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Great blue herons are bottomless pits...

10/18/2020

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...And this one’s about to eat me outta house and home—but never fear, my cousin, whose entire supply of large goldfish I’ve wiped out in a week, has offered me the back room at his bait and tackle shop and a couple of blankets to crash on when the bird bankrupts me... We’re both just kidding. I think. At this point, with $200 worth of fish for that bird in 10 days and no idea when my cousin will be able to replenish his supply, it may be the heron who’s got troubles!
Actually, we’re aiming for more complete x-rays Monday before the heron’s either euthanized or transferred to the Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll Island this week. My vets were out of town last week, and the rehabber at GSTC was also unavailable, hence the delay in both x-rays and transfer.

Aside from watching LWR’s limited funds go down the heron’s throat in great gulps, it was a fairly slow week, with only two intakes.

A young adult Virginia rail with a wing fracture took a roundabout path from Columbus, near the Alabama line, to LWR. He was emaciated when he arrived, and he’d obviously not eaten while on his circuitous route here: The towel lining his box was covered with small white dots of poop, indicating lack of food. Sadly, he died the night of intake.
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And a late first-year/early second year red tail was so desperate for food he tried to attack a covered chicken coop and was himself attacked by a dog—and then apparently ended up in a pool as the homeowner tried to catch him to see if the dog had injured him. Adding insult to injury, he was driven some 60 miles in a wire dog crate in the back of a truck with no blankets to muffle the road noise and wind, so when he arrived at LWR, he was stressed to the max.

Since nothing was broken I tried the bird in the mini-pen, where he perched very precariously on the low perch, wings drooping and head down and exhibiting nervous tics that made me suspect possible neurological damage. Also, the inside of his beak was pale, almost white, so I worried about possible internal bleeding or potential capillaria. It seemed a better idea to bring him inside where I could monitor his poop after the initial treatment for capillaria—and watch for bloody poop that would indicate internal injuries.
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He did continue Saturday to exhibit a slight nervous tic: His head “ticked” like a clock second hand slowly to the right, to about 90 degrees, and then jerked quickly back to center. Today, though, the tic seems to’ve resolved; he’s bright-eyed and holding that head steady. A few days of R&R at the LWR B&B won’t hurt him, though; he can stand to flesh out a bit. His keel was a bit prominent on intake, and I prefer to release well-fleshed raptors.
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On a “housekeeping” note, there will be no update on Sunday, Oct. 25; the next update will be on November 1.
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And then there were none...briefly

10/11/2020

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For two days last week LWR had no guests, after releasing the wood thrush and great horned owl. But nature abhors a vacuum, so it didn’t take long for birds to start showing up again.

There’s no video of the wood thrush release; he refused to leave the mini-pen while I was anywhere near it so I left the door open, walked away, and came back half an hour later to check—and he was long gone.

The great horned owl also wasted no time leaving; I did get video of him but no post-release photos. When I walked over to where I’d last seen him after stopping the video, he was also long gone.
And for a couple of days, LWR was birdless—a nice, albeit short, break. Then, on the same day, two songbirds came in. The first, an adult blue jay, had been accidentally shot when the homeowner was shooting a BB gun in his back yard. Apparently the person didn’t know the four cardinal rules of responsible gun handling:
  • Treat ALL guns as if they’re loaded.
  • Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
  • Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target.
  • Identify your target, and what is behind it.
The jay’s wing was utterly trashed; it couldn’t be repaired. He was humanely euthanized.
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The second was an adult female hummer who’d been attacked by the homeowner’s outdoor cat—TWO WEEKS before the bird was brought to LWR. Her right wing had been ripped off; how she survived two weeks with cat bacteria all in her system is beyond me. I was asked when the bird was brought to LWR if wings could regrow. No, people, wings cannot regrow. FEATHERS can regrow; the bones and tendons comprising the wing CANNOT regenerate themselves. It doesn’t work that way.

And yes, the hummer was also humanely euthanized.
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And late in the week, an adult great blue heron was transferred from a songbirds-only colleague to LWR. He’d been found with a fishhook in his wing and tangled in fishing line. X-rays by my colleague’s vet showed no fractures but the left wing droops badly, indicating severe soft tissue damage. Honestly, I’m not real hopeful this will resolve for release but we’ll give him some time to see. At least he’s eating well, to the tune of $40 worth of live fish every 2-3 days.
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Outgoing and incoming

10/4/2020

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The antsy red tails were released—FINALLY! The July 4 bird flew low but steady; the September one took almost the same course. Videos and post-release photos are below; I used a new camera and I’m still learning its ins and outs, so forgive the lack of zoom on the videos.
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I got so focused on the September bird after his release I didn’t see where the July 4 one flew off to. I started out of the release site with the boxes, camera in bag...and walked right under him, startling us both. And I watched in awe and frustration as he flew off—awe because it was a much better, stronger  flight than the one I captured on video when he shot out of the box and frustration because I was holding boxes and the camera was in its bag over my shoulder, so I missed a gorgeous flight video. Oh well...

With both red tails gone, the mini-pen and the raptor flight were open. Given that the great horned owl had been kept waiting two weeks past what I’d intended due to rain delaying the hawk releases, I moved him right into the raptor flight, where he’s showing me that in another week or so, he’ll also be good to go.
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Friday vet Richie Hatcher at Magnolia Grove vet clinic texted me that someone had brought them a bird that had apparently crashed into a local eatery’s window. The accompanying photo was a thrush but I couldn’t tell from the pic what kind of thrush. When I got the bird, it turned out to be a wood thrush, only my second wood thrush ever—and I adore wood thrushes.

He looked rough, sitting with eyes closed, not eating or drinking or pooping, and I honestly figured there was internal damage from the window strike. That night at lights out, I didn’t hold out much hope he’d be with us come morning, but to my delight, he was alert, active, pooping and eating well Saturday morning.
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I worried that he might have a coracoid fracture but his wings were level and he was so active this morning I tried him in the mini-pen, where he flew beautifully—ground-to-roof, front-to-back, side-to-side. So I left the pen door open and stood to the side with the camera around the corner to video him as he flew out...only he didn’t. He sat there. And sat there. And sat there. So I carefully eased back in, and he flew to the ground and sat there. I picked him up, and he calmly sat in my hand, but then two hours later wanted nothing to do with me—maybe lingering head trauma making him act wonky.
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But his little talons are insanely long for a wild-raised bird, making me suspicious. If not for those talons I’d say it was just the head trauma causing erratic behavior. I ran my suspicions by colleague Maureen Eiger of Help Wild Birds and sent her some photos. She agreed that it seemed likely I might have a bird who’d been raised illegally and released without proper survival skills. I’m gonna give him some time to see if he wilds up sufficiently for release, and we’ll go from there.
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Saturday morning a caller reported finding several dead birds in her yard and one live injured one. The photo she sent of the live bird showed it was a bluebird—also in the thrush family and also among my favorite birds—but the lighting was such I couldn’t tell if it was male or female.

When she arrived, we had a feathers-fluffed bird with one eye closed and a scab on the left side of her neck. Yep, she was a little female, and the fading spots on her chest indicated she was one of this year’s babies just getting her full adult color. I started her on meds, in case her wound was from a cat attack, but she died about four hours after intake.
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