“Flight clearance!”

​YES!!! The female red-tail who’s been recovering from a wing fracture at LWR since the end of November last year has been cleared for the raptor flight! Her x-rays show nice callusing, and both wings are perfectly level, flare beautifully evenly and flap strongly—talk about good news! 

She’s a feisty lady, too, so I’m eager to get her in the raptor flight so she can build up her flight muscles and skedaddle and be a wild bird again.
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But…there are currently two barred owls in the raptor flight, so she’s gotta wait juuust a bit longer. One has shown himself to be totally blind and will require euthanasia; he’s mainly there to keep the soon-to-be-released barred company. (I know, I know—they don’t really NEED company, but still…humor me, okay?)

Headed for freedom soon

Totally blind

​And in yet more good news, the crow is FINALLY in the songbird flight and doing quite well. He should be releasable within a week or so. I was honestly worried that he wouldn’t be able to fly, but he’s moving like an old pro already.

Unfortunately, we can’t have all good news all the time…
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Early in the week, this gorgeous adult male red-tail came in with an old leg fracture. It was so scabbed over I couldn’t tell if I was seeing blackened ends of dead bone or layers of scabs, but it definitely looked and smelled necrotic, and he kept that foot balled and showed no neural response. X-rays confirmed he had multiple old fractures on that leg, and the scabby one was open and the ends of the bone were indeed dead. The only humane option was euthanasia.

​Then a local gas station called about a barred owl they assumed had been pulled from or fallen out of a trucker’s grille, as the owner found it in the parking lot when he went to work early that morning. A quick exam revealed a nasty wing fracture that felt open, but I couldn’t actually see the exposed end of the bone. However, x-rays confirmed that this was also an unfixable break.

Not a great photo, but sometimes "you takes what you can get."

​Late in the week, a call came in about another red-tail that the finder said appeared to have a broken leg. When he arrived with the bird, the leg felt odd at the hock but not actually broken; it did splay to the side slightly, though. X-rays showed what vet Richie Hatcher said looked like arthritis in the joint, probably trauma-induced, as this was a first-year bird—too young for age-related arthritis. So this very calm fellow is spending some time at the LWR B&B on a donut, to take the pressure off that leg while we wait and see what happens. If the arthritis is too debilitating for release, his laid-back demeanor might make him a good ed bird, but I’m hoping for release.

Left leg; see arthritic joint.

Right leg for comparison.

And in the “pending” category, we still have two barred owls, one needing follow-up x-rays on a wing fracture and one recovering from a dislocated wing; a red shoulder needing follow-up x-rays for a “hand” fracture; the six flyers, who may be released sooner than expected if our spate of early spring weather continues; the Baltimore oriole with the coracoid fracture; and two red-phase screeches, one ready to go physically if not mentally and one still having eye issues.
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Meanwhile, the Great Backyard Bird Count is in full swing through tomorrow, and I hope some of y’all here in Georgia, especially, are taking advantage of the early spring weather to participate!