Last week started with a bang, figuratively speaking, with four—yes, FOUR—birds requiring vet visits on Monday. Three were follow-up x-rays; one was a late Sunday arrival.
Let’s start with that Sunday night arrival, shall we? Just before dark Sunday, LWR received a call about a red tail hawk found by the roadside—seldom a good scenario. The finder arrived about 9:30 with a bird he thought might already be dead, as he was “stiff on one side.”
I picked up the red tail and sure enough, his right side was positively rigid. Something felt wrong. Something looked wrong. As I continued to examine the bird, it became apparent that his right leg was quite literally up to the hip flung over and lodged against his right shoulder—his wing and leg were reversed in position.
Ever heard the expression “ass over teakettle”? Yeah, well, this poor bird was the living personification of that expression.
After several minutes of gentle manipulation, I managed to get his leg and wing back into their proper positions. As hard as it was to believe, nothing seemed broken, but the poor fellow was concussed and did NOT want to stand; he propped against the corner of the box.
Let’s start with that Sunday night arrival, shall we? Just before dark Sunday, LWR received a call about a red tail hawk found by the roadside—seldom a good scenario. The finder arrived about 9:30 with a bird he thought might already be dead, as he was “stiff on one side.”
I picked up the red tail and sure enough, his right side was positively rigid. Something felt wrong. Something looked wrong. As I continued to examine the bird, it became apparent that his right leg was quite literally up to the hip flung over and lodged against his right shoulder—his wing and leg were reversed in position.
Ever heard the expression “ass over teakettle”? Yeah, well, this poor bird was the living personification of that expression.
After several minutes of gentle manipulation, I managed to get his leg and wing back into their proper positions. As hard as it was to believe, nothing seemed broken, but the poor fellow was concussed and did NOT want to stand; he propped against the corner of the box.
Monday we x-rayed that bird fifteen ways from Sunday to make sure nothing was broken. Nope. Nothing. But he still didn’t wanna stand. Of course, as vet Peggy Hobby and I agreed, if we’d been in that contorted position, we wouldn’t wanna stand, either. Peggy prescribed a couple of steroid injections a few days apart.
By Tuesday morning he was standing and would eat if I hand-fed him but wouldn’t touch his food otherwise.
By Thursday he was self-feeding, and today he’s in the raptor flight, as he was getting restive in his box inside. In a couple of days he’s gonna be transferred to Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends for continued care, as I need the raptor flight for a barred owl who came in Monday afternoon.
But first, let’s discuss the barred owl I’ve not managed to get any photos of since his intake a month ago because he lunges at the camera lens. He’s not quite ready for the raptor flight yet; his x-ray showed a lovely callus forming but it’s not healed enough just yet. He has another couple of weeks of cage rest.
Now, as to the other barred: he came in with huge chunk of dried blood next to his beak and a milky left eye. He’s groomed out most of the blood and has at least limited vision in that eye—he can find a white rat on a white puppy pad. Nothing is broken, so he’s in the mini-pen as of today and will go to the raptor flight as soon as the red tail goes to Steve.
All news wasn’t good, of course—that almost never happens. The screech’s follow-up x-ray showed a total non-union fracture; if anything, it was even more dislocated than it had been initially. He was euthanized.
Sisyphus the kestrel’s follow-up x-ray looks promising, although what I’d initially said was a ding or a hotspot actually appeared on the x-ray to be where a small sliver of bone poked through. We still think he has a good chance at being an ed bird, though, so in another few weeks we’ll do another follow-up to see where things stand at that point.
The cat-attacked possum was released and seemed more interested in growling and posturing at the camera than waddling off to safety. I walked away for a few minutes and once the perceived threat was gone, he ambled into the brush and was nowhere to be seen when I came back to check.
Next week’s update will be on Monday, Oct. 28.
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