Boy, is it baby season!

​It was a very busy week at LWR, as babies and a few adults came in from every direction. Some finders were “model citizens” in terms of seeking professional help ASAP; others doomed their rescues by attempting to “play rehabber” themselves until they’d screwed up the babies beyond help. This makes for a somewhat schizophrenic week for a rehabber: on the one hand, you’re pathetically grateful for people who do the right thing immediately; on the other, you desperately want to commit massive acts of violence against those who let their egos and misinformation on the Internet take precedence over the welfare of the wildlife.
 
However, before hopping on any soapboxes or discussing our new guests, let’s do a quick update on some of the critters from last week.
 
The bluebirds and brown thrasher with the old nest injury will be long-term guests at LWR, until their flight feathers come back in…which probably won’t be until they molt. They’d rather be free and I’d rather they were free, but without flight feathers, they’re as good as dead outside the songbird flight. The good news is you’d hardly know the thrasher ever had a problem with that leg; he’s using it like a pro.
 
The black vulture with the droopy wing did, as I suspected, have an old injury; it was not fixable, leaving us no choice but euthanasia.

​The youngest GHO has joined the older two in the flight pen, so now we have the Three Stooges out there. Let the goofiness begin!

​The possum is eating on his own now and has been moved into a larger cage, where he’ll basically have room and board till he’s large enough for release.

​The red-bellied woodpecker is now in the flight pen letting the world know he’s around. Young red-bellies never shut up. Never. How they’ve not been predated out of existence is beyond me. Still, as long as I hear his sibilant calls I know exactly where he is!

​The little screech has done some major growing over the course of a week and is now requesting—nay, demanding—that his chopped rodent be placed on the “ground” in his pen so he can eat it at his leisure. Next step is whole rodents to see how he does. I think he’ll do just fine!

​Early last week this sweet fledgling robin came in with a leg fracture and a trashed eye. His finder wasn’t sure but suspected neighborhood free-roaming dogs or cats attacked him. Because the fracture was clearly visible, vet Peggy Hobby of Smalley’s Animal Hospital and I agreed that since it was so high on the leg, rather than splint it, we’d keep the fellow confined to a nest to give it time to heal. The eye was history: apparently a tooth or claw punctured the eye orbit, hitting the eyeball itself and destroying it. Peggy and I thought with time and meds, the little guy could learn to compensate for the limited vision, as long as his leg healed properly.

​By late week, I was delighted to see the sweet bird perching—songbird bones heal rapidly. He still favored that leg a bit but had full use of his toes. The eye looked to be healing nicely, too. Then, overnight, the eye quite literally swelled almost to the size of his whole head. It looked and smelled awful—infection had set in despite the oral and topical antibiotics the bird was on. I upped his dosage and hoped for the best, and within 12 hours the swelling was significantly reduced…but his system was simply failing. This morning he was fading fast, so I ended his suffering humanely.
 
The same day the robin came in, another nestling pine warbler arrived. He was alert and eating well, with no signs of injury. He was found on the ground with no nest in sight and his finder got him to LWR within an hour of finding him. All seemed promising. But within eight hours of intake, the little fellow just died, for no apparent reason. Who knows what happened to him before he was found? We’ll never know.

F​And now, cue rant #1 (for those who already saw this on the LWR Facebook page, just skip to the next critter) …

Folks, this right here is EXACTLY why you don’t need to attempt to feed birds if you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. Not only is this poor bird wearing probably as much as or more than he ate; his lungs have a distinct crackle—the hallmark of aspiration pneumonia—that didn’t even require a stethoscope to hear. His finders kept him and his cat-attacked sibling for THREE days, feeding them a crap diet of cat food and eggs they “looked up on the Internet.” The diarrhea in his filthy, smelly nest looked like pure egg yolk.

I’m pretty sure the only reason LWR was even contacted was that the sib died that day. Well, DUH. How many times have you heard me say that there’s only a 12-24 hour window for cat-attack victims? The bacteria from the cat claws/saliva, untreated, in combination with being subjected to the same torture this bird suffered…yeah, I’m not surprised at all that the sib died.

I point-blank told the finder that the bird looked and smelled awful and I wasn’t sure he’d survive a bath. The reply? “Oh, I tried to bathe them but I couldn’t stand the noise.”

People, I CANNOT stress enough the importance of getting birds to properly licensed individuals ASAP. Had both birds come to LWR the day they were found, or by the next day at the latest, the sib might still be alive; this baby wouldn’t have lungs full of the same crap diet he’s wearing—and probably water from his finder’s attempt at a bath, as bathing a baby bird is also something best left to trained individuals—and he damn sure wouldn’t look like he’d been dipped in batter preparatory to being deep-fried.
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Once more: IF YOU FIND A BABY BIRD CALL A REHABBER IMMEDIATELY. That bird’s life depends on your promptly contacting a person TRAINED to ensure it has the best possible chance at survival.

Same bird after first of several baths.

​The poor fellow survived his bath, was started on meds and was eating fairly well but failed to thrive and in fact began to decline precipitously over the next few days. By Friday, I’d seen enough. When I took another couple of birds (discussed below) to Smalley’s for x-rays, this fellow went with us and after comparing him to a healthy brown thrasher that had come in a day or so later, vet Richie Hatcher agreed that euthanasia was the kindest option; the bird was clearly not doing well, despite our best efforts. Three days of wearing his food served as a death sentence for the poor bird.

See the difference between the healthy and the formerly food-caked thrasher?

​This young mourning dove was found in an industrial building, grounded. The finder discovered the bird has a deep puncture wound under her left wing and said the building she was found in had a lot of jagged metal pieces jutting out. Given that the puncture wound was her only injury, it seems likely she flew into a piece of that metal. She’s on oral and topical meds and seems to be responding well to treatment.

​This pre-fledgling brown thrasher was found on the ground near his dying sib. Both were brought to LWR within minutes of being found, but there was nothing to be done for the other bird. Exposure and ants had already doomed him. This fellow, however, is doing well and thinks he’s older than he is. He cannot fly yet, but don’t tell him that—he thinks he’s ready for the flight pen right now!

​I actually found this young mourning dove while freshening my feeders. He was on the ground on his back, thrashing around, and I initially thought a snake had him. When I got closer I could see that wasn’t the case, but there was nothing nearby that he could’ve crashed into. Overnight observation confirmed he only had a concussion, from whatever he hit,  and he was released.

​This mature red-shoulder hawk was found grounded in a neighboring county. I thought the left wing was broken, but x-rays showed a severely dislocated shoulder. In addition, the right eye had a luxated lens that appeared to be an older injury. He was rail-thin and given the very real danger that even if the dislocation could be repaired, it might pop out of joint again while the bird was in flight, condemning him to a slow and painful death, vet Richie Hatcher and I opted for humane euthanasia.

Rant #2 begins…

Once again, people let ego take precedence over the welfare of the bird when they found this fledgling brown thrasher. For a WEEK, the bird was fed some sort of crap diet, resulting in severe metabolic bone disease, or MBD. Basically, it’s the result of a drastic calcium deficiency, making the bones so fragile that even handling the bird can break them. The bird will be in pain that increases in intensity as the disease progresses. Sometimes, if caught early enough, it can be reversed, but not in this case. The feathers on the poor bird showed clear signs of malnutrition; his legs were useless; his feet were “clawed” like a stroke victim’s hands—and when I carefully handed him to Richie to compare his body mass to that of the healthy pre-fledgling thrasher, he immediately said, “The younger bird is heavier.” That’s because the healthy bird has been getting a proper diet and his bones are strong.

Calling after a WEEK of torturing the bird and claiming to have “researched intensively” just doesn’t cut it, okay, people? If you “researched intensively”, you surely saw multiple warnings that possession of wildlife without a permit is illegal, yet you chose to ignore those warnings and feed the bird a totally inappropriate diet until you’d so screwed it up that euthanasia becomes the only humane option—and THEN a miracle occurs and you develop a conscience and the ability to locate a rehabber? I call BS. Keeping a bird you KNOW should be with a trained professional is nothing more than stroking your own ego, at the expense of the bird—and it was truly expensive; it cost him his life.

When callers said they’d found a tiny baby bird with dead sibs on the ground, they REALLY meant tiny! And kudos to these finders for doing the right thing immediately—within minutes of finding the bird, they’d called LWR; within half an hour the bird was at LWR and getting proper care.
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And just what is the bird? I think it’s a chickadee. As the feathers continue to come in, that’s what it’s resembling more and more!

Late-night calls usually signal bad news for some owl; when the late call came in about a bird that had flown into the driver’s truck window, my first thought was it was an owl. Then they described its “large mouth” and I knew we had a chuck-will’s-widow. The largest of the nightjar family, chuck-will’s-widows are often called whippoorwills in the South, but they’re a totally different bird.
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This poor fellow wasn’t in good shape; although x-rays revealed no fractures, his chest was scraped raw and the x-rays did show a large white mass in the stomach area that Peggy and Richie said could be blood. Given the paleness of the bird’s mouth internal bleeding seemed likely but the severity couldn’t be determined. We opted to give him a little more time, but the poor fellow died on the way home.

The people who found these birds took them to a vet clinic in another county, where they were identified as killdeer. When the clinic called and said they had TWO killdeer, I admit I cringed a bit. While they’re beautiful little birds, killdeer are also VERY stress and have to handled with extreme care.
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To my surprise and delight, when I opened the box containing the “killdeer”, they turned out to ne nestling common ground doves. I rarely see common ground doves in rehab, but they are typical sweet doves—just very, very small!

​A teacher in another county confiscated these mockers from a student. Despite being fed bread by the student and moistened chick starter by the teacher as she struggled to keep them alive until she could get them to LWR, they’re doing well. They still have bits of chick starter in their feathers, but at least it’s crumbly when it dries, so it’s easy enough to flake out.

Folks, bird feathers MUST be clean. Dirty feathers interfere with flight ability and in young birds, dirty feathers can cause infections.
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And finally, first thing this morning a call came in about a nest of baby birds found AFTER a bush had been cut down. The cutter didn’t think to check for nests until it was too late. Thankfully, the cutter immediately made arrangements to get the birds to LWR, despite a lengthy drive to do so. They appear to be cardinals and are eating well.

The lesson here? Always, ALWAYS check trees, bushes and shrubs for nests before cutting/trimming. Also, check your yard before mowing, as some fledglings may be on the ground, as well as young rabbits. A quick inspection before doing any yard work can ensure that you don’t unintentionally orphan or injure wild babies.