This nestling Eastern screech owl was found three days before it was brought to LWR, and fed worms the entire time. While screeches can and do occasionally eat frogs, crickets, and even worms, their main diet is rodents and small songbirds—and given his young age, these are the foods his parents would have been providing, to ensure he got the vitamins and minerals needed for healthy bone growth. He’s got a healthy appetite and already has that screech “I’m a T. Rex” attitude firmly in place.
His left eye is a bit bloody but that should heal; the right is crusted and swollen shut but looks to be intact. Basically, he just had a major concussion and needed a safe space until he could get rid of that nasty headache.
The barred owl sextet have passed their live prey test and will be released as soon as we have three consecutive days with low/no rain predicted. We desperately need the rain that we’re getting right now, though, so a “rain delay” in their release suits me just fine.
Once the barreds are out, the GHO trio will go in, and they’re chomping at the bit for a little “wing room.”
The goslings are happy, messy, growing little waterfowl. I can’t believe how much they’ve shot up in just the past week!
This poor Carolina wren nested over someone’s door and even though they knew the nest was there, they continued to use the door. She flew into their house when they opened the door after dark and she got spooked. She flew into their ceiling fan, and it killed her; she was dead on arrival.
Four raptors came in Saturday from Libby Carey, mammal rehabber in Lowndes County, via volunteer transporters.
This HBC barred owl has no apparent injuries and seemed very alert and aggressive on intake, so I figured it’d be okay to stick him in the raptor flight with the barred sextet.
This young red shoulder—or maybe Coop; at this age it’s sometimes hard to be sure, but he sounds like a red shoulder—is too small to be out of the nest but was found on the ground with no parents in sight. He’s a very stressed little fellow and must be force-fed.
And just this morning, a caller reported rescuing a “baby” blue jay from mobbing robins the previous evening. The robins apparently had the jay down and were attacking him, so she shooed them away and placed the jay in a safe location. This morning his parents were around but so were the robins…and an outside cat…for the bird’s safety, it seemed best for him to finish fledging at LWR.
When she showed up with the bird, however, he turned out to be an older fledgling who isn’t real happy about being at LWR. Still, better here than ripped apart by someone’s free-roaming cat…
Bottom line—and repeat it with me; you’ve heard it often enough: keep cats indoors for their own safety and that of the wildlife around your yard!