So far this month, only two intakes: a cat-attacked female cardinal we thought was in pretty good shape who died the next morning and a grazed-by-car adult squirrel who was merely stunned.

The cardinal had only a couple of small wounds and was missing most of the feathers on her right wing, and all but two of her tail feathers had been pulled out. Shelley Baumann agreed to stay late at Smalley’s so we could go ahead and start the bird on strong antibiotics, as cat bites are always fatal to birds otherwise, and we really thought we’d gotten to her in time: she was alert and aggressive that evening and the next morning. Within three hours of sunrise, however, she’d died. My guess is even though we treated her as quickly as possible, she wasn’t brought in soon enough after the cat attack, and the lethal feline bacteria had time to get into her system to the point that the antibiotics just didn’t help.

Of course, it could have been sheer stress, too. Adult wildlife generally doesn’t fare as well as juvenile in rehab, in my experience. The babies don’t know any better, so human handling doesn’t stress them as badly; the adults fear–or at least distrust–humans and stress out more severely.

The squirrel was relatively calm at Smalley’s but totally freaked out when I got her home, quite literally bouncing off the walls. Any animal that could be that active after an encounter with a car was obviously good to go, so I watched her for a while longer, just to be sure, and then released her.

As a rule, it’s better to release an adult animal where it was originally picked up, but in this case, I had no clue where she’d been picked up: the person who hit her was headed to work and dropped the squirrel off at Smalley’s because I’d met her there earlier in the year to take a dog-attacked hawk. So this bushy-tailed lady joined the coterie of squirrels in and around my yard!

Speaking of squirrels, Albert and Mini have left, although Mini still visits occasionally, when she decides she just has to "steal" food from the stash I keep in the pen for that very purpose.

Miss Little Dove continues to progress nicely, albeit slowly, and will be with me for the winter. She seems to be developing some strength in that injured wing now, so let’s hope her next step is to figure out the eating-on-her-own thing!

This time of year if you look and listen carefully, you may still see or hear some late-migrating birds around, especially if you live near a wooded area. A couple of days ago I heard a commotion in the woods behind my house–birds singing, lots of ‘em–so I of course went to investigate and found myself watching at least 200 robins gossiping loudly and flitting from treetop to treetop. It was amazing!

Funny thing is, robins don’t migrate out of the country; they generally winter in the South. Some even remain up North all winter. Bluebirds do the same thing: the bluebird population around here at least doubles during the winter, although some "blues" also winter up North. (The robins shown were a pair of juvies I "birdsat" for another rehabber when she was out of town for a few days a couple of years ago.)

Neat stuff, huh?! Want more? Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends raptor rehab informed me this week that owls have generally mated by now and the females are either finishing up nests or already on the nest, so their babies will be hatching in the dead of winter. Since I don’t work closely with raptors, my role being to triage and transfer, this was new info for me, as well. I wondered why the barred, screech and great horned owls around my property had gone from noisy to seemingly non-existent in the space of a couple of weeks, and now I know...and you do, too! (The baby screech owl shown here came in last year with severe ant bites all over his body. I stablilized him and transferred him to a raptor-licensed rehabber.)

And finally, we had a full moon this past week, so here’s a nice photo for your viewing pleasure. Nope, not rehab-related; I just like the shot!

I ended up with 9 intakes for October, more than any other October previously, but usually November and December are slower months. That said, there’s been nothing "usual" about this year, so we’ll see...

In deer updates, Junior’s no longer visiting at all and Bucky’s showing up a little more often these days–I think out of sheer loneliness, since his best bud left him. There are a couple of wild-raised does around the same age as Bucks (yes, he has many nicknames) who seem to be hanging around his territory a lot lately, so maybe he’ll take up with them.

Mini and Albert (at left) are the only squirrels I have at the moment, and they’re both on the road to independence. They’re weaned now, so all that remains is for them to discover that they can go outside as they please–after that, it will only be a couple of weeks before they cut the apron strings. If they delay, though, I’ll have to overwinter them. I generally don’t release squirrels later than mid-November.

They’re both quite active little rascals and have bonded nicely although, oddly enough, Albert is the one who still allows me to touch him, while Mini ( at right) has "wilded up" as if she’d never been handled by a human before - go figure!  (Below, Albert is at the top and Mini is stretched out full-length.)

The chimney swift from my last October update did have to be euthanized. With feedings every hour for 12 hours a day, she still managed to lose 4 grams in 7 days, and she never regained her ability to fly. That decision hurt a lot, because she really was a sweet bird. The dramatic weight loss, though, was the deal clincher: to give you an analogy, imagine a 100 lb. person eating full meals every hour for 12 hours a day for 7 days, and yet still losing 15 pounds in those same 7 days. That’s what she had done, poor girl.

Miss Little Dove, on the other hand, is coming along beautifully. She weighed 57g when she came in and was 124g yesterday–quite a weight gain! But remember, she’s a growing bird, so dramatic weight gain is normal for her. Her injured wing is healing nicely and she’s starting to fly in place, flapping those wings as hard as she can to test and strengthen them. I love watching pre-fledglings do that!

I had a red bellied woodpecker come in last week, a female, with a broken wing. I got her to Smalley’s about 20 minutes before they closed, and prior to the X-ray Shelley Baumann and I were hopeful that she could be saved. I really, really like red bellies; they and pileateds are my favorite woodpeckers.

Unfortunately, the X-ray showed that the break was so close to the joint that when the bone healed, it would have resulted in a frozen joint. That would’ve meant she’d’ve never been able to fly again, Adding to that, she had an open wound under that wing, so even if the break hadn’t been too close to the joint, there was no way to wrap it without having that wound get infected. The poor girl was doomed, no matter what we did.

Unfortunately, we’ve reached that time of year when most of my intakes will have injuries that require euthanasia. There will be few babies for the next few months, maybe some late gray squirrels or flying squirrels...and having said that, watch me be flooded with flyers and late grays over the next few weeks!