LWR’s first baby for 2019 is a late nestling/early brancher great horned owl. She’s more a late nester than early brancher, as she’s not too interested in trying to perch at the moment. But she’s definitely female. This gal’s already, at approximately half-grown, as large as the full-grown adult male great horned who came in earlier in the week—got feet like gunboats, she does!
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The tree her nest was in was cut down by loggers. They said they normally try to look for nests but saw nothing until this gal bounced on the ground as the tree came down. Given that she did fall from the tree, I took her in for X-rays, as well, and hers were clear—no fractures. 

In the second video above, she was highly peeved that I was handling her to change the paper in her box—oh, the indignity!
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The adult male great horned who came in a couple of days before she did has a right wing fracture, right in the joint. It’s “hidden” in the joint so well that an initial intake exam left me convinced he was merely stunned, but when I tested him in the raptor flight, he couldn’t gain altitude. I suspected then we might have a coracoid fracture, as one of the signs is inability to gain altitude. His x-rays at Smalley’s, however, showed a broken elbow with early signs of callusing. The joint may freeze as it heals, but vet Peggy Hobby and I agreed it was worth giving the bird time to heal and see how it plays out. You can compare the circled areas on the right and left wing X-rays below to see the difference in the uninjured and fractured joints.

​The red tail whose release was delayed by inclement weather finally got his chance at freedom and wasted no time taking advantage of it.

​The same day the adult male great horned came in, an adult male barred also came in as a window-strike victim. He’d just been stunned and had no fractures—again, he was flight tested after overnight observation, and then released. He didn’t hang around long enough for post-release photos.

As an aside here, first, don’t worry, the house he flew over is empty. I generally don’t release near populated areas if it’s avoidable. Second, ideally, adult birds should be released back into their established territory, but when birds come in from “somewhere on the interstate” or other…ummm…less than locatable territories, rehabbers do the next best thing and find a suitable location for release.

And in a massive KEEP YOUR CATS INDOORS rant, this adult male cardinal was “presented” to an outdoor cat’s owners by the cat. He has no tail feathers, the few feathers left on his wings are broken, his right shoulder is a bloody mess, and there's probably a shoulder fracture under that bloody mess. Believe it or not, he’s alert, active and eating, so he’ll head to Smalley’s tomorrow for X-rays to see just how bad the damage to his shoulder is. Fortunately, it’s early yet in the season, so it’s not likely he has a mate on eggs or babies in the nest. ​All this could have been avoided if the cat had been INDOORS.

​The long-shot barred and screech continue to heal; fingers crossed they’ll both be releasable. I still have serious doubts about the barred, but we’ll see.

​And just this morning, a caller reported that he’d had an owl fly into his open passenger-side truck window as he was driving last night—how weird is that? He said he heard a strange noise and thought something had come loose on his truck, but when he got home and picked up his coat, there was an owl on it. He put the bird in a box for the night and attempted release this morning, but it was no go, so he called LWR. We now have a second red-phase screech who appears to be a smallish female and who may have a wing fracture. She will also need X-rays tomorrow.

As you’ll recall, the young male red tail was placed in the raptor flight last week, whereupon we had several unseasonably cold days and nights, followed by a rain threat that, as of this moment, appears to’ve fizzled. All this means the poor fellow’s release has been delayed. He needed the extra time, anyway, as he was initially a bit reluctant to fly. This isn’t an issue anymore; he’s flying beautifully and eating well. So…weather cooperating, we’re aiming at a release tomorrow!
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The screech continues to eat well as his wing fracture heals (we hope; remember, it’s right in the joint), and he’s still the reigning king of stinkeye.

The barred owl is still awaiting further callusing on his wing fractures (again, we hope) and will need follow-up x-rays in a few weeks.
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And the only intake for the week was a gorgeous first-year female red tail with a nasty wing fracture and a fractured or dislocated hip. She came in crawling with maggots, so before I could take her to the vet for x-rays to see what we had to work with, I had to “de-maggot” her. This took the better part of the day of intake, so the goal was to take her to Smalley’s the following day, but she died overnight. I wasn’t overly surprised, honestly. She was fairly well-fleshed but waaay too docile to’ve been a healthy bird.

​Baby bird season will kick in within the next few weeks, so we’re trying to get organized for that. The mesh in the songbird flight needed replacing; we’re half-done and hope to finish within the next couple of days. My niece has been helping with that, thank goodness; it’s a four-handed job. I’ve got to load up on paper towels and Kleenex, as well, and get the rehab room cleaned out and organized so everything’s in place when those first wee ones come in. If they’ll juuuust hold off another couple of weeks…

It was, overall, a pretty darn good week for wildlife at LWR. After several less-than-stellar weeks, a week with no euthanasias and only one DOA was a nice reprieve.

First, the minor miracle: if you’ll recall, since mid-January the long-shot barred owl has been patiently (more or less) on cage rest, waiting to see if that badly displaced wing fracture would heal. He was one of three birds to visit Smalley’s this week for x-rays, and while there’s still some healing to do, vet Peggy Hobby and I were both pleasantly surprised at his follow-up x-ray. A callus is forming nicely, and it looks as if the muscles succeeded in pulling the bones back pretty close together. There’s another fracture near the wrist that isn’t as healed and probably won’t heal as well, but given the results of the humerus fracture, Peggy and I agreed a few more weeks wouldn’t hurt. He may still not heal for flight, but it’s worth the extra time to see what happens. As Peggy said, “Isn’t the body amazing?!”
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Below are the barred’s x-rays from January and from March 1. 

​Unfortunately, the great horned owl who came in severely emaciated and lethargic wasn’t as lucky. He never opened his eyes after intake and struggled to swallow. He died overnight.

​This late second-year red tail was found on the interstate. Although he didn’t appear to have any injuries aside from a concussion, I wanted X-rays to confirm that. I was pretty sure when he busted out of his box twice the afternoon before his vet visit, but still…X-rays are always best. The X-rays were clear but I’m guessing he has a slightly strained muscle on his right wing; it looked as if he’d picked at it after intake. After the small hot spot he’d created was treated, he went into the raptor flight, where he thus far seems to prefer the ground, although I know he can fly. I startled him when checking to see if he’d eaten his mice, and he flew beautifully. He’s not above a nice threat display, though.

​And rounding out the week, we have a gorgeous little male red-phase screech owl. He was found in the road in a neighboring county. It’s sometimes hard to tell male from female screeches if they’re not side by side for size comparison, but this wee man is small enough that I’m positive he’s male. He was really concussed and shocky on intake and it was obvious his right wing was fractured at the elbow—it felt like right in the joint. X-rays confirmed this, and while the joint may freeze when it heals, Peggy and I decided it was worth giving him time to see. Meanwhile, he’s starting to act more like a screech, giving me his best stinkeye just 48 hours after intake…Gotta love that screech attitude!

It was another not-great week for wildlife, salvaged by the sight of a flock of migrating robins in the trees on a gray, overcast mid-week afternoon.

First, the long-shot barred didn’t get re-x-rayed last week; the day I took him to Smalley’s, late in the week, the machine started malfunctioning when we had him on the table for x-rays. Our physical exam didn’t give us much hope; it appeared the bones had not been drawn back together by the muscle, as we’d hoped. But we’re holding off on any final action until we can actually see what everything looks like.
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On Friday yet another barred owl came in, this one with a wing that didn’t require x-rays for me to know it was a fatal fracture. His left shoulder and humerus were shattered—and yes, he’d been found in the middle of the road, so he’d probably been hit by a car. The photo below was taken post-euthanasia, to show you the extent of the damage to his wing​—you can see it’s facing backward. 

​And Saturday, a gorgeous red tail came in, severely emaciated and too weak to hold his head up. His finder had first seen him three days previously but by the time he made it to LWR, it was too late. I saw no signs of frounce and nothing was broken, so more than likely he had capillaria and it had advanced to the point that nothing could be done. For those who need a refresher, capillaria are worms that raptors pick up from eating infected rodents, and they fill the bird’s crop, effectively starving it to death while it feels full. I managed to get one small liquid feeding into the poor fellow, but it was too little, too late. He died within an hour of intake.

​In a sign that spring is just around the corner—okay, if you’re in Georgia, spring is popping back and forth around that corner like a jack-in-the-box—about midweek I walked outside to a tumult in the scrub oak at the corner of my parents’ yard. I could hear the ruckus clearly in my yard, and I knew the sound: a flock of robins had descended into the upper branches of the trees and were chattering away. By the time I got the camera and got up there, they’d settled down and were fairly quiet, but just LOOK at the sheer numbers in that tree! (It was, as I mentioned at the outset, a very overcast day, so there’s very little color to be seen; sorry ‘bout that.)

Sometimes you just have one of “those” weeks…

The red tail suddenly stopped eating—totally—and didn’t even fight when I went in to catch him for euthanasia.  Not normal at all for a bird who’d fought beak and talon on intake and had been insanely food aggressive. He’d basically just given up…

The long-shot barred didn’t make it to the vet this week; we’ll aim at next week. I’m trying to remain optimistic about his chances, but honestly, as badly displaced as those bones were, it’s hard to maintain any real hope of proper healing for flight.

Midweek an adult sandhill crane came in. He came from about 90 minutes away; Laurens County isn’t in the sandhill flyway. He was blown into a power line by an early-week storm; the eyewitness said he hit the wire and “exploded; there were feathers everywhere.”  A game warden near the site of the accident captured him and took him to a volunteer transporter who lives near him, who met me at Smalley’s with the quite angry bird. X-rays showed no wing fractures but he did favor his left leg. The capturing game warden said he was running and had to be chased down, though. He also seemed to have some slight difficulty breathing, which the game warden also noticed when he captured him, but he was alert, aggressive and eating well—at least at first. Within two days, he was beak-breathing with his neck stretched out full length, lethargic and not eating, and when I lifted the unresisting bird up to euthanize him, blood seeped from his beak. I strongly suspect there was some sort of blood clot that broke loose in his lungs.

​And yesterday another game warden from out of county brought a small adult male barred owl with an open left wing fracture. He also was humanely euthanized. The photos below were taken post-euthanasia.

All in all, not a good week…

Hope some of you are participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count, which ends tomorrow, so there’s still time to take part.

In my family we’ve always said spring doesn’t actually arrive till after Easter, which is VERY late this year, so no matter what the thermometer tells you right now, there’s more cold weather in store. Hopefully we won’t have any late freezes after songbirds have eggs and/or babies in the nest.

This was a fairly slow week, with only one intake. The long-shot barred will go back in for x-rays in the next couple of weeks, and the red tail still refuses to fly—he keeps that wing tucked tightly to his body, which makes me think it’s soft tissue damage rather than nerve damage, like a tendon that healed too tightly and now he can’t extend the wing. I was hopeful being in the raptor flight would encourage him to stretch the wing and thereby flex the tendon but he may require fairly intensive PT to see if there’s a chance of his regaining flight capability. We’ll see…
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The sole new intake was a feisty black vulture whose wing fracture had healed in the wild. Black vultures are smaller than turkey vultures, and their sense of smell isn’t as well-developed—you can see that by their smaller nares, or nostrils. So they usually follow turkey vultures and are aggressive enough that they can often run off the larger vultures to feed. Smart rascals, huh? I keep tellin’ y’all vultures are highly intelligent!

Given his very apparent good health—he was rambunctious and well-fleshed, and his feathers were glossy—and the fact that there was new feather growth on the wing, I opted to see what he’d do in the old deer pen. I’d initially planned to just hard-release him, but should he have proven unable to fly, lemme tell ya right now, vultures can run REALLY fast…and I wasn’t about to try and chase him down. So I opted for the old deer pen instead. I’ve used it before to test vultures when the raptor flight was occupied, the theory being that if they can fly out of the deer pen, they’re good to go. It took him less than five minutes to take his leave—I walked into the house for the camera and he was gone when I went back out. I have no doubt he’ll be just fine.
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And just a reminder—next weekend, Feb. 15-18, is the Great Backyard Bird Count.  You don’t need any special equipment or to be in a group or a specific location—even a city park will do. You don’t even have to list all the birds you see or hear, if you don’t recognize the species.  As I’ve said repeatedly, it’s the easiest bird count out there to participate in, and it’s fun, besides. I encourage y’all to give it a try.

 ​Yay! The Coop was released Saturday! And yes, it’s normal to be happy about a release, but with Coops it’s more like ecstatic. Why? Coops are accipiters, the high-strung, predictably unpredictable nutcases of the raptor world. My greatest fear while he was in the flight pen last week was that he’d fly into the wall and break his fool neck—yeah, Coops are known for brilliant stunts like that. I literally tiptoed up to the raptor flight each morning and held my breath until I heard movement inside. So I’m pretty sure I was happier than he was at his release, although he was pretty darn happy himself. Photos below are in the raptor flight.

​There are no post-release photos, as he took off low and gained altitude as he turned into the trees and disappeared—if you look closely at the video, right after he turns, you can see him lift on the right of the screen, and then he’s gone.

The long-shot barred owl continues to eat well and, if he’s very, very lucky, he’ll heal for flight. Given the displacement of those bones, which you saw in the x-rays a couple of weeks ago, it’s really iffy. No photos of him this week—I mean, he’s sitting in a crate with a perch. How many photos of that can ya take?
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The red tail is in the raptor flight now. The right wing isn’t drooping like it was but he doesn’t want to fully extend it and he’s only doing short hops and low, short flights. It’s got to be nerve or tendon damage, as his x-rays were clear. We’ll see; I’m hoping being in the raptor flight will encourage him to start using that wing properly.

​And the sole new intake, the first for February, was a barred owl found by the roadside in a neighboring county. His left wing had an open fracture that was still bleeding when he arrived at LWR several hours after he was spotted and caught.   As a refresher, federal regs do not allow for wing amputation above the wrist and only then if the bird will be placed as an ed bird, as he’d be nonreleasable. Barred owls are probably the most common owl in Georgia—they’re certainly the ones LWR receives in greatest numbers—so educational facilities throughout the state have all the barreds they need. He was humanely euthanized and the photos below taken post-euthanasia.

​Just a reminder—the Great Backyard Bird Count is Feb. 15-18 this year. You can visit http://gbbc.birdcount.org/ for more details. I encourage y’all to give it a try; it’s one of the easiest bird counts to participate in because of its flexibility—you can count every day, one day, one hour—whatever fits your schedule. Can’t get much easier than that, right?

And that’s a pretty accurate summary of the past week!

The cardinal wasted no time skedaddling when he was offered his freedom—always good!
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The Coop is bouncing off the walls—no, literally, he’s slamming himself into the sides of his box, which is another reason it’s best to house some rehab birds in cardboard boxes. In anything harder, he’d do some damage to his feathers and possibly his paranoid little Coop brain. We’ve got nasty, cold weather predicted for at least the first part of this week, though, so his little feathered butt will remain indoors for another few days.

​The barred owl and red tail are also impatient, but the red tail’s right wing still droops at the shoulder. Since x-rays week before last showed no fractures, it would appear there’s something neurological going on. Time will tell…

​The barred, of course, is a long shot. We knew that going in, with a displaced, already-attempting-to-heal wing fracture. It will be several more weeks before we can make an informed decision on his fate.

And the sole intake last week was another adult red tail, in a situation that, quite frankly, pisses me off to no end. People called on Wednesday: hawk in front yard, clear open fracture on leg. An open fracture on a leg isn’t good, but it’s not necessarily a death sentence. I tell them to box up the bird and get it to LWR, and they agree to do so. Wednesday afternoon…no bird. Wednesday night…no bird. Thursday…no bird.  Honestly, I’ve seen birds with leg fractures who couldn’t be caught because they could still fly quite well, so since there was no word to the contrary, I guessed that was what had happened: the hawk had flown away when the callers tried to catch it.

Friday, a volunteer transporter called to say a mammal rehabber (who’s terrified of me and won’t communicate with me directly—long story) in a neighboring county was going to pick up a hawk with a broken leg. Hmmmm….what are the odds?
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Another volunteer transporter picked up the bird and got it to me about dark; apparently the mammal rehabber was told the idiots with the bird had placed it in the back of their truck and fed it hot dogs for two days. When we opened the box, the hawk, a mature male red tail, had an open leg fracture, mid-bone. The exposed bones were already drying out and dying; the flesh around them was black. And he had no neurological response at all in that foot.  There was no humane option other than euthanasia. And what makes me so angry is if the callers had gotten the bird to me when they originally said they would, his suffering could have been ended two days earlier. Maybe not a huge amount of time in the grand scheme of things, but I cringe at the thought of an animal suffering needlessly for two days because idiots think it’s neat to toss him in the truck bed and feed him hot dogs and can’t be arsed to do the right—the HUMANE—thing and get the bird to a rehabber.

All photos were taken post-euthanasia.

And before anyone asks, no, the leg could not be amputated. Federal regs clearly prohibit that, and for good reasons: first, amputating the leg would mean a nonreleasable bird—raptors in the wild need full use of both feet in order to be effective hunters—so he’d have to be placed as an ed bird somewhere. Red tails, for all their majesty, are fairly common birds, so it’s hard to place them as ed birds. Second, with all his weight on one leg, the hawk would be prone to bumblefoot—pressure sores—on his remaining foot. He’d spend the rest of his life at risk for or being treated for these sores, because he’d have no way to shift his weight from one leg/foot to the other.

And yes, I know birds survive in the wild after traumatic amputations in nature. It happens. But usually these are smaller, lighter birds, most often songbirds or smaller raptors, and it’s usually only the foot that’s missing, so they have a stump to alleviate some of the pressure on the intact foot.
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The takeaway? The usual: GET INJURED/ILL/ORPHANED WILDLIFE TO A PROPERLY PERMITTED REHABBER ASAP. DON’T WASTE TIME! If its injuries are so severe as to preclude rehab, we can at least offer it release from suffering in the form of humane euthanasia.

Last week felt like a preview of baby season, except all intakes were, of course, adults. Busy, busy! I suspect the brief period of decent weather we experienced had people outside more, hence the rescue of birds that otherwise might not have been found or received help.
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The first intake of the week was an adult male cardinal with a massive eye infection of some sort. Initially, based on the finder’s description, I feared “finch eye,” mycoplasmic conjunctivitis, which is highly contagious to other birds. When the cardie arrived, though, it was obvious this was some other type of infection, so I started meds immediately. Below you can see the progress he made. He’s good to go now but between rain, high winds and drastic temperature drops, his release has been delayed for a few days.

Then we had four intakes in one day—typical for baby season but very unusual for winter.
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First thing in the morning, a juvenile Cooper’s hawk came in; he’d face-planted a window, probably in hot pursuit of his songbird prey. The songbird likely veered at the last minute; the Coop hit the window, unable to swerve away as quickly as the songbird. Coops are highly maneuverable birds, but this fellow was rail-thin, so desperation likely influenced his hunt. At any rate, he went in for x-rays and while he had no wing fractures, vet Peggy Hobby and I are pretty sure we see a coracoid fracture. As you know by know, these are hard to spot even on an x-ray, so we’re not 100% positive. Doesn’t matter; a little cage rest and some time to get some meat back on those skinny bones won’t hurt him a bit—and he’s eating like there’s no tomorrow!

​Then we had a barred owl with a wing fracture that I was convinced on intake had already started healing. X-rays sort of confirmed that—the bone is displaced but attempting to form a callus, and the muscles seem to be trying to pull the bones back into alignment. There's no instability at this point, believe it or not, so we cannot realign the bone ends--they're already "set" as they are. This may not end well, but Peggy and I agreed it was worth giving the bird time to heal to see what happens.

​When the cat-attacked mocker came in, his wing felt broken at the shoulder, which x-rays confirmed. I forgot I hadn’t taken a photo of him till after we’d euthanized, so all we have for him is his x-ray, with both fractures circled.

Once again, people, repeat after me: KEEP YOUR CATS INDOORS.
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This gorgeous adult male red tail showed no signs of injury on intake, and x-rays also show nothing, but his right wing droops at the shoulder—a telltale sign of a coracoid fracture. So he’s also on cage rest. 

​And yesterday, one of my local game wardens delivered a great blue heron. Apparently the bird had been down since around Christmas but no one felt the need to contact LWR or DNR to seek help for the poor thing till he was too weak to stand. And he was starvation-thin on intake. Sometimes herons will refuse to stand when they’re stressed so I took him into the raptor flight to see if he’d try to stand. He lay on the ground glaring at me and attacked the camera, which I took as a good sign—he was still feisty. So I took him inside and mixed a thin slurry to start him eating. He kept it down but died three hours later anyway—too little, too late. He might have had a chance if he’d been brought to LWR a month ago…

​Finally, although this wacky weather might not indicate it, spring is on the way. We already have henbit and Whitlow grass blooming!

​And a postscript—bundle up tonight and get outside to watch the full lunar eclipse! It starts around 10:30pm ET and ends around 2am ET, with full eclipse around midnight. Those aren’t exact times, but they’re good enough for government work, as Daddy used to say. Even if you just pop in and out to catch “highlights” it should be worth seeing.

It appears that every weekend in Georgia this winter is gonna be wet; it’s overcast and nasty-damp today. Good sleepin’ weather for people, cats and dogs; lousy hunting and feeding weather for wildlife. The songbirds are cleaning out my feeders within hours of me filling them. Makes me worry about nesting great horned owls, as this is their breeding season…

At any rate, we don’t control the weather, so all we can do is react to it—and take advantage of the clear weather to schedule releases.

As you’ll recall from last Sunday’s update, the red shoulder found near the interstate right before Christmas was flying well in the raptor flight. By Wednesday, he was soaring from one end to the other and back without a pause, indicating his readiness for release.
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So I got him boxed up and off we headed to a suitable release site, where he bolted from the box, barely giving me time to get a not-great video of his release.

I lowered the camera and started walking toward where he landed, aiming at some post-release photos, and he let me know quickly that wasn’t gonna happen—spread those wings and took off deeper into the woods, and I lost sight of him. Now I consider that a good release!

Aside from his release, it was a quiet week. About the time I get used to occasional quiet, slow weeks, baby season will kick in, and there’ll be six months of nonstop insanity, so I’m enjoying each quiet week to the fullest.
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Besides, I still have those annual reports to get done…