The great horned nestling—despite his size, he’s not a brancher yet; he has a low perch in his box that he studiously ignores but he loves his nest—was brought into the finder’s yard by their dog, so there was no way to renest him. Fortunately, the dog didn’t injure him, and the finders called DNR immediately. A game warden picked him up and brought him to LWR, where he’s made it quite clear we don’t need to worry about imprinting with him. He’s self-feeding, so human contact is limited to taking his empty food dish out and putting the full dish back in—and every single time he tries to foot me, so he definitely knows humans shouldn’t be his friends.
The adult barred needed release last week but uncertain weather forecasts kept him penned. I don’t mind delaying a release due to rain when we actually get the rain, but vague threats of rain with no follow-through do annoy me when a bird’s good to go.