Baby’s growin’ like a weed!

The red tail nestling doesn’t even look like the same bird, and his weight will attest to his growth: he’s at 279g (9.8oz) as of this morning! Remember, his intake weight was 44.9g (1.5oz). He’s more alert and active and even started tucking his head—sometimes— to sleep last week!

So again, y’all’re just gonna have to tolerate a photo overload of this gorgeous downy red tail before we move into anything further from last week. (Hey, I did take pity on y’all—you’re only getting a few of the over 300 photos—from last week alone— of this not-so-wee one!)

In other news, an adult great horned came in Friday with his left eye swollen shut. Nothing is broken and the eye is clear, so it appears he just got his bell rung, but good.

The fledgling great horneds are good to go; we lost one last week when he apparently flew into the back of the flight and broke his back. That would appear to be the most plausible scenario, given that he was well-fleshed, alert and aggressive that morning and lying spreadeagled and dead on the ground that evening. And yes, it sucks, but birds sometimes do stupid stuff...

The red shoulder is ready to be in a flight as soon as one opens up. Yeah, that’s pretty much the same pose he’s offered every week for the past month...

The barred owls are also ready for a flight, again as soon as one opens up. They’ve also grown like little weeds!

And this afternoon an osprey, most likely a late hatch last year given that his feet and legs are still blue-tinged, came in with a left wing injury. The tissue around it is still too swollen to be able to determine if it’s actually a fracture, but the swelling is mid-bone, so that’s promising, at least.