. It’s our time to regroup, clean up from baby season and just generally catch our breath…and pull the tattered shreds of our sanity back together.
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So...only one new intake, who actually came in this evening: a barred owl with a nasty broken left wing. He’ll get x-rays tomorrow, but I’m not hopeful.  The break feels too high and too “crunchy” to me, so I’m not expecting positive news tomorrow.

​The red-tail with the pellet in his wrist is not looking promising, either. He can’t fully extend the wing and won’t attempt flight. We were initially pretty certain he’d have a good chance at recovery, but with wildlife you never know. We’ll give him some time and see what happens.

​And the flyers moved into new digs, which they quite happily explored.  They’re totally self-feeding now, which is nice for them and me. And, of course, they’re adorable!

​And that is it for this week, people—short and sweet! 

And we’re gonna focus heavily on that thrush this week, because it’s also another first for me and LWR, and sadly, it’s not lookin’ good for the sweet bird.
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Friday night, colleague Libby Parker, a mammal rehabber, called about a bird that had been pulled from an oil pan. She sent me photos of the bird post-bath and asked what else she needed to do. His eyes looked weak and irritated, so I suggested a saline rinse, followed by nonsteroidal ointment or drops to soothe the irritation. 

At this point, I was guessing as to species. The oil and subsequent dampness of the feathers had me confused; I thought it might be a young brown thrasher. I’m notoriously bad at IDing birds from photos.

Saturday a transporter brought the bird and two more flyers from Libby to LWR. The flyers, of course, settled in with the new sibs overnight, while the bird, now that it was in hand, was obviously a thrush, not a thrasher. But what kind of thrush?

Since we’d just had the hermit thrush last week, my immediate thought was that this was also a hermit thrush. But something seemed off about the wing feathers, and when he started vocalizing, the sound was wrong. Hmmmm…Swainson’s thrush? I knew them only from name, as they don’t breed in Georgia; we only see them during migration.  Time to consult Sibley’s and see…

Yep, the sweet little fellow is a Swainson’s thrush—a first, as I said earlier, for me and LWR. That’s one of the neat things about working with birds: there are so many species that every year can bring a “first” of one or more species.
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But his eyes still looked awful.

I contacted vets Peggy Hobby and Richie Hatcher late Saturday evening, after the now-identified Swainson’s thrush came in, to make sure I was on target with the saline rinse, followed by nonsteroidal drops/ointment. I left messages for both, and within 15 minutes had replies from both that this treatment was appropriate, so I continued it through today.

Honestly, I’m not seeing improvement. His eyes are swollen and weak-looking, and the oil seems to be literally seeping out of his erstwhile clean head—perhaps from his ears; I’m not sure. I’ve swabbed down his head with Dawn again to clear away the oil that collected overnight. (Dawn is the rehabber’s go-to for oiled and greased wildlife.)
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Meanwhile, he can fly for short distances, as I tested him in the songbird flight today. His vision precludes proper flight, however, and while Dawn is excellent at removing grease and oil, it does have the downside of also stripping the natural oils from bird feathers, meaning a loss of waterproofing.

After seeing his vision was still definitely an issue, and given his lack of waterproofing for the next several days, until he can preen enough natural oils back into his feathers, I brought him back inside where it’ll be easier to medicate him and monitor his condition.

However…he’s stressed; he can’t see properly, which means he can’t eat properly, and he was already thin on intake; and his eyes look, if anything, worse today than they did yesterday.

I’m cautiously hopeful but not overly optimistic that we can set this precious little bird back on his migration within the week. We’ll see. It’s honestly not looking real promising right now.

And that brings me to this week’s rant: People, for God’s sake, dispose of oil and grease properly. You don’t just leave stuff like that sitting around openly. It’s an invitation for disaster. Here’s a helpful rule of thumb: if you wouldn’t want your toddler getting into it, it’s also not safe for wildlife. And someone’s callous disregard for the safety of children and animals may end up costing this bird his life.

In happier news, the gunshot red-tail is chomping at the bit to get out of confinement, which is a good sign. He’s headed for the raptor flight this week.

The head-trauma red-tail will be transferred to colleague Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends this week; as his vision improved, he developed a nasty food aggression, literally attacking me as I walked in to feed him. That, coupled with his calm perching on a glove, leads us to believe that he may have been in the hands of an ill-trained wannabe falconer who fed him a crap diet, hence the vision issues, and not enough of it, hence the food aggression. Rather than release him and risk his attacking someone for food, we feel his best bet is for Steve, who is a Master Falconer as well as a raptor rehabber, to work with him to “retrain” him away from food aggression.

We lost another flyer this week, the runt female from the twin females who came in a few weeks back. It was a classic case of failure to thrive: she was eating well, growing just like her sib, and then suddenly she wasn’t. Appetite decreased, appearance was scruffy, and weight dropped precipitously. It was like she ran full-tilt into a growth barrier and slid backwards. Unfortunately, this scenario isn’t uncommon with runts—it’s as if they reach a certain point of development and stop, period.

However, with the two flyers from Libby, there are six adorable babies who will be in new digs for next week’s photos. And in a rare occurrence, we have a dead-even gender mix: three of each!
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Not as many photos of the flyers this week, and no video, but I’ll try to make up for it next week.

​Oh, almost forgot—next week’s update will be a day late, on Monday, Oct. 23.

It was one of “those” weeks, with a mix of good news, heartbreak and anger. Let’s start with some good news, shall we?

The vision-impaired red-tail seems to’ve totally recovered from his head trauma and is not only continuing to perch on the high perches in the raptor flight, but is also sailing smoothly to snatch his food from the forceps before I can even lay it down anywhere. This is beyond good news; it’s excellent! If you’ll recall, I was worried he might have permanent vision issues. Apparently not! I tried all week for a short video of him snagging his food, but he’s sitting on “ready” the moment he hears the latch on the flight door, and I barely even make it in the door now before he’s snagged his food and hit the ground to eat, so…maybe next week we’ll have a release video!

There are actually three entries into the “bad” and “infuriating” categories this week, all of them intakes on the same day.
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First off, this gorgeous adult male red-tail came in with a wing injury. Nothing felt broken but he had a “ding” that looked suspicious to me, so he made a trip to Smalley’s Animal Hospital, where x-rays confirmed my suspicions: he has a pellet lodged in his wrist. The x-rays also confirmed no fractures, so vet Peggy Hobby and I feel pretty confident he should be flight-capable once the wound has healed.

On the heels of the GSW red-tail, this little hermit thrush came in, found the previous night with what appeared to be puncture wounds all over his back and plucked nearly bald in the same region, a probable cat-attack victim. The finders, before calling LWR, slathered Neosporin on the wounds.

And here let me stop to beg you PLEASE not to do that. I understand the desire to do “something” when you find a wounded bird, but antibiotic ointments gum up their feathers something awful and can even cause them to fall out. Clean the wound(s) with sterile saline, NOT tap water, and let that be the extent of your “treatment” until you’ve spoken with a rehabber. PLEASE.

Unfortunately, it didn’t really matter for this sweet little bird. The wounds and the stress were simply too much; he barely lasted an hour after intake. He was the first hermit thrush LWR has ever taken in; they’re not in Georgia except during migration, and some few overwinter in South Georgia. Those of you who’ve been with me for a while know how I feel about thrushes in general. I adore every single species in the thrush family, and to have the very first hermit thrush I’ve ever had the privilege to see die from someone’s stupidity and carelessness in letting their cats roam free just quite frankly broke my heart and infuriated me, as well.

And number three in the “bad” and “infuriating” categories was this sweet little Eastern cottontail, the victim of someone’s out-of-control dog. Now, normally, LWR doesn’t handle cotties; for one thing, they have a bad tendency to stress out and die and as a colleague once said, I’d rather let someone else dig those graves. For another, LWR specializes in birds of all species and flying squirrels. But this poor baby was the sole survivor of a dog attack on the nest that killed Mama and all sibs, and he was in the hands of someone I knew would attempt to rehab him without proper permits or knowledge if LWR didn’t take him, so…I crossed my fingers, held my breath and hoped—and he made it!

He had only a slightly sprained back leg on intake, but his eyes were open and he was eating solids, so after a couple of days of observation to make sure the leg wasn’t gonna be a major issue, he was released. Now, I already hear some of you saying, “But he’s too small!”
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Nope. If a wild rabbit is large enough to cover half a dollar bill, he’s old enough to be on his own. He may still return to the nest to sleep with Mama and sibs, but he’s independent as far as food and survival.

​And finally, we have the flyers for your weekly dose of adorable. They’re growing like weeds and will soon need bigger digs.

​Oh, and for a bonus, I surprised these wild turkeys yesterday as I was freshening up the outside feeders. I love how, in the video, the tom herds his “harem” to safety out of my sight!

Not much to report this week: the two flyers en route last Sunday arrived; two more came in Monday, and that’s it for new intakes for the week!

The two Sunday flyers were both male; the runt struggled for four days before finally giving up. He was eating but exhibiting classic “failure to thrive” and I didn’t hold out much hope for him. As long as he was fighting, though, I wouldn’t give up on him. It’s heartbreaking when a baby tries so hard and ultimately just can’t survive.

The Monday flyers were both female, eyes still closed on intake, although they opened the very next day. They’re both doing well.

The two older flyers have taken over “parenting” as far as cleaning the younger ones and nestling up with them. It’s just adorable.
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Of course, there are photos and video aplenty of the sweet little rascals:

​The mourning doves were released after a few days in the songbird flight; I still see one or two of them every couple of days, often behind the songbird flight. 

​And in what may be a promising sign from the red-tail, yesterday he snatched his mouse from me before I could place it near his feet; this morning he was perching on the high perch when I went in to feed him. It would appear his vision might be improving, albeit slowly! Fingers crossed this is true progress and not just a fluke.

​And that, folks, is it for this week—I think I could get used to this!