“Close but no bird”

LWR received numerous calls over the past two weeks, most of them “baby calls” that were resolved by reuniting brancher great horneds, barreds and screeches with their parents. We seem to’ve hit a spate of folks who have the common sense to seek ways to reunite babies and parents: one creative soul used a game tracker to ensure the baby she placed back in the tree was being fed by his parents; another kept looking till he found the nest and used a ladder to renest the baby. Can we clone these folks?

While we love raising baby raptors, it’s always best if the parents can finish the job they started, so the willingness of these folks to go above and beyond to reunite babes and parents is a welcome and refreshing development!

Because of their willingness to work toward reunification, LWR had only one new intake over the past couple of weeks, an adult barred found by the roadside. He had minor head trauma on intake but was alert and feisty within a week. Because the finders suspected he came from the woods near their house, he went back to his home territory for release. We have no videos of that release.

In amazingly good news, the mature red tail FINALLY started flying. He still droops that wing at rest, but he’s flying strong, so the goal now is to release him as soon as possible so the first-year red tail can be moved into the main flight.

The first-year bird’s wing is looking great—nice and even—but he can’t really test it in the mini-pen.

And since I can get no firm quotes in writing from any contractor I’ve spoken with, Operation Eagle Flight is on hold until I can locate someone willing to provide a quote and do the work once funding is secured. I’ll update y’all as soon as I know anything definite, but it’s not looking promising at the moment.