Yep, still wet at LWR, with more rain predicted tonight, so no releases yet…Looks like we might end the year with birds anxiously awaiting release. And boy, are they anxious…as am I. The poor birds are SO ready to go, and it’s too wet to get to my release sites and there hasn’t been a three-day period with low-to-no rain chances…Welcome to life in a humid subtropical climate zone!

Since the week before Christmas, there’ve only been three new intakes at LWR: a red shoulder, a screech and a great blue heron.
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The red shoulder was found during a slight lull in the nearly nonstop rain we’ve been having; his leg was shattered right at the joint. I mean, the multiple shards were easily felt—no x-rays needed. His leg was trashed. He was humanely euthanized.

​The screech hit the side of a vehicle and the drivers stopped and located him. Luckily, he was just concussed and is not a happy camper at the moment, as it’s been too wet for release…see above for that discussion!

​The great blue heron had a nasty wrist fracture that looked as if he’d gotten snagged in barbed wire and struggled loose, trashing his wrist in the process. He was also humanely euthanized.

After six weeks of struggling with the blind kestrel, I reluctantly made the decision to euthanize him. He couldn’t see to locate his own food, and it was causing him undue stress when I had to restrain him to feed him, which is what I’d had to start doing. I won’t lie; it hurt like hell to euthanize such a gorgeous, sweet bird, but it was in his best interest in the long term.
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Sisyphus the kestrel remains a vicious little snot; the photo below was in the box he goes into while I change his paper in his “regular” box. I started to move him back to his regular box and the expression on his face made me start laughing as I grabbed the camera.

​The screech who came in Dec. 15 is still here, of course, and has decided to “sull up” to express her displeasure at being an unwilling guest. I really wish these poor birds could understand when I tell ‘em, “Just hang in there; we’ll have some dry days soon!”

​The red shoulder in the raptor flight is antsy…

​The barred owl in the mini-pen is bored…

​And the Coop inside would really like to be in the raptor flight to show me he’s ready for release…

​About the only happy campers at LWR at the moment are the flyers, who’re having a blast at night. As promised before Christmas, here’s a red light video of their nighttime shenanigans.

​Hopefully next week we can start 2020 with a slew of release videos, weather permitting!

​Inclement weather—too cold for releases early on and then too wet for releases later (my front yard currently sports a small pond…)—kept everything static at LWR last week, so rather than subject y’all to more photos of the same birds on basically the same perches, with pretty much the same expressions on their faces, I’m just gonna wish y’all a Merry Christmas and hope for “release” weather and some decent photo ops next week!

First, a huge thanks to those who donated to LWR’s Twelve Days of Christmas fundraiser. We raised $815, $65 over the original goal of $750.

Last week was fairly hectic for an “off-season” week, with five intakes, and another just arrived today—this in addition to the raptors already housed at LWR, plus a few days of inclement weather, made for some crowded conditions for a while. I was threading my way between boxes of birds for a couple of days.
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On Monday another red shoulder came in, also with a nasty right eye injury. Looking at his eye on intake, I honestly thought it was ruptured, but after a vet visit to confirm we still had an eye to work with and starting non-steroidal eye drops, we finally began to see slow improvement. He’s in the raptor flight now. (Yeah, I know the flight pen photos are the left eye; that's the way he had his head turned when I snapped the photos.)

Tuesday, someone left a barred owl at Smalley’s, a local falconer was bringing one by there for me to pick up, and the above-mentioned red shoulder and last week’s Coop with a possible busted hip needed to see the vet, so…I went in with two boxes and left with four…

Vet Peggy Hobby agreed with my assessment that both barreds were concussed but had no other injuries; she saw no signs of a busted hip on the Coop’s x-ray, and she recommended the eye drops (above) for the red shoulder.
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The Coop is standing now but his tail still skews to the side and his balance is off, so he needs a bit more recovery time.

​One of the barreds was released Saturday; the other needs a little more time. He still has some balance issues.

The remaining barred on intake:

And Saturday:

​Tuesday evening a great blue heron came in after his rescuer witnessed him staggering in the middle of the road earlier in the day en route to work. Surprisingly, nothing was broken, although he refused to stand. Great blue herons are notoriously shy birds. This is significant because I’d walk into the rehab room to find him standing in his box; the moment he saw me looking at him, he’d hunker down. No injuries, just shy. He was released Saturday.

​Wednesday a great horned owl came in with a shattered left wing, right at the joint. He was euthanized.

​Today an adult female screech came in. She’s large enough for me to state with certainty she’s female; with screeches determining gender can sometimes be a guessing  game without a male and female side by side for size comparison. She shows no signs of injury but is still quite docile, indicating some sort of head trauma.

​The red shoulder who’d been in the raptor flight for the past couple of weeks was also released Saturday. He wasted no time leaving, as you can see in the very short video of his release.

The flyers remain invisible as long as the light’s on; after dark they rattle their pen playing. I’ll try for some red-light video of them for next week.
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Sisyphus the kestrel is still a little snot; that’s never gonna change. I’ll start looking to place him as an ed bird in January.

And the vision-impaired kestrel is proving to be a source of frustration. He’d been showing slow but steady improvement, but last week he seemed to hit a roadblock and actually started regressing—to the point I was having to hold him to feed him. That’s still the case but tonight I waved my hand in front of his undamaged eye to see what he’d do and he started and flew off his perch. I was *thisclose* to euthanizing him, but that reaction gives me hope that maybe last week was a temporary setback. His right eye is irreparably damaged; he’ll never be releasable, but if he can regain vision in the left eye, his generally docile temperament will make him an excellent ed bird.

And if you’re wondering why I’d euthanize a totally blind but otherwise healthy bird, a) federal regs require it and b) it’s the humane thing to do. Birds, other than vultures, have no sense of smell, so they can’t “sniff out” their food to eat on their own. A blind bird would need to be hand-fed for the rest of its life. Further, what kind of life is sitting in a box/cage/pen on a perch and waiting to be fed—that being the highlight of your day? There are no enrichment activities for a blind bird, nothing to make its life enjoyable or break the monotony.
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But maybe, just maybe, this sweet kestrel has a chance. We’ll see if tonight’s progress was a fluke or a sign of the return of at least some limited vision. If he can see to find his own food and eat it on his own and maybe fly a bit, he has a future as an ed bird. Fingers crossed…

As you’re no doubt aware by now, LWR is in the midst of a “Twelve Days of Christmas” fundraiser. Because the goal is such a small amount, just $750, we’re not using Fundrazr’s platform or the FB fundraising platform. Why? Fundrazr works directly with PayPal, which is a major plus, but both agencies skim their take off the top of donations—not a huge issue when the goal is larger but a significant amount that LWR doesn’t see when the goal is smaller. PayPal alone still assesses a fee for each donation but it’s manageable. And the funds are immediately available, which is a good thing. FB’s fundraising platform also skims a sizable chunk off in fees, and donations may or may not be available before a 30-day waiting period—not good when a mouse order is a pressing priority, for example.

So if you haven’t donated already and would like to, just use the PayPal “donate” links on each page of the website. They’re at the bottom of all pages except “This week in wildlife.” On that page, the link is to the right above  the archives. Or you can mail a check if you prefer; the address is on the website, as well, on the “Contact Us” page. Currently we’re sitting at $330—not quite half the goal—with four days remaining in the fundraiser.  Help LWR fulfill the visions of sugarpl—umm, mice—dancing in our raptor guests’ heads!

As always, thanks to those who’ve already donated. With the fundraiser update done, now on to the critter update…
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The red shoulder is rarin’ to go, but that left eye still looks a bit weak to me, so he’ll hang out in the raptor flight for another few days. He’s flying beautifully and inhaling everything he’s offered; when I’m happy with that eye, he’ll be released.

The sole intake last week was a first-year Cooper’s hawk who was found lying halfway under a bush in someone’s yard. Of course, I always suspect window-strike in situations like this, and the finder did indicate there was a window just above the bush. On intake, he seemed to have no fractures. Wings and feet/legs worked appeared to work properly, so I really figured he just needed a couple of days to recover from a concussion. However, when he tried to stand, he’d fall over on his side, which could be from mild spinal trauma, or it could indicate a hip injury. Hip fractures don’t always show on x-rays, so we opted for a little R&R and steroids before even attempting x-rays, given Coops’ spastic, stressy natures. Thus far, he’s showing some slight improvement; if we don’t see significant improvement within a couple more days, he’ll head to Smalley’s for x-rays.

No photos of the flyers this week; these days even I seldom see more than a whiskered nose peeking out of the nest box awaiting the arrival of that night’s buffet.
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Sisyphus the kestrel is his usual pissy self. Honestly, that bird hates me…

​And the vision-impaired kestrel is showing slow improvement but remains unnaturally docile. His vision seems to’ve improved ever so slightly—it appears he can distinguish light from dark, and he’s still tilting his head as if trying to see what’s below his perch. He’s flown a couple of times, and his flight isn’t the slow, meandering, uncertain flight one usually sees in totally blind birds, so…time will tell. Fingers crossed; he’s such a sweetheart.

LWR had just two intakes for the last week of the month. Sadly, both intakes were DOA, so let’s just get that out of the way first and move on to more pleasant topics.
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The night before Thanksgiving, a barred owl with neurological issues came in. He had difficulty standing, wobbling before falling on his side, and his right eye looked cloudy.  His transporters were hopeful he would be releasable eventually, but he died during the night. (The photo below was taken shortly after intake, while he was still alive.)

​And on Saturday a great blue heron died en route to LWR. His finder had contacted me and sent a good, clear photo of the bird; I could tell he was on his way out and told her the best we could do was euthanize. She was bringing him to be euthanized but he took care of matters on his own.
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Balancing out the two DOAs, we had two releases. Both barreds in the raptor flight were released Friday. I managed a VERY short video of one release and got one pretty decent post-release still shot of each owl.

​The red shoulder’s eye, after swelling to the point I honestly thought it was going to rupture, has finally gone down so the poor bird can open it. It’s still filled with blood but at least it’s open now, and he’s still eating well. He was moved to the raptor flight once the barreds were released.

​The flyers got a new nest box this week to give them a bit more space, so I took that opportunity to attempt a  photo as they checked out the new box. It's not great, but at least you can see the little rascals.

​I also had the bright idea to try Sisyphus in the mini-pen to see if he had any use at all of that wrist now that it’s as healed as it’s gonna get. Negative. He can’t even flit a short distance. He will definitely need to be placed as an ed bird, but given his personality, God help the facility that gets him. I’ll keep him through December, more than likely, as it’s not a good time to be trying to place a nonreleasable bird.

​The TBI kestrel’s eye is looking almost totally normal now. He still seems to be totally blind, though, and his personality is still extremely “unkestrelly” sweet (yeah, I made that word up). He is starting to flap his wings while hanging on to his perch, like a brancher testing his wings. He also turns his head completely to the left—never the right—snapping blindly for food, so we’ve still got some serious head trauma there. We’ll give him more time and see what happens. Fingers crossed.

​And finally, while Tuesday, Dec. 3, is officially Giving Tuesday, LWR is going to run a short fundraiser for the first 12 days of the month—sort of an early Twelve Days of Christmas. I’m not setting up a whole Fundrazr site for this one, though; those who’d like to help LWR meet our goal of $750 can donate directly through PayPal using the links that appear on each page of this website. Offline donations are also welcome!