Surprisingly, the week of the Fourth saw only three new intakes: an adult Mississippi kite (MIKI), a juvenile red shoulder hawk and a nestling mocker.
The MIKI had a broken wing; it felt like it was right at the shoulder. X-rays confirmed this wasn’t a break we could fix, sadly. MIKIs are gorgeous birds with really good personalities. He was euthanized.
The MIKI had a broken wing; it felt like it was right at the shoulder. X-rays confirmed this wasn’t a break we could fix, sadly. MIKIs are gorgeous birds with really good personalities. He was euthanized.
The red shoulder’s wing was basically bare bone with just enough skin left to keep most of the feathers in place. He reeked of necrotic tissue and required euthanasia, as well.
The mocker was found, nest next to him, in the middle of a field after a storm with high winds. He was *thisclose* to fledging before the storm did a Wizard of Oz on him.
The grackle was released and is still coming down for handouts; the jays have pretty much stopped showing up now.
The red-headed woodpecker with the damaged leg did require euthanasia; his sib is doing quite well and should go into the songbird flight next week.
The Eastern kingbird is also ready for the songbird flight.
I’m hobbling around well enough now that the GHO will get his long-awaited turn in the raptor flight as well. The sharpie and adult red tail are slated for release mid-week—the sharpie should have gone last week but driving proved more problematic than I expected. That will leave the fledgling red shoulder, the fledgling screech and the fledgling Coop awaiting their flight time, and the swallow-tail kite still waiting for that wing to mend. No new photos of any of them—how many different poses can they manage in their boxes, right?
Now, I want to hop on my soapbox for a moment. Yesterday LWR received a call about chimney swifts. My first advice is always, always place them back in the fireplace, put up your fire screen or a piece of cardboard to keep the parents from flying out into your living room, and see if the parents come down to feed. I’d say a good 98% of the time this works. Swifts are excellent parents. This caller was in the 2% where it didn’t work.
The caller also had a bum foot and couldn’t bring the birds to LWR, so I referred them to WREN, a volunteer transport network, and they had it all arranged in under 10 minutes. Then the transport coordinator texted me that the birds would NOT, in fact, be coming to LWR because the caller had allowed their indoor cat in the same room with the helpless babies, and the cat did what cats do—killed all the babies.
People. Folks. C’mon. Let’s use a little common sense here. If you have orphaned or injured wildlife in your house, however briefly, ISOLATE IT from your household pets. The sheer stress of captivity is already placing a huge burden on that wildlife, and then you want to expose it to cats or dogs that it sees as predators? And if you’re not careful you end up like this caller did, finding that your precious Fluffy or Fido just ate all the babies you stayed up all night to monitor. Family pets and orphaned/injured wildlife DO NOT mix. Place the wildlife in a spare bedroom or bathroom or even on a screened-in porch. Use your head for something besides a hat rack, okay?
Now, I want to hop on my soapbox for a moment. Yesterday LWR received a call about chimney swifts. My first advice is always, always place them back in the fireplace, put up your fire screen or a piece of cardboard to keep the parents from flying out into your living room, and see if the parents come down to feed. I’d say a good 98% of the time this works. Swifts are excellent parents. This caller was in the 2% where it didn’t work.
The caller also had a bum foot and couldn’t bring the birds to LWR, so I referred them to WREN, a volunteer transport network, and they had it all arranged in under 10 minutes. Then the transport coordinator texted me that the birds would NOT, in fact, be coming to LWR because the caller had allowed their indoor cat in the same room with the helpless babies, and the cat did what cats do—killed all the babies.
People. Folks. C’mon. Let’s use a little common sense here. If you have orphaned or injured wildlife in your house, however briefly, ISOLATE IT from your household pets. The sheer stress of captivity is already placing a huge burden on that wildlife, and then you want to expose it to cats or dogs that it sees as predators? And if you’re not careful you end up like this caller did, finding that your precious Fluffy or Fido just ate all the babies you stayed up all night to monitor. Family pets and orphaned/injured wildlife DO NOT mix. Place the wildlife in a spare bedroom or bathroom or even on a screened-in porch. Use your head for something besides a hat rack, okay?
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