First eagle of the year

Yup, after a fairly quiet pre-Easter week, three days after Easter, LWR got an early morning call about a mature bald eagle.

Seems a farmer in a neighboring country was in his field and witnessed this bird lose a fight with another eagle. When he crashed to the ground, the farmer called DNR, who picked up the bird and brought him to LWR. He was a small male, with puncture wounds to the left wing and right thigh, consistent with being held by—and flung from—another eagle’s talons.  X-rays at Smalley’s Animal Hospital revealed no fractures, amazingly, and since we were only dealing with puncture wounds that, with meds, should heal fairly quickly, DNR and FWS agreed to allow LWR to keep the bird rather than transport it to UGA’s Wildlife Clinic.

He was alert, aggressive, and ate well once the mice were cut up and offered with forceps—often takes adult birds a while to recognize food they haven’t caught themselves. All seemed to be going well…and the next morning, he was dead. All parties involved agree that he obviously had internal injuries, which, of course, don’t show on x-rays. Given the heights at which eagles soar and his hitting the ground at great speed from that height, I suppose none of us should have been surprised that he had internal injuries. Still sucked to lose him, though.

The week before Easter, an adult great horned owl came in, with all the flesh gone from his left wing. I mean, even the muscles were gone—it was exposed bone and tendons. Sadly, we can’t regrow muscle, so he required euthanasia.

The day before the eagle came in, a gray phase screech came in from a nearby county. The deputy who found him had just hit what was probably a barred owl with his patrol vehicle, instantly killing it. When he stopped to see if it was still alive, he found the screech near the barred carcass and assumed it was a baby and he’d killed the mother. (Gray phase screeches and barreds have similar coloring.) In fact, what the deputy had done was prevent the screech from becoming the barred’s supper.

The screech’s left wing felt broken at or near the shoulder, so he also went in for X-rays. Luckily, there was no fracture but he still “guards” the wing. We’re giving him time to see if he has soft tissue damage that just needs time to heal.

The red tail is in the main flight and starting to use his left wing a bit more. His flight is still pretty low to the ground, but it’s steady and straight, so hopefully in a few more weeks he’ll be flying high and strong.

So all things considered, it wasn’t a horrible two weeks, despite losing the eagle…I mean, it ended with two of my favorite species under care…