I'm sorry, y'all. We have a family crisis to deal with, and there's just no way I can manage it, keep the birds fed, and update the blog too.
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Good Lord, I don’t even know where to start… Last Sunday a Carolina wren fledgling and a nestling barn owl came in. The Caro didn’t survive the night, sadly; the barnie had me worried, as he had maggot eggs in one nostril and I wasn’t sure I’d cleaned them all out—plus he didn’t want to eat, at all. I had to literally force-feed him. Luckily, I did get all the maggot eggs and after a few days of being force-fed he decided taking the proffered food from the forceps was much less stressful. The first photo below is him on day of intake; the second is today. Today’s pic isn’t that great, but he’s moved into the hissy stage and even a barnie hiss is…ummm…not pleasant to the ears, so I sort of guerilla-snapped that photo!   Monday a cat-attacked grackle came in but didn’t survive the day, despite immediate medication on intake.  Tuesday a nestling bluebird came in, the sole survivor of a snake raid on the nest.  Wednesday, an adult female bluebird came in, along with a nestling red shouldered hawk. The bluebird favored her left wing, which was swollen, but x-rays showed no fractures. You can clearly see the swollen tissue, though. No photos of her because she’s a little escape artist!  The red shoulder had a broken leg. Because the mammal rehabber who transferred him to me had said the break was mid-bone, we were all hopeful it could be fixed, but x-rays indicated otherwise. It was indeed mid-bone but so badly displaced that vet Peggy Hobby, vet tech Autumn Parker and I all simultaneously moaned in dismay at the x-ray. We sounded like some sort of Greek chorus…   Thursday, a nestling grackle came in, THREE DAYS after being found and fed a crap Internet diet. His finders were “worried” about him on day three, as he didn’t seem as “chipper.” Yeah, three days of crap in your system when you’re a growing bird will do that. He also showed signs of respiratory distress, so I started meds immediately, but he died overnight.  An adult barred owl with an open wing fracture also came in Thursday; there was nothing to be done for him except end his suffering.  And a Thursday morning caller said they’d taken a “baby bird with a blue tail” from their cat. Its wing was RIPPED OFF, and could they keep it as a pet? I kid you not. This conversation continued until I thought I was gonna have to call the game warden but I finally convinced these people to get the bird, a fledgling bluebird, to Smalley’s, where I was having the female bluebird and nestling red shoulder x-rayed. The right wing was indeed ripped off, and the left wing was mauled underneath. The poor baby was dying from shock and blood loss anyway but we euthanized to end his misery. Peggy and I both adore bluebirds, so that made this particular euthanasia even worse, despite it being the right thing to do. The wing photos below were taken post-euthanasia.    Friday an adult cedar waxwing came in with only a slight droop to his left wing, indicative of a coracoid fracture. He was alert and well-fleshed, so I figured a little time to heal and he’d be good to go. He was dead the next morning. No clue as to why, unless he’d gotten into pesticides or insecticides.  Another fledgling brown thrasher came in, as well, after one parent was hit by car and died. The finders tried to put the bird back in the bushes but he kept hopping out into the road, so it was deemed safer for him to send him to LWR.  This poor little nestling blue jay had serious head trauma and neurological issues on intake. He was found on the ground in an apartment complex. He kept flipping onto his back and twisting his neck so that it looked like he had wry neck (a condition where the bird’s head is flipped upside down). I honestly didn’t have high hopes for him but refused to give up without a fight.  By Saturday, he was at least positioning himself properly in the nest most of the time, although his head still tended to twist a bit.  Today, he was sitting upright and begging for food like a proper little jay. He still has some tremors but things look much more hopeful for him than three days ago!  Also on Friday, a couple called and said a tree surgeon had cut down a hollow oak on their property and discovered, too late, a nest of owls. It’s my understanding that tree surgeons are supposed to be trained to LOOK for things like owl and songbird nests, but we all know profit comes first, right? I explained how to recover the owls and get them to LWR, expecting two more barreds, but noooo, they showed up with two half-grown, hissy barnies! And yet another adult barred owl came in Friday, also. He was concussed out of his gourd, to the point that Saturday morning I honestly thought he’d died during the night. He’s still a bit loopy but improving.  Rounding out the week a second nestling red shoulder came in Saturday with his left lower eyelid ripped loose. The tissue still looked fairly healthy, so colleagues Steve Hicks and Kathryn Dudeck and I discussed triage until he could get to Smalley’s Monday. However, he died overnight, after throwing up everything he’d eaten. There was also a sharp chemical smell, so I suspect his ripped lower eyelid was the least of his worries; his parents had probably fed their babies rodenticide-laced mice. I hate rodenticides with a passion…   The five bluebirds and five finches, after time in the songbird flight, were released. The bluebirds tend to come down for supplemental feedings singly; the finches en masse.          The mockers are now in the songbird flight.  The titmouse and “older” (last week’s) brown thrasher are indicating today that they’re ready for the songbird flight, but I’ll hold them a little longer, till the mockers are out. Those mockers would bully my sweet thrasher and titmouse something awful!  The barreds in the raptor flight are looking good but have a while yet before they’re releasable. The great horned is getting antsy and needs to be in the raptor flight soon. The nestling barred from last week is self-feeding this week, and the flyers are slated for release in June. The killdeer are adorable and growing like weeds.  And hopefully that’s got everybody updated. I think. Maybe…
May decided to enter with a mushroom cloud-sized “I’m heee—eeere!” Including the babies that arrived today, in just the first six days of this month, LWR has had 20 intakes. Yeah--20. That’s already almost half the total intakes for April. Remember, I did say if April was any indication… I don’t even know where to start, aside from warning you there will be a good bit of ranting going on this update. Pull up a soapbox and have a seat. Lord, I dunno; let’s start with the “older” guests. The adult GHO did require euthanasia; the barred trio is now in the raptor flight, where they sit and look…ummm…less than intelligent all day. Cute but not smart. At least they’re eating, though, right?   The phoebes were released after a few days in the songbird flight and didn’t hang around any longer than the nuthatches.  The Carolina wren refused to leave and ended up hanging out with the bluebirds when they moved into the songbird flight. By the end of this week, they might be releasable.    The brancher GHO is quite happy in his new digs but would prefer to be in the raptor flight. I may end up switching him and the barreds back and forth so they all get flight time.  The flyers are, of course, adorable and gearing up for release next month.  Early in the week, a cat-attacked chuck-will’s-widow arrived, TWO DAYS after being found. Despite immediate meds on intake, it was too late; the poor bird died overnight.   Then a cat-caught cardinal came in. He had two ruptured air sacs, neither in a life-threatening location, but despite being started on antibiotics immediately upon arrival, he died overnight. His finder was livid, as it was a stray cat wandering through her yard who caught the poor baby. I suggested a humane trap and taking the cat to the local shelter once it was caught.  People, once again, CATS BELONG INDOORS. Next, a juvenile pileated woodpecker was rescued from dogs. He was a self-feeding juvie who wanted very little to do with humans, so after a couple of days’ observation, he was released and hightailed it away from me as fast as he could.  The very next day, five late nestling house finches came in, dumped at a vet clinic in a nearby county and delivered to LWR by a volunteer transporter. Finches are such sweet, exasperating little birds, as they’re content to remain in the nest forever. These babies are fledge-age now and still sitting in the nest, even though I’ve moved them into a larger enclosure with a perch. “Us, perch? Naaah…”  Shortly afterward, an early fledgling brown thrasher was found in the road; his finders thought perhaps his wing was broken, and his left underwing was a bit irritated but not broken. No, his issue is a weak left leg/foot, probably as a result of a nest injury. He can use it; it’s just weak and probably always will be. But it’s much improved over intake—he’s now perching a bit and walking around. Promising progress!  And this adorable little fledgling titmouse came in after over two days of crap diet. I won’t even list the stuff in the so-called “diet”, as I don’t want to give anyone any bright ideas. Suffice it to say his finder was able to Google a crap diet immediately but took three days to decide to look for a rehabber. The poor bird was near comatose when he came in, and I really didn’t have high hopes, but he seems much improved. Look, people, just because it’s on the Internet doesn’t mean it’s true, accurate, or an appropriate diet for wildlife. GET THE BIRDS TO A LICENSED REHABBER ASAP.   DNR brought two barred owls this week, a runt brancher and a HBC (hit by car) adult. The brancher is still not self-feeding and is so much smaller than the brancher trio in the raptor flight that I’m keeping him inside for a while yet.   The adult had an open wing fracture and required euthanasia.  Yesterday someone posted on one of those cesspool Facebook pages—you know the ones I’m talking about; they’re either honest-to-God unadulterated gossip sites or they’re supposedly yard sale-type sites; either way, they’re sites where people gather to show their ignorance. In this case, the poster had four pre-fledgling mockers that she was asking care advice for and getting the world’s worst advice, including feeding them MILK. Folks...BIRDS DON’T HAVE BOOBS. Got it? Have you EVER seen a bird nursing its young? If you have, get pix and video, ‘cause you’re about to be a very rich person once you sell the rights to THAT story. Luckily, someone with some sense actually monitors these pages and alerted me, providing the contact info for the mocker person. After some hemming and hawing and false starts and nearly the threat of turning the matter over to DNR, a volunteer transporter was finally able to get the birds to LWR.  And bear with me now as I well and truly hop on my soapbox on these next birds. A “science educator” (the person’s term, NOT mine) who knew ol’ so-and-so at a local college and “worked closely” with DNR on conservation education supposedly saw a mother killdeer killed about TWO WEEKS ago. (Now, in my experience, when you start tossing out the names of all the “important” people you know or organizations you’ve “worked with” it’s usually because you know you’ve screwed up and you’re trying to lend some legitimacy to your screw-up.) This person then took the eggs from the nest, incubated them, hatched them, and THEN decided to look for a rehabber—not so much to do the right thing for the birds as to get feeding advice, which, as you well know, I do NOT provide, aside from emergency measures until the bird(s) can be taken to me or another rehabber. I explained the legal issues, provided an emergency care plan and expected to hear from the individual the next morning. Nope. So I texted to ask what the status was. The person called, took a deep breath and launched into ALL the reasons they couldn’t bring the birds. I finally had to just interrupt and point-blank state that if I didn’t have the birds by end of day, I was turning the matter over to DNR. Then the individual tried to guilt trip ME, moaning about how they were trying to do the right thing. Sorry, that particular bird don’t fly with this rehabber. I then reminded the person of the contact info I’d given them for WREN (Wildlife Resources Education Network), a group that coordinates volunteer transporters, and told the person to call them, which I’d advised the previous day. Liz with WREN then called me a bit later, as frustrated and exasperated as I was, only this individual had outright admitted to her that they wanted to keep the killdeer because they’d make a great “educational project” for the person’s children (unclear if this was students or offspring or both). I was livid. First off, these are LIVING CREATURES who need proper rearing, NOT a damn science experiment. Second, what “educational” experience can one provide when one is blatantly breaking the law? “Children, the laws only apply to OTHER people, and we only obey those we want to”? Between Liz and me and the threat of state and/or federal action—because I did contact DNR to see if the wildlife tech in the area could confiscate the birds—we managed to convince the person to meet a volunteer this morning. When she and her husband brought me the killdeer, she also expressed her frustration at dealing with this individual, and laughed as she told me I was not on this person’s list of favorite people right now. Folks, let’s get one thing clear: I DON’T CARE if people aren’t happy with me. I wasn’t put on this earth to please people. Life ain’t a popularity contest; it’s not about how many “likes” and “attagirls” and “oh, you’re such a good persons” you can get on Facebook or Twitter or wherever. What I DO care about is the fate of wild birds in the hands of people who think because they have a little education (I have a PhD, and I’m WELL aware of the extent of my ignorance) or can Google disastrously wrong info, they know how to care for the birds. GET THE BIRDS TO A LICENSED REHABBER ASAP!!! We don’t do this because it’s “fun” or “neat” or an “educational” experience; it’s damn hard, soul-sucking, heartbreaking, all-consuming work. We do it because we care about our native wildlife and we want to try to compensate in some small way for the wholesale destruction of wildlife habitats that humans cause daily—and to give the wildlife in our care a second chance at living the life God intended it to have. The “rewards” we seek aren’t public adulation; we want to see the wildlife in our care successfully released back into the wild. When injuries or illness preclude that possibility, we can at least make sure its end is humane and quick. *deep breath* Rant over. The killdeer were not in an optimal setup; they were being fed only periodically when they’re self-feeding from hatching and need constant access to food 24/7, etc., etc. So far they seem to’ve adjusted nicely to a proper setup; hopefully the stress of their first few days won’t cause any long-term problems.   And late this afternoon this dog-attacked Carolina wren came in. To this guy’s credit, he and his son chased down the dog, took the bird and, after looking up short-term care options, contacted LWR and made arrangements to get the bird here ASAP. He did admit to asking his local pet store’s clerk what food to use, and they sold him hand-feeding formula for exotics that CLEARLY states it’s not for use with wild birds, which he noticed and commented on. As I told him, the pet store clerk isn’t interested in the welfare of the bird; he’s interested in getting you to buy something. The wren’s wing is very swollen and looks like it may be broken; we’ll try for x-rays early next week to see.  I’ve been working on this update all day, between feeding birds, and I’m honestly too tired to come up with any pearls of wisdom to end with, just these reminders:
After a frenetic week last week, this week was slowish, with just seven intakes, all at the end of the week. But April 2018 is still on track to be the busiest April in LWR’s history. Beginning with the new intakes, these precious Eastern bluebirds were accidentally transported from Atlanta to the midstate area when someone bought some sort of heavy equipment and Mama Bluebird had built a nest in the exhaust pipe. The buyer had no idea what to do when he found the nest full of babies near dark, so he kept them overnight and took them to friends, a young couple who have several exotic birds, the next morning. This couple spent the remainder of the day on the phone, trying to locate someone who could help. A vet south of them gave them illegal and crappy feeding advice; a naturalist at a nearby state park gave them even worse advice, recommending first that they place the babies in an empty nest and leave it outside and “other birds” would feed them. That ain’t gonna happen, folks. Then she explained to them, in a spectacular display of ignorance, that they only needed to feed the babies in the morning and evening. By early evening, when they finally contacted LWR, the bluebirds were starving and frantic; the couple, with an infant of their own and subsequent strong parental instincts, were about as frantic as the poor birds; and when I told them to get the babies to me ASAP, they had them here within half an hour. The first video below is after I’d actually sated their hunger somewhat; you can imagine what they sounded like on intake after not eating in nearly 24 hours. The second video was after their hunger was fully sated and they’d settled down; the faint “cricketing” chirp you hear is the phoebes next to them. The third video was at one of their half-hourly feedings today. They’re such gorgeous little birds. Every rehabber has their favorite birds; bluebirds top my list: sweet, gorgeous, and their little begging calls are almost as sweet to me as the adult song.   Sadly, this fledging bluebird wasn’t as lucky. He was a cat-attack victim, the third in two weeks from this same person. And yes, we’ve had the “cats belong indoors” conversation repeatedly, to no avail. This poor baby died in my hands as I was having that conversation yet again. I submit to you that if you allow your cats to roam freely outdoors, you care nothing about our native wildlife and not much more about your cats. You’re exposing the cats to dangers of predation, disease, and human cruelty, while at the same time allowing them to wreak havoc on our native wildlife. And yes, I was angry when I made the video. No, strike that: I was livid.   The seventh intake of the week was this pre-fledgling grackle. He was found in the middle of the road. Bless their hearts, young grackles are ungainly little things, they have lousy personalities, and their begging call is not attractive; as adults they still don’t have a pretty song—but those eyes…Mature grackles have striking yellow eyes set in iridescent black feathers. They’re just mesmerizing!  The phoebes are ready for the songbird flight, as is the sole survivor of the nest of four Carolina wrens. I was hopeful all four would survive but had my doubts; they were kinda scruffy-looking little things, like maybe the parents had been struggling to keep them adequately fed before their nest was inadvertently “relocated” 150 miles away.  Post-feeding, pre-swab-down. The phoebes like to snap at their food, slinging it in the process.  Carolina wrens aren't usually quite this scruffy looking, which is why I suspect the parents were struggling to keep them fed. The brown thrasher, nuthatches and mourning dove were released; the mourning dove is the only one who’s hung around.  The flyers have been moved to new digs, which they seem to like very much. They’re not quite totally self-feeding but they’re getting there. By late June, they should be releasable.   #4 had his head sticking through the opening and jerked it back just before I snapped the photo. The barred owl trio is headed for the raptor flight early in the week. They’re now at the “fling and fly” stage, meaning I’m just tossing the food in and letting them do their thing.  The brancher great horned owl is also self-feeding now and will be moved into the crate the barreds will vacate when they go outside. (And before anyone asks, no, you cannot put raptors of different species in the flight together like you can songbirds. Raptors do NOT play well together!)   The final robin hatchling, the unexpected one, lasted twelve hours after hatching. And the adult GHO with soft tissue damage will require euthanasia; she simply cannot fly.
So there ya have it—not as insane as last week but still busy with all the half-hourly feedings, releases, intakes, and housing rearrangements. If April is any indication, May, June and July are gonna be…interesting. Yep, baby season is in full swing now, with ten intakes Saturday alone, nine of them babies from three separate locations, not to mention the intakes from earlier in the week and them what was already here from earlier in the month. (Oh, come on—you’ve never heard anyone use “them what was”?? Common colloquialism in the South!) Busy, busy! These hatchling robins, not over two days old, were removed by a disreputable freelance construction worker. I had hoped to get the name of his company so I could let Middle Georgia folks know who NOT to use for their construction work, but he apparently isn’t affiliated with a company and the person who rescued the babies after seeing their nest ripped out and dumped didn’t know the man’s name, or I’d shame him individually. It seems Mama Robin had built her nest in a hole in a soffit and rather than waiting a mere two weeks for her to successfully fledge her babies, the jackass tore the nest out and sealed the soffit. There was NO excuse for tearing down this nest; it’s also a violation of federal law to disturb an active nest. However, I have no name to report to the feds. You can see in the close-up photo below that these babies still have egg teeth, the “picks” on the ends of their beaks that help them break through the eggshell as they’re hatching. They were heartbreakingly young, which lowered their chances of doing well in rehab, and they actually died overnight. A nest full of dead babies is NOT a pleasant thing to find first thing in the morning, and it could have been avoided if the jackass pseudo-construction worker had just left the nest where it was for two measly weeks. Honestly, this sort of wanton lack of any shred of human decency makes my blood boil.   HOWever…there was an unhatched egg in the nest with the hatchlings, and the volunteer transporter who brought them wondered if it might still hatch. We candled it and it seemed “solid”, meaning there was something in there. I cautioned her that the odds were it was an unviable baby, but I slipped the egg in the corner of the heated box with the hatchlings, just in case. When I opened the box to find the dead babies this morning, I also found—to my shock and surprise—that the egg had hatched. So we have a fifth robin hatchling whose odds of survival aren’t great, but I’m giving it all I’ve got. I want at least ONE of that poor mama’s babies to survive. And I also want the head of that jackass on a platter, but I’d happily settle for this one poor baby surviving.    Contrast this with the person who drove from Atlanta to Middle Georgia unaware that they had a nest full of Carolina wrens under an old trailer. Upon reaching their destination and discovering the nest, rather than simply tossing a nest full of screaming babies, this person contacted LWR and brought the babies immediately. They’re older and should have a better chance of survival than the robins, though Carolinas are pretty stressy little birds.  These sweet phoebes were delivered to a local mammal rehabber, who contacted a volunteer transporter who runs between us to get the babies here. We don’t actually know much else about their background. Phoebes are in the flycatcher family, as evidenced by that flat, triangular beak.   This same mammal rehabber received a nestling brown thrasher from her local animal control, which also came to LWR with the phoebes. Sadly, this sweet little fellow didn’t last 24 hours. He seemed in good shape on intake—no bruises or indications of anything amiss—but died overnight.  The barred owls have been relocated to a larger space awaiting their turn in the raptor flight; these babies are branchers already—can you believe it?!  The downy great horned owl is also in a larger box and will be moved into the crate once the barreds are in the raptor flight. He’s close to brancher stage, as well, but not quite there yet. “Brancher” just means they’re moving out of the nest to nearby branches and hopping around. It’s actually at this stage that most young raptors get into trouble and end up in rehab.  A young female flyer, about the same age as the older two already at LWR, was kept by her finder for over a week, and the finder was reluctant to surrender the poor little girl to LWR but we finally got her here. Folks, flyers are social little darlings and they need to be with other flyers. “Onlies” will do fine physically but emotionally, they need other flyers. Adult flyers form colonies, unlike gray or fox squirrels, who are solitary as adults.  The person who found this mourning dove tried for two days to feed the poor baby an inappropriate diet, nearly killing the bird in the process. The short video was shot on intake. Fortunately, the dove responded to an appropriate diet; I honestly wasn’t so sure he would. He seemed pretty far gone on intake but is self-feeding already and slated for movement to the songbird flight after the nasty weather we have predicted for today and Monday moves through.  This same person rescued a fledgling brown thrasher from a cat. There were no apparent injuries aside from a few missing secondary wing feathers, but the bird was started on meds anyway. Cat saliva contains a bacteria designed to break down flesh; it is toxic to wildlife. Antibiotics are a must for wildlife attacked by cats. Sadly, the bird didn’t respond to meds and died within 24 hours of intake.  Folks, cats belong INDOORS, not outside where they can wreak havoc on our native wildlife. Help me keep beating that drum until maybe we beat some sense into people’s heads about this. Early last week, a lady brought LWR a near-fledgling chickadee that she’d found on her doorstep near dark. The next morning she returned with a sibling she’d heard peeping outside her door around midnight. She didn’t see a cat in either instance, but I started meds just in case. Sadly, neither of the adorable little birds lasted 24 hours; the second one died within an hour of arrival.  I’m unsure of the specific species of warbler here (warblers confuse the heck outta me), but the couple who brought him were pretty sure he’d hit a door or window and was still stunned. Apparently there were internal injuries, as this was another case of not surviving long after arrival, poor baby.  The adult GHO that was slated for release died the night before his scheduled release. No clue why—none. He was alert; he was eating well and flying well…and then he was dead. Sudden and unexplained deaths are more common among baby birds than adults, but not unheard of in adults. The second adult GHO is still not showing any improvement in flight ability, which doesn’t bode well for her future, especially now that space is at a premium around here. With branchers needing to be in the raptor flight, I don’t have the luxury of letting her sit out there for the next several months. I’ll look into transferring her to another raptor rehabber, but this time of year, we’re all pretty much in the same boat when it comes to lack of space.  This adult mourning dove was found in a back yard and had obviously been cat-attacked. There were deep wounds on the neck and back, and what at first looked like avian pox on the beak turned out to be swollen tissue from what was left of the beak. The bird had been tortured and abandoned by the cat.  Again, people—say it with me—CATS BELONG INDOORS SO THEY DON’T KILL OUR NATIVE WILDLIFE. A young Canada gosling was rescued from a snapping turtle and brought to LWR. His right leg was stripped bare of skin, exposing muscle and tendons. Vet Peggy Hobby and I agreed euthanasia was the kindest option, but the poor fellow checked out on us before we could euthanize. The photo below was taken post-mortem.  The brown thrasher and nuthatches will also head for the songbird flight around Tuesday; they were a bit stubborn about self-feeding but have finally decided that if they want the opportunity to really stretch their wings, they have to feed themselves. Sorry for the not-great photos; these three, especially the nuthatches, are hardly ever still long enough to focus properly!   In short, it was a hectic week indeed. And keep that poor little hatchling robin in your prayers. I really, REALLY want that poor wee one to survive.
This week was slightly less frenetic than last week, with fewer intakes and several releases. Not a bad week, overall! First, the overwintering flyers are mostly released; we have two stubborn holdouts. They’ll decide to hit the road fairly soon, though. There’re nearly always a couple who linger longer than their eager-to-be-free erstwhile nestmates. And a third spring flyer came in, slightly younger than the twins. He’s currently housed with the male and the goal is to reunite all three once they’re eating enough solids to stop the female’s genital nursing. We’re gettin’ there!  The adult barred owl was released and was so eager to leave LWR that I barely managed video and only snagged one photo. As I moved closer to try for more photos, he took flight again and I tried to video that but didn’t have the camera focused yet, resulting in a very out-of-focus second video. I’m sharing it anyway, as it does show beautiful if somewhat blurred flight!  And the mourning doves, totally self-feeding, were released, as well. I managed to get a short clip of one of them right after he left the songbird flight’s escape hatch. One of the three nuthatches from last week died, leaving the Dynamic Duo aka Chatterboxes bouncing all over the place. After several days of force-feeding, food slinging and nonstop post-feeding wipe-downs to remove slung food, the little rascals started gaping, resulting in much less stress and fewer wipe-downs at feeding time. Both they and I are much happier now. The photo below was taken early in the week, post-force-feeding and pre-wipe-down. It may look adorable, but I promise you, they were huddled together glaring at me! Now that they’re gaping, they’re rarely still long enough for a photo—less stress means more energy to bounce off the walls, as it were.  They and the brown thrasher will head for the songbird flight next week and, if all goes well, might even be released by next week’s update. The adult great horned owls are awaiting release; one may still need to hang around a while longer, but we’ll see how things look as the week progresses. The downy GHO is beginning to feather out nicely on his wings but he’s still a big ol’ goofball.   The barred owls are also feathering out nicely. No photos of them this week; instead we have this video of them expressing unhappiness at being in a tiny box while I cleaned their larger box. I had to stop cleaning to capture this on video; it was too funny! Update on last week’s bald eagle—the latest report from Kathryn at Chattahoochee is that he’s eating well and gaining weight. Good news!
And if you can believe it, that’s actually it for this week! Surprising, huh? I’m not complaining; I know things will become considerably more hectic as baby season progresses, so I’m enjoying the slower pace while I can. And both the “extremes” came in on the same day! We might as well start with the big news and the larger of the “extremes”: LWR received a bald eagle Friday, the third since 2009, when our first one came in. This fellow was emaciated, lethargic and favored his right shoulder, although x-rays showed no fractures. Although bald eagles are no longer on the endangered list, there’s still a pretty rigid federal protocol to be followed when rehabbers receive one—and if the rehabber doesn’t have a specific eagle permit, separate from the “general” raptor permit, s/he has about 12 hours to transfer the bird to someone who does. I don’t have a specific eagle permit. Don’t want one—the flight pen needed for an eagle is just too big and I have nowhere to construct one that large, for starters, and bald eagles are larger and more aggressive, ill-tempered and unpredictable than your average raptor, for another thing. So anyway, when the call came from DNR that an eagle was on the way from several counties south of me, I immediately called Smalley’s to set up x-rays and a preliminary exam, per protocol. Then I called colleague Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends, who does have a specific eagle permit and a large enough raptor flight to house the bird. As soon as he confirmed he could take it, I called one of the volunteer transporters who runs between me and Steve, AJ Rogers, to see if she and our other transport stalwarts, Marshall and Laurie Jackson, could coordinate the transport of the bird immediately after the exam at Smalley’s. The bird arrived shortly after we got all the details ironed out, and he was unusually cooperative as I did a quick pre-vet exam. Not a good sign, and we all worried that he might have gotten into coyote bait or even had West Nile, which is treatable in its early stages, or AVM, which is not treatable at all. (Here’s a link for info on AVM: https://news.uga.edu/identify-name-toxic-cyanobacteria-killing-american-bald-eagles-0215/.) Once we arrived at Smalley’s, vet Peggy Hobby, who remembered the last bald eagle they saw (who took a chunk out of my jaw), was also surprised at the lack of resistance by the bird to a fuller exam and several x-rays. Again, the x-rays looked good—no fractures and no lead in his gut, but he was very emaciated. Peggy then drafted a short note stating she’d examined and x-rayed the bird and the results, per protocol. One copy went with the bird to Steve, one copy went with me for my records, and one copy went in the LWR file at Smalley’s.    Left wing  Right wing      By this time, Marshall and Laurie were waiting to begin the first leg of the bird’s trip to Bubba & Friends. AJ and Tom handled the second leg, after a brief delay to offer the bird some food, per Steve’s instructions. Upon the bird’s arrival at Bubba & Friends, Steve decided the bird needed to be with a rehabber who had more advanced facilities, so he enlisted AJ and Tom to continue on with the bird to Kathryn Dudeck at Chattahoochee Nature Center. Upon her exam of the eagle, Kathryn confirmed some sort of soft tissue damage to the right shoulder and said he weighed about 5 pounds when he should have weighed around 7 pounds. As of late Saturday, though, Kathryn reported our guy self-fed a 284g rat, which was excellent news to hear! Video courtesy of Tom Rogers  THIS, people, this is why having the proper permits is a MUST when dealing with wildlife. Within 24 hours this bald eagle was moved from South Georgia where he was found to Middle Georgia for triage and on to the metro-Atlanta area for ongoing care, because ALL of us involved knew each other’s permit status and qualifications —and quite frankly, limitations, as both Steve and Kathryn know I don’t have the space or the desire to work long-term with bald eagles. And a big shout-out to AJ, Tom, Laurie and Marshall for dropping everything to get this bird from LWR to Bubba & Friends to Chattahoochee Nature Center. Now we hope for the best possible outcome! Late Friday night, LWR was contacted about four woodpeckers who’d been unnested when people were cutting up a stump for firewood just before dark. I asked that they bring the birds ASAP, thinking they’d wait till morning (which would have been fine, as most songbirds don’t eat at night). They wanted to go ahead and get them to LWR that night, though, so at 11pm four NUTHATCHES came in. And these sweet babies are the small end of the “extremes” for this week. They’re pre-fledglings, so close to leaving the nest it hurts my heart. Another two or three days, and they’d’ve been out of the nest. And their being so close to fledging also makes it more difficult to feed them, so we’ve had to go the force-feeding route since they won’t gape properly for me. One died overnight; the other three, while still not gaping, are at least not fighting being fed now. Hatchlings and nestlings gape readily; pre-fledges and fledglings, not so much…  Another brown thrasher came in, as well, cat-attacked. He’s on meds, as cat saliva is toxic to wildlife—it has enzymes designed to break down flesh. Aside from a minor head wound, he also seems to have something neurologic going on with his legs/feet. He should be perching already, as he’s not too much younger than the thrasher who came in last week, but he can’t seem to stand. We’ll give him some time and see what happens.   Meanwhile, the “older” thrasher managed to break his lower beak in his tantrums last week. Remember I said he wasn’t a happy camper? Yeah, well, he slammed himself into the walls of his crate so hard he broke his beak. Monday he went to Smalley’s to have Peggy look at his beak. I was pretty sure it would heal nicely since he was still not self-feeding and would therefore not be using it in the normal thrasher fashion. Peggy confirmed it might be a little deformed upon healing but shouldn’t interfere with his chances of survival.  Two nestling Carolina wrens came in Tuesday; their finders Googled info on feeding birds after finding them and for two days they followed crap advice from the Internet, feeding the poor babies only every two hours or so. They were lethargic and weak upon arrival at LWR and didn’t survive the night. When it comes to attempting to feed wildlife, Google is NOT your friend. Just call a rehabber ASAP.  Thursday a couple saw a great horned owl just sitting by the roadside in broad daylight, head down and apparently unaware of his surroundings. The wife in the couple works at a vet clinic in her county and had a carrier in her car, so they loaded up the GHO and brought him to LWR. Upon intake he was very woozy and concussed; Saturday he went into the raptor flight. He’s slated for release ASAP.  The other GHO’s soft tissue damage seems to be impairing flight, though. He’s been in the raptor flight most of the week and can ladder up perches but cannot fly. He’ll need to come back in so the barred owl can have a turn in the raptor flight.  The female red tail who’d been at LWR since the end of November 2017 was released this week, which is what freed up the raptor flight for the GHOs. No video of the release, as she sorta shot out of the box before I had the camera ready, but I did get some post-release photos.     One of the dove trio died early in the week; he was fine at lights-out and dead the next morning. I hate when that happens. The other two are beginning to self-feed.  The overwintering flyers are STILL with us, but toward the end of next week there’s a three-day window of no rain chances—unless the forecast changes—so the current plan is to get them out then. The younger two flyer siblings are no longer housed together. One night last week the female genital-nursed on the poor little male till his penis was grossly swollen. This is a common problem with gray squirrels but I’ve never had an issue with flyers genital-nursing till this pair.  The hummer’s chances for release are looking slimmer and slimmer, but we’ll keep trying. Meanwhile, the nestling owls are growing like weeds! The barred triplets don’t all eat the same amount at each feeding, although it’s always offered. They tend to be pretty vocal at feeding time, though.  The GHO is putting on a really nice threat display till the food’s offered; then all he’s thinking about is stuffing his gut—but when he’s done, he’s done. Hasn’t he changed massively since intake? I love the big, goofy feet of a nestling GHO!  Finally, this time of year I get numerous calls from worried people who think the parents haven’t fed the babies in the nest they’ve been watching or just noticed. Usually, the caller says the babies haven’t been fed in two or three days and the babies are noisy and gaping when they look in the nest, and they want to know what to do. Folks, baby birds cannot survive two or three days with no food. The older they get, the more noise they’ll make as they compete with each other for food, so that may be why you’re hearing babies more often than just days before. Also, if you go near the nest and your shadow falls across it, your hand touches it, or you make any sort of noise, young nestlings will instinctively gape—it’s hardwired into them to pop open that little beak to accept whatever Mama & Papa Bird are bringing to the nest. As they get older, your presence will cause them to hunker down silently in fear; they recognize that you’re not the source of food and could indeed be a predator.
My advice is this: first, watch nests from a respectful distance. If you’re too close, the parents won’t come to feed the babies, so you cause them to miss meals. Second, if you think a nest has been abandoned, watch it carefully from inside your house or behind a tree or somewhere where the parents can’t see you. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the parents will show shortly and you’ll hear the chorus of babies begging for food. They’ll chirp loudly and then, after a few minutes, as their hunger is sated, the noise will die down, only to begin again shortly as the parents return with more food. When should you intervene? If the begging calls are nonstop, chances are there’s a problem. From a good hiding place, watch for the parents, per above. If the babies have been noisy periodically and suddenly make no noise at all, check the nest. If they’re lethargic and not responsive to you tapping the nest or waving your fingers above them, call a rehabber immediately. If the parents are raising hell, check the nest immediately. There could be a predator like a snake attempting to eat the babies, or one of the babies may have fallen from the nest. Unnested babies can be renested; songbirds have almost no sense of smell, so they’re not going to reject a baby you’ve handled. …In intake sizes, that is. Intakes ranged from an adult turkey vulture to an adult ruby-throated hummer, and several sizes in between! First off, the red shoulder was released and, after some initial hesitation, was delighted to see the last of me!    No photos, please! Damn paparazzi! A second, slightly older turkey vulture came in, found near the road. He had no fractures but acted really concussed, so a few days at the LWR B&B, and both he and the turkey vulture from last week were released.   Midweek, the local FWS agent called with three nestling barred owls. A tree surgeon had cut a tree that was about to fall on a roof and didn’t see the nest cavity until it was too late. He did, however, immediately call the FWS agent to take the birds.   And an adult barred came in favoring his left wing, but x-rays showed no fractures, so we’re just giving him a little time and hoping there’s no soft tissue damage.   However, the barred who came in today wasn’t as lucky; he had a nasty open wing fracture that required euthanasia.   Last week’s adult great-horned owl had no fractures but the swelling is still present, so there’s definite soft-tissue damage there. Again, he just needs some time.   Yet another mourning dove came in, so we now have a trio.   The red tail is in the raptor flight and may be releasable this week; we’ll see…    The overwintering flyers are still here. The temps are right for a release; now we just have to have three consecutive days of low-to-no rain chances. And the two youngest flyers continue to grow. They’re finally starting to nibble at solids , so that’s always good!  The nestling great horned doesn’t even look like the same bird! He’s growing by leaps and bounds.    And, of course, there’s the ruby-throated hummer who also came in midweek. Both wings are level but he can’t get any lift, which sounds like a coracoid fracture. So, as with the adult barred and GHO, we’re giving him time to see what happens.   And also this afternoon, people called with a baby bird found in the road; they thought it was a mocker. Sounded plausible to me, as mockers are the world’s worst about falling from the nest and then hopping away from it, so you have no idea where to begin looking to re-nest them. However, upon opening the box he was brought in, I was delighted to find a brown thrasher nestling, *thisclose* to fledging. He’s not a happy camper at the moment, not at all!   Hope everybody had a great Easter; as you can see, mine was rather busy, hence the late update.
Baby season, that is. Yeah, the flyers came in earlier in the month, but for me, proper baby season begins with the first sustained…ummm…onslaught of baby birds. And they started this week, albeit not exactly in a massive onslaught. However, the first visitor to LWR was a turkey vulture who seemed more stunned than anything else. I couldn’t find any signs of injury, so I placed him in the old duck pen outside (raptor flight was occupied) for overnight observation before making a vet trip…and didn’t think to snap a single photo. The next morning, he’d flown the coop—no sign of him anywhere. So obviously he was only stunned and just needed a safe space to recover. Next, a call came in about a nest blown from the tree in the high winds we’ve had most of this week. The family had been watching the nest, and the caller said it was in the tree when she left to run errands and on the ground with one dead baby and one survivor when she got back 90 minutes later. Within an hour of her call, she had the baby, a nestling mourning dove, at LWR. She’s doing well and quite a sweet little dove, which is their normal personality. The second photo below is of the keratin accumulation in her nest overnight and into the early morning, where she preened the sheaths off her feathers.   Then one of my game wardens called; he’d just made it home from a long day, only to get a call about a baby raptor on the ground in someone’s yard. He’d picked it up and was en route to LWR. His baby was a hatchling great horned owl, about five or six days old, based on weight—GHOs weigh about 36g on hatching and gain app. 33g per day afterward, and this wee one weighed app. 215g on intake. He still had his egg tooth, which fell off the night of intake. The egg tooth is more or less a tiny chisel on the end of the beak that helps birds break through the eggshell when they hatch. He also cast his first pellet last night. For those who may not remember, pellets are undigested bits of bones, feathers and fur from raptors’ prey. It’s unusual to have such a young GHO this late in the year, as by this time they should be branchers—out of the nest on a branch or even the ground but still being fed by the parents. There’s a good possibility this wee one’s parents had a failed first nest and started over late in GHO nesting season, hence the late hatch.   In the photos above his egg tooth is circled.   Baby's first pellet! The very next day, an adult GHO came in with swelling around the right humerus. It was too swollen to be sure, but there didn’t appear to be a fracture. Because he came in late on Friday, after hours for Smalley’s, he’ll head in for x-rays early this week.   And Saturday, a very young turkey vulture—adult, but still very young—came in. He’d been seen wandering around a parking lot for several days before he was caught. His intake exam showed an old fracture in the right wing that had healed in the wild. I suspect he’d been eating carrion found in the woods—of which there is plenty for a grounded vulture, usually—until he meandered into the parking lot, where there was nothing to eat. He’s spending a few days at the LWR B&B to fatten up a bit.   And finishing out the week’s intakes was another nestling mourning dove. In this case the family had been in the yard and saw what they described as a swallow-tailed kite hit the nest, knocking the baby out. It was too high to re-nest him. Oh, and for the record, kites are aerial insectivores, not likely to eat something as large as a late-nestling dove, so what probably happened is that the kite was after an insect and sideswiped the nest in pursuit. At any rate, this little fellow isn’t real cooperative about eating—he’ll eat, but it’s a struggle, unlike the sweetheart who came in earlier in the week. He’s also a bit younger, as you can see in the photo below (he's at the bottom).  As for the older guests, the red shoulder is now in the raptor flight and flying like a pro, although he stubbornly refuses to do so when I take the camera out there to try for video—y’all, I swear he does it to irritate me. In the mornings when all I’m worried about is getting everybody fed, he’s from one end to the other, over and over. I go out there with the camera later in the day; he flies to the opposite perch when I open the door and then sits there and glares at me! Anyway, he’ll be released within the next few days and the red tail will then go back in. The overwintering flyers will—I hope—be released next week if the weather predictions are valid.   And the two youngest flyers’ eyes opened this week, although they’re still spending most of their time with them closed. Babies of all species need lots of sleep!   In one of those rare instances, incoming and outgoing were equal—not often that happens. Unfortunately, of course, it wasn’t an all-good news week. Wouldn’t that be loverly, though, to have a week where all intakes thrived and were releasable? Starting with the bad news, to get it out of the way, both barred owls and the oriole required euthanasia. The coracoid fracture on the oriole didn’t heal for flight; the wing fracture on one barred didn’t heal for flight; the dislocated wing on the other barred apparently damaged nerves or tendons, making flight impossible. Some weeks just suck like that. And late this morning, a brown-headed cowbird with no apparent injuries came in. The finders first saw it late yesterday and when it hadn’t moved this morning, they decided it needed help. It was way too calm on intake and died within three hours, without ever touching the food or water in its pen. This is the time of year people start dousing everything in sight with insecticides and pesticides, with no regard for the wildlife they kill in the process, so it’s very likely the poor bird ate something covered with one of the many toxins people use to keep their yards “beautiful.”   Honestly, cowbirds aren’t among my favorite birds. They’re parasitic nesters, meaning they lay their eggs in other, usually smaller, birds’ nests, normally one invasive egg per nest. Those birds then raise the cowbird nestling as their own, often at the expense of their own actual babies, who either starve because the larger cowbird hogs all the food or get shoved out of the nest as the larger cowbird flails around in the nest. Some birds have learned to identify cowbird eggs and will pierce them with their beaks or shove them from the nest. However, cowbirds are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), which, incidentally, celebrates its centenary this year, so I take ‘em in and work with ‘em. I just call ‘em the freeloaders of the avian world. Once Monday’s predicted nasty weather moves through, the red shoulder will go in the flight pen, and not a moment too soon from his perspective. The red tail remains a laid-back guest and will go back in the raptor flight after the red shoulder is released. The overwintering flyers are, as you saw last week, ready to go as soon as the weather cooperates. Last Sunday night, in the rain, a couple made the 90-minute one-way trip from their county to bring two two-to-three week old flyers to LWR. They said the tree had been down since that Friday but they didn’t discover the babies until near dark Sunday, by which time one had died. They put the two surviving babies on heat and got them to LWR late Sunday night. Upon arrival they were warm but dehydrated and hungry—and couldn’t be fed until they were rehydrated. In all the years I’ve worked with flyers, I’ve never had babies come in so hungry they were actually crying, but these wee ones were, bless their sweet little hearts.  Once they were rehydrated, they could have proper food, which quieted them down nicely.  They continue to develop nicely, eating well and growing apace…and, of course, being impossibly adorable with every little pose they strike while sleeping…      And at the risk of sounding repetitious, please keep in mind that this is the beginning of nesting season, so don’t trim or cut trees unless absolutely necessary, and then only after checking to makes sure no nests will be disturbed or destroyed. Remember, it’s a violation of the MBTA and of state and federal law to disturb or destroy an active (with eggs or babies in it) bird nest!
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