Yep, wildlife rehab continues through holidays, record numbers of intakes and the threat of running out of money. Welcome to our world…

As of this moment, LWR has received a record-setting 302 intakes for the year. There may be another coming in today; there’s all of December yet to come. This is approximately double the number of intakes we usually see in a given year, hence our current funding crisis.

And our funds remain dangerously low, with about enough for one, maybe two, more mouse orders. This is not hype, it’s a true funding crisis, folks; when the money runs out, the doors shut until we can get the funds to reopen—and I’ll have to start turning away birds if I’m going to have enough food to keep the barnies and flyers fed through the winter, so we may be looking at shutting down for at least the month of December.
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The fundraiser is now running in extended time. We did receive three additional donations last week, pushing the total to $1065 and leaving just $435 to go to meet the original goal of $1500. That deficit could be the deciding factor in whether we can remain operative through December—and if we shut down, there’s effectively nowhere to take raptors or songbirds in the southern half of the state, so please donate  generously to allow LWR  to remain open and continue to provide our injured wild birds a safe haven.

​In less depressing news, three of the four barred owls were released last week. I have video of the last two; brilliant me hit the wrong button on the first release, which was actually the “prettiest” of them, so…oh well…I did get some decent photos of him after the release, though!

The fourth barred owl required euthanasia. While he seemed to be able to locate his food, I’m pretty certain it was more by feel than sight; when he attempted flight, it was aimless, low and uncertain, with frequent crashes into the wall of the raptor flight. In short, his vision was too severely impaired for release.

The barbed wire great horned owl and the fledgling pigeon also required euthanasia. Vet Peggy Hobby of Smalley’s Animal Hospital saw both and while x-rays showed no fractures to the GHO’s wing, there was too much exposed bone all along the wing and her eye was beyond trashed.

The poor pigeon was already getting pressure sores on his hocks from his deformed legs, and Peggy agreed with my initial assessment that it was too late in the bird’s development to attempt corrective measures.

Late Thanksgiving evening, LWR received a call from a couple desperately seeking help for a hawk they’d rescued from the side of the road. When they arrived with the bird, a first-year Cooper’s hawk, nothing seemed broken and his crop was bigger than his head, leading me to believe he might’ve just been a sluggish flyer because he was over-full.

However, in wildlife rehab, almost nothing is as it initially appears…

When he was boxed for the night, he refused to stand, sitting back on his hocks and tail. Coops are notoriously stressy birds, so I chalked it up to stress and fear. The next day, however, when I took him to the raptor flight, intending to test-fly him and release him, it was a no-go. His flight was more a series of short, awkward hops and he kept falling to his side—and his tail tended to skew to one side. Not good. It looked like lower spinal or pelvic trauma of some sort, although he was fully able to grasp the gloves with his feet.
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Yeah, other folks fight crowds for bargains on Black Friday; I fought a pissed-off Coop to get him back inside and on a doughnut to ease pressure on the spine/pelvis until he can get x-rays Monday. (Smalley’s was closed from Thanksgiving through today for a well-deserved long weekend.) The good news is that he is attempting to stand for short periods of time and his appetite is undiminished, so I’m hopeful we can sort out his issues and aim at release.

​Also on Black Friday, a first-year male red-tailed hawk came in. He’d been in a family’s yard since late Wednesday afternoon, and when he didn’t leave Thanksgiving Day, they got worried and sought help. On intake, the only apparent issue was a slight stiffness in the right wing, although nothing felt broken. But he was lethargic and refused for hours to stand up, leading me to worry that he might not survive the night.

​However, the next morning he was standing, and he’s eating…but his head tends to show a random tremor and he spends most of his time with it jammed in the corner, as if to control the tremor. My first thought was rodenticide, but I’ve seen owls with West Nile exhibit a similar tremor. I dunno…He’s also headed for Smalley’s Monday for x-rays on that wing and to see if we can determine what’s up with the head tremor.

​And we rounded out the week on Saturday with another great horned owl found by the roadside. This one has a definite wing fracture, left wing, feels mid-bone or close to. He’s still pretty loopy and concussed and will also be paying a visit to Smalley’s Monday.  Mondays are hectic enough at Smalley’s; they’re hellacious after a holiday. They’re gonna put out garlic and holy water to ward me off after this visit, I swear…

​The flyers continue to be utterly adorable and active. I attempted a night video, illuminated by a small flashlight, so you could see the insane level of nocturnal activity in their cage. It turned out fairly decent, I think.

​And while group visits to the water and food dishes are increasingly rare, here are a few shots of them eating and drinking en masse.

Oh, let’s see, am I forgetting something? Nah, I think that’s it for this week… Oh yeah, the barnies! Just kidding—it’s not like I could forget that quartet of cuteness.
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The barnies have outgrown yet another box and are feathering out nicely. They’re also starting to pick up their own food, which is good, since when they outgrow this box, their next move will be to the raptor flight (unless it’s occupied at the time, in which case the rehab bathroom will be their new digs for a while). And they need to be self-feeding before going into the raptor flight, ‘cause as much as I love these rascals, I ain’t draggin’ myself outside in the cold at midnight to hand-feed ‘em—nope, just ain’t gonna happen…

I also snapped a few individual shots of them as they were moved to their bigger box—such adorable rascals!

​Yeah, believe it or not, LWR received a NESTLING pigeon last week! This year is apparently the baby season that never ends…
 
While common “rock dove” or “city” pigeons aren’t protected under the MBTA, there are five species of pigeon that are: Band-tailed, Plain, Red-billed, Scaly-naped, and White-crowned. None of these species SHOULD be present in Georgia, ever, but given my proclivity for getting weird, out-of-range birds, ya never know…We’ll watch those feathers continue to develop!

​I’m a bit worried about his legs; they appear to be slightly deformed as a result of improper positioning in the nest—they curve inward where they should be straight. Whether this will resolve as he matures or he’ll learn to adapt to it remains to be seen, of course.
 
On the fundraising front, as of today we’ve raised $890. Of that, $300 has already been spent on a mouse order; another $300 is about to go for another mouse order; $65 will go this week for a mealworm order for the flyers; $30 has been spent on a larger nestbox for the flyers; and the CO2  for the EU chamber is depleted, and replacing it will cost about $100. That leaves $75 of the funds raised thus far that hasn’t already been spent or earmarked for purchases. We’re $610 shy of meeting the goal, with 2 days left in the campaign. I do have the option of continuing the fundraiser after the deadline, but honestly, people, I don’t wanna keep harassing y’all through the month of December. Please donate generously to help us meet or surpass the $1500 goal!

​This has been a “banner” fall for barred owls; two more came in this week, for a total of four in the raptor flight now. Of those, three actually showed me yesterday that they ARE capable of strong, sustained flight, so we’re looking at release ASAP for them. The fourth took three days to even leave the ground for a low perch, and his flight is uncertain and low, which leads to the strong suspicion that despite his ability to locate his mice, something is seriously wrong with his vision. He’s on borrowed time, as I really need to get the raptor flight emptied and ready for the barnies within the next couple of weeks.

​This great horned owl was carefully removed from a barbed wire fence in a neighboring county and brought to LWR yesterday afternoon. Her left wing is pretty shredded and the bone is exposed but not broken, as far as I can tell; we’ll get x-rays Monday to confirm. She also came close to losing her left eye, as the third eyelid looks to be ripped from snagging on the barbed wire. I hate that stuff with a passion; I see too many damn birds who have to be euthanized as a result of their encounters with it. And quite frankly, she may also require euthanasia; we won’t know for certain until Monday. In the meantime, all I can do for her is make sure she’s as pain-free as possible.

​The flyers continue to be adorable and extremely active, rattling their cage so roundly that you can actually hear them outside at night! Given our “fall that isn’t”, I may forgo overwintering these sweet rascals. The jury’s still out on that. We’ll see…

​And, of course, the barnies are growing like little downy weeds—well, mostly downy. Their feathers are showing considerable growth, especially around the facial discs and on the wings. The tail feathers are also starting to show.  No screaming yet (which is fine by me until I can get them in the raptor flight) but lots of very impressive hissing and some random chirping noises they’ve just begun making. They’re gonna need a bigger box next week, and within a couple of weeks, they might be ready for the raptor flight. That’s the tentative goal right now.

​Hope y’all have an enjoyable Thanksgiving, full of food, friends and family!

Believe it or not, LWR had NO new intakes this week! Maybe that much-anticipated fall slowdown has finally arrived.  (Yeah, that strange sound you heard was Murphy cackling with sadistic glee…)
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The fundraiser is stalled at $865, just over the halfway mark, with no new donations in five days. Meanwhile, the barnies are now into the third bag of mice from the recent small mouse order, which, if you’ll recall, used $300 of that $865 already. At this rate, I’ll be placing another order in about a week, which will further reduce that figure—see why the goal is set at $1500? The barnies say send them some mouse money; growing owls need lots to eat!

​And those hungry, growing barnies also outgrew the box I’d just moved them to last week, requiring a move to larger digs this week. I took advantage of the move to snap some photos of each barnie individually. Are they not utterly adorable?!

​To give you an idea of pre-feeding and post-feeding, watch these two videos.  Every feeding is like this—they’re like teenagers who’re always starving, no matter how much they eat!

​We’re also starting to get feathers in, although it’s hard to isolate a wing or tail for a photo, since the rascals tend to cluster together in one big clump of down, eyes and beaks!

​You know how there’s always that ooone person who blinks in an otherwise great family photo? Yeah, well…

​Fortunately, we did manage some good shots of the gorgeous babies this week.

Sadly, the second of the runt female flyers died this week. She was a game little girl, fighting to survive, but she’d stopped growing and was getting noticeably weaker. But she was still active, albeit slower than her sibs, and eating right up till her death. I was hoping she’d manage to pull through, although she probably wouldn’t have been releasable, as she was only half the size of her sibs of the same age…
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The remaining eight flyers are gorgeous, healthy, active rascals. I’ve given up trying to capture all eight in one photo; that ain’t happenin’ too often these days!

​This little fellow decided the few drops of water remaining in this cup were better than the entire cupful I’d just poured in their dish. When I picked him up to put him back in the cage, he refused to let go of it and sprawled on my arm!

​And they do love their fresh greens, too.

If you’ll recall, LWR had two barred owls that were slated for release this week. Yeah, well, “the best laid plans o’ mice and men…”
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We DID try for release; both seemed to flying well in the raptor flight—I mean, they were on different perches daily—and both were eating well—no matter where I put the mice, they were finding them, so eyesight’s good—and both were very restless. So they should’ve been prime candidates for release, right? Not exactly…

​Soooo…back to the raptor flight for further evaluation and conditioning.  All I can figure is there’s soft tissue damage that allows for flight within a confined space but not free flight yet. We’ll try again in another week or so. I did manage a couple of nice fall photos of the second failed release when he hopped into a sweetgum sapling, so I guess there’s that, huh?

Believe it or not, LWR had just two new intakes this week! Given that I have a whole small colony of flyers and a nest full of barnies, I’m not complaining, not one little bit…If ya gotta be crowded during “slow” season, though, it’s better to have the cuties like flyers and barnies, right?
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The fundraiser is currently sitting at $815—just over the halfway mark. Of that, $300 has already been used for a small rodent order, and these little bottomless pits are already on the second bag from that order. If you’ve donated, I thank you and the barnies thank you; if you’ve not contributed to the cause yet, the barnies say send mouse money!

​Speaking of the barnies, I think they change noticeably every day. They had to be moved to bigger digs late last week, and it’s looking like the new box might see ‘em through another week, possibly 10 days, before they’ve outgrown it. Below are pix and videos of them over the past week—impossibly adorable, I know, and starting to look less like their dinosaur ancestors!

Once again, YouTube randomly decided to rotate the video--was filmed in EXACTLY the same position as the others and should be horizontal, not vertical...Who knows?

​The Eurasian collared dove had multiple wing fractures and did require euthanasia. Vet Peggy Hobby of Smalley’s Animal Hospital pointed out several less obvious fractures in addition to the very obvious ones on the x-ray.

LWR had two barred owls come in last week, and in an extremely rare occurrence, neither required euthanasia! Because they tend to hunt near roadsides, barred owls normally come in with fatal injuries; a couple of years ago we saw 100% euthanasia rate in barred owl intakes for that year. That’s unusual, but a high euthanasia rate is the norm for barreds. This year, we’ve seen more barred owl releases than usual, which is always good, and these two should join the “release club” shortly.
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Barred #1 spent two days in a vehicle grille before being removed and brought to LWR. To be quite honest, I did NOT have high hopes for this bird upon hearing it’d spent two days in a grille, so I was delighted to be proven wrong. On intake, Barred #1 showed no signs of injury aside from ruffled feathers and a slightly swollen eye, consistent with a concussion. When Peggy examined him, she confirmed blood in the eye, again consistent with a concussion, but nothing that shouldn’t clear up in a few days.

​He’s in the raptor flight now and is eating well but the eye is still a bit swollen. As soon as it looks more normal, he’s good for release.

​Barred #2 was found by teens on the roadside and brought to LWR nearly immediately. Upon intake, he still had a bloody beak from a rather severe nosebleed and a massive headache from his concussion, but no other injuries. He just came in Saturday and is still a bit “concussy” so he’ll stay confined for another day or two and then go into the raptor flight, as well.

​And, of course, the flyers remain unbelievably cute! They’re harder to photograph now, as they’re in nearly constant motion when they’re awake—and their big game now is to cluster on the pen door and try to escape when their food and water is being freshened. The next step is to move them to a larger overwintering cage, but they’re not quite ready for that yet.