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Rainy weather equals injured raptors

11/30/2014

6 Comments

 
Georgia experienced several days of heavy rains early last week, and prolonged rains nearly always result in raptors getting hit by cars. Sure enough, every raptor that came in last week was pretty obviously HBC (hit by car).

The first came in late last Sunday, after dedicated volunteers drove in sheets of rain to pick him up. Actually, his story apparently started the previous Friday, when the rain really started, as well. He was found in the middle of the road, and his finder had every intention of keeping him—had named him, made him a perch, and even made it clear she’d drive all the way to Laurens County to retrieve him “when he was ready.” Interesting, since she couldn’t drive him to Laurens County for rehab and we actually had to threaten her with DNR and FWS to even get the bird… (And that, boys and girls, is a prime example of why rehabbers are generally distrustful of callers when they show the slightest hesitation about getting a bird to us.)

This guy’s bell had been rung, well and truly. He was still, two days out, woozy and uncoordinated, but nothing appeared to be broken. He had a tendency to squint his right eye, and it looked a little bruised on the lower lid, but the eye was clear and the pupil responsive to light—and he ate a mouse right away, which was good.
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By the next day he’d perked up but I still wanted the eye checked out by the vets at Smalley’s Animal Hospital. 
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Before I could set up an appointment for him, though, a call came in about an injured red tailed hawk in another county. The caller’s brother had found the bird in the road and they were willing to drive him to me. I asked if they had a cardboard box or even a pet taxi to put him in and was told he was in a pet cage. To me, that means pet taxi or something similar, so…okay.

We meet, in the rain, and the elderly gentlemen had put the hawk in the only cage they had handy—a very large humane (Havahart) trap. Not ideal at all. He was totally freaked out—and it takes a lot to freak out a RT; they’re generally very laid-back birds.
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It took him several hours to calm down, during which time I’d already made arrangements to get both birds to Smalley’s for exams and, in the case of the RT, x-rays. I knew his left wing was broken; I just couldn’t tell how badly.

The barred owl was deemed in good health after vet Richie Hatcher examined him; we agreed he’d just had a major concussion going on. He was also a bit on the thin side, so a few days at the LWR B&B weren’t gonna hurt him any. I’ll be releasing him this week, weather cooperating.

The RT was well-fleshed and had calmed to the laid-back, easy to handle bird his species usually is. Unfortunately, both his radius and ulna were badly fractured, and these aren’t bones that can be pinned: they’re too thin. We had no option but to euthanize.
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The next day a call came in about yet another owl—and yes, it was still raining. When I picked this one up, he was in a wire cage, sitting in the rain—and this pickup was from a local agency that should have known better, so I was highly perturbed and have taken measures to ensure that never happens again.

His humerus was broken, and it felt bad to me—nearly an open fracture. I placed him in the smallest box possible to minimize movement until I could get him to Smalley’s the next day. Upon examination of the wing, Richie agreed it was bad, almost an open fracture. We were about to x-ray when he palpated it a bit more and said, “Wait a minute, I think it is an open fracture.” Brushing aside the thick feathers covering the bone, we could finally see the end of the bone jutting out—and it looked black, like an old injury. When the bone is black it’s effectively dead; there’s no way to repair that sort of damage. We had to euthanize this barred owl.
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By Thanksgiving Day the rain had stopped and the phone had also stopped ringing…temporarily.  I’d just started to the desserts after dinner (lunch for you city types) when my phone rang and sure enough, it was a wildlife call. Someone an hour’s drive away had found an injured Canada goose in the ditch and was headed toward Laurens County on his way to Atlanta.

We agreed to meet in the parking lot of a local restaurant in an hour or so, and when I got there the goose was quite active in his box. On the way home he managed to work his head free and was peering around the back of my station wagon, so I really thought he had a good chance at rehab and release. I’d not examined him at this point, as it was cold and windy in the parking lot.

When I got him home and examined him, I found that for all his feistiness, he was unfixable. His right leg was broken in the joint; his right wing was broken, with a large chunk of flesh and bone missing; his keel was raw; and his upper belly, just below the keel, had two large open wounds that were already beginning to fester—all wounds consistent with being hit by a car during the previous several days of rain. I had the means at my disposal to humanely end his pain, so I did.
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Because I feel each intake should be a learning experience, even when euthanasia is required, I thought I’d offer this photo of the goose’s bill. I’ve honestly never examined their bills closely and had no idea they had “teeth”! They’re actually made of serrated cartilage and aid the birds in pulling up grass on land and roots and such from pond bottoms. Neat, huh?
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Folks, remember that the 2015 LWR calendars are available through Lulu.com (link below) for $16.50 + shipping. US, UK and Canadian holidays are featured, and $5 of each purchase goes toward funding next year’s rehab efforts. (The remaining 11.50 goes to Lulu; I see no personal profit from these calendars.) 
Support independent publishing: Buy this calendar on Lulu.
And as Cyber Monday approaches, those of you who do your Christmas shopping online please remember that when you shop at AmazonSmile, Amazon donates 0.5% of the purchase price to Laurens Wildlife Rescue Inc. Bookmark the link http://smile.amazon.com/ch/26-1668846 and support us every time you shop.

Some of you are probably already tired of seeing the calendars and the AmazonSmile program promoted, but let me give you two very recent examples of the costs LWR incurs, especially when rehabbing raptors.  You should all remember the barred owl whose broken wing was pinned, right? Well, it took 4 medium-to-large mice a day to feed him. Four mice a day for two months comes to $200—for ONE bird.

Need another example? The GHO released the week before Thanksgiving was at LWR for just over two weeks. GHOs are bottomless pits. He ate 8 jumbo mice a day. His total feed bill for 16 days? $120.

And finally, local folks please remember that LWR needs volunteers to help with flight pen renovation and construction. Thus far, one person has volunteered the services of her family.
6 Comments

“Hang around here? Whoo-wh’WHOO-whoo-whoo, me?”

11/23/2014

14 Comments

 
That was apparently the great horned owl’s sentiment last week, as he burst out of his box before I could even finish opening it!

Oh, but let’s back up a bit, shall we? Sir GHO is ready to go: he’s had his last capillaria treatment, the temps have warmed up, there’s no rain predicted for three days. He’s a young bird, one of this year’s hatches, so I don’t have to worry about returning him to an established territory—great! I have a safe place to release him, with plenty of prey, so into the flight pen I stride, gloved and ready to “do battle” with a very antsy and eager-to-leave GHO.

He flies into the back wall of the flight pen—remember, this is still a songbird flight pen, flimsy by raptor standards—and I’m able to grab him from behind as he tries to rip through the mesh. Honestly, I’m surprised he didn’t tear his way out over the past two weeks; his feet and beak were powerful enough to’ve ripped the mesh and probably the hardware cloth if he’d had enough sense to try. (I promise you, no GHO will ever be nominated for Mensa!)

So…got the very unhappy camper by the body; now to get those powerful feet under control ASAP, which I do with no trouble. It’s a skill honed by practice!

Next step, bring his back against my chest to control him as we head for the box that will take him to his release. But wait, Sir GHO is NOT gonna go quietly into that good box, no, not him. He turns around and BITES my BOOB—through a sweatshirt and bra. And I gotta give him credit here: he drew blood through two layers of clothing…without tearing the clothing! (And NO, there will be no photos of my bloody boob; I’m crazy, not stupid, and it wasn’t really THAT bad—only about a half-inch wound.)

Violent protests notwithstanding, Sir GHO’s feathered butt DID go into the box, and we headed to the release site. He was MOVING the box in the back of the car as I drove, so I knew this would be a quick release.

And it was. I had one flap partially open, and a feathered blur erupted, heading for the treeline and leaving me standing there with a totally useless camcorder in hand, looking like a doofus.

So I take off running into the woods to try and capture a few still photos, at least, and…I twist my ankle crashing through the brush in search of the GHO. Not a bad twist—no swelling, but it definitely feels bruised. The things I do to document releases…

Never fear, though, I did find the now-calm(ish) bird, sitting on a tall, skinny snag. 
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As I got closer, he took off again, deeper into the woods, and I followed. He perched where I had a clear view of him and I even got some video to sorta kinda compensate for the missed release footage.
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In the close-up video of his face below, he’s doing what we call “happy face”, which is a bit of a misnomer, as it can indicate either contentment or stress. In his case, given he was being chased through the woods by a fool with a camera, I’d lean toward stress!
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And then he decided he’d had enough of THAT, thank you very much, so he took off again. And I followed again. The poor bird must’ve been developing a persecution complex at this point, but it paid off as far as I’m concerned. I got what turned out to be my favorite shot of him, thanked him as I tramped back out of the woods, and told him to have a good life and not do anything stupid. Yeah, right…he IS a great horned owl, after all…
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Do remember that 2015 LWR calendars are available through Lulu.com (link below) for $16.50 + shipping. Thus far, a whopping 4 calendars have been sold, so I’m hoping that number picks up as the holiday gift-shopping begins in earnest later this week. (I refuse to utter the “C” word until after Turkey Day. Let’s enjoy one holiday at a time, shall we?) US, UK and Canadian holidays are featured, and $5 of each purchase goes toward funding next year’s rehab efforts. (The remaining 11.50 goes to Lulu; I see no personal profit from these calendars.)
Support independent publishing: Buy this calendar on Lulu.
And when you do start your online holiday shopping in earnest, be sure to use the Amazon Smile program (smile.amazon.com)  so that .05% of each qualified purchase (and I’ve been using this program for almost a year now and have found very few items that don’t qualify) is donated to LWR.
Laurens Wildlife Rescue Inc
And finally, if you’ll recall, last week I mentioned that LWR needs local volunteers to help tear down and rebuild the songbird flight pen and build the raptor flight pen from the ground up. Recall, also, that I asked for interested parties to call and leave a message. The silence thus far has been deafening.  I only need 3-4 people to help out, so c’mon, folks, let’s get these pens done before babies start coming in. Spring will be here before ya know it!
14 Comments

Better late than never…

11/17/2014

4 Comments

 
…but I did alert you last week that this week’s update would be late! And it’s a short one, too...

Not much to report, really. The GHO has one more treatment for capillaria this week and then, weather cooperating, he’s good to go. Below are a couple of short videos of our unhappy camper. Listen closely for the beak click in the first one. That beak is powerful, capable of snapping a chicken thigh bone. And his big ol’ feet? Approximately 500 pounds per square inch pressure in each foot. Combine that with those large and very powerful wings, and it’s no wonder great horned owls are capable of lifting and flying away with a 9-pound prey animal!
Aside from that, it was a slow week—no new intakes.

Do remember that the 2015 LWR calendars, featuring 12 full-color photos of some of this year’s intakes, are available through Lulu.com for $16.50 plus shipping. US, UK, and Canadian holidays are featured.
Support independent publishing: Buy this calendar on Lulu.
Also, as a reminder, if you register with Amazon smile, select Laurens Wildlife Rescue as your charity of choice and begin all your Amazon shopping from the smile.Amazon homepage, .05% of most purchases goes to LWR.

                                           http://smile.amazon.com/ch/26-1668846
And finally, after Thanksgiving, which is now 10 days away, our new flight pens need to go up, and we’re looking for local volunteers who’re good with hammers, nails, and post-hole diggers. Anyone who’d like to volunteer to help get these flight pens up and ready for the upcoming baby season, contact LWR at 478-697-5319 and leave a message.

4 Comments

“Free at last, free at last!”

11/9/2014

8 Comments

 
We had liftoff this week as the barred owl finally regained his desperately-sought freedom! He shot out of the box too quickly for a video, but thanks to a good zoom on my camera, I did get shots of him as he moved progressively farther away from me, perching in one tree for a while and glaring, and then moving to another when the nuthatches’ and mockingbirds’ screaming and dive-bombing got too irritating.

Now for what I’ve been waiting over two months to reveal: before the initial surgery, back in September, vet Jim Hobby of Smalley’s Animal Hospital looked up the literature on pinning raptor wings. The barred owl was already anesthetized and awaiting surgery when Jim called me over to the computer to read over his shoulder. According to the literature, the success rate of this type of surgery is only 1.3%. Yeah, the odds were overwhelmingly against this guy’s release, which makes his flight to freedom even sweeter. Sometimes we win, and we win big!

And once again, LWR owes HUGE thanks to vets Jim Hobby and Richie Hatcher; without their willingness to take risks, our newly-free barred owl would never have had a second chance at life.
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He'd just been dive-bombed by a mocker!
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Blends in nicely, doesn't he?
Sadly, this young box turtle wasn’t as lucky. He was found in the road with a severely damaged shell. The extent of the damage and his inability to use his back legs led me to believe there were severe internal injuries, and despite attempts to repair the damaged shell, the poor fellow died during the night.
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Nature truly abhors a vacuum, so as soon as plans were underway to release the barred owl, LWR received a grounded great horned owl (GHO). Based on his behavior—outraged juvenile protests when I medicated and early-morning juvenile begging calls—this guy would appear to be a late hatch from this year. The inside of his beak was absolutely white, not the healthy pink it should have been, so I started him on meds for two common ailments that would cause the paleness: capillaria (worms in the crop and digestive system) or frounce (a yeast infection of the crop and digestive system). He was also rail-thin, which could be a direct result of his having either of the two ailments, or he could just be a really bad hunter. My money’s on a combo of frounce and capillaria.
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I’m happy to report that he has a healthy GHO appetite (meaning he’s a bottomless pit) so now the goal is just to get some meat back on his skinny keel. With the barred owl released, the GHO went into the flight pen so he can flit about and keep his flight muscles toned.  He should be good to go in another week to 10 days. Meanwhile, I’m the recipient of his lovely threat displays when I go into the pen to drop off his mice. He’s a hoot (pun intended, so feel free to groan)!
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I am big. I am bad...
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Wait, are those mice?
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Put the mice down and back away slowly, human...
The 2015 LWR calendars, featuring photos of 12 of this year’s intakes, are now available! This year they’re $16.50 + shipping; $5 of each purchase goes toward our rehab efforts for 2015 (the remainder is Lulu.com's printing/processing fee). US, UK and Canadian holidays are featured. I've priced it lower than previous years in hopes of selling more than 8 or 10 calendars, so click on the purchase link below and have at it!
Support independent publishing: Buy this calendar on Lulu.
And finally, as a bit of housekeeping, next week’s update will be on Monday the 17th, rather than Sunday the 16th—just a heads-up!
8 Comments

A step closer to freedom!

11/2/2014

14 Comments

 
I know you’ve all been waiting with bated breath to hear the outcome of the barred owl’s pin removal, so he’ll be our main focus today.

He came through with flying colors! Vet Jim Hobby of Smalley’s Animal Hospital gassed him down to sedate him for the removal.
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The tip of the pin had been left exposed so no actual surgery was needed to remove it, just a pair of pliers and one swift pull.
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Circle shows exposed tip of pin.
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Then we waited for him to wake up a bit before getting one final x-ray to see how the wing looked after the pin was out.
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The bone looked good—it didn’t shatter or splinter when the pin was removed. Because birds’ bones are, in effect, hollow, this is always a concern.
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While he was still woozy and therefore fairly cooperative, we gathered for a group shot, because I wanted you to see the dedicated vets who worked with me to save this bird’s life. Below, from left to right, are Jim Hobby, me and the still-drunk barred owl, and Richie Hatcher. Without their willingness to try a risky procedure on the owl, he would have been euthanized two months ago. 
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Of course, as soon as possible Mister Attitude went into the flight pen, where he first tried to pretend he was invisible—for some reason, all owls seem to think if their eyes are closed or nearly so, you can’t see them!
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That didn’t work, so he glared at me.
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Then he flew to the ground, backed into a corner, and went into full threat display.
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I’m happy to report that he’s flitting about the flight pen like a pro. Another week or so, and he’ll be given his freedom.

The red bellied woodpecker that came in last Sunday died unexpectedly  that night. Given that his only physical problem seemed to be a broken wing, his death was somewhat of a shock, to be honest. I hate losing any rehab, but I especially hate losing them for no apparent reason.

The Eastern towhee was released last week and didn’t waste time leaving the LWR B&B. Apparently our accommodations weren’t to his liking. Geez, hope he doesn’t leave a bad review…
14 Comments

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