LWR’s first babies of the season came in on Wednesday and this morning, both great horned owls.
Wednesday a caller indicated they’d heard the grounded nestling calling the previous day but thought the parents would either feed the baby where it was or coax it into a tree. This had not happened by Wednesday morning so they retrieved the baby, who was screaming for food by this point. They couldn’t transport it for several hours so I started calling volunteer transporters. Mammal rehabber Charydi Gambill had him to me within an hour or so, whereupon he was promptly fed as much as his little belly would hold (unlike other birds, owls do have bellies rather than crops).
Wednesday a caller indicated they’d heard the grounded nestling calling the previous day but thought the parents would either feed the baby where it was or coax it into a tree. This had not happened by Wednesday morning so they retrieved the baby, who was screaming for food by this point. They couldn’t transport it for several hours so I started calling volunteer transporters. Mammal rehabber Charydi Gambill had him to me within an hour or so, whereupon he was promptly fed as much as his little belly would hold (unlike other birds, owls do have bellies rather than crops).
Saturday colleague Kathryn Dudeck of Chattahoochee Nature Center contacted me about another young great horned, nest destroyed, dead sib next to him. She asked if I could take this baby to be an “adopted sib” to my current singleton. It’s always better to have sibs for young raptors in particular, when possible, so I agreed, and her volunteer transporter Stacy agreed to get this second nestling to LWR this morning.
The two young ones seem to’ve bonded nicely already.
Tuesday morning a lady called about an extremely docile crow they’d found in their yard. She and her husband immediately headed to LWR with the crow and about 20 minutes away she called and said the crow had had a seizure in her husband’s arms and died. They continued to LWR, and on their arrival, the crow was already in rigor. He’d pretty much been dying the moment they picked him up. He was extremely emaciated; all I can figure is West Nile—his symptoms and behavior are consistent with WNV.
The red tail has finally started flying! Yesterday I heard movement in the raptor flight and eased over to the door to peek in; he made two complete laps of the flight. We have high rain chances Tuesday-Thursday so I’m giving him a little more conditioning time before thinking about release.
And the screech is also good to go after this week’s rains move through.
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