Holding pattern

Or perhaps “the best-laid plans o’ mice and men...” The good weather predicted for last week didn’t really materialize—remained too windy and with heavy rains predicted for the end of the week, everybody stayed where they were (and brother, did it rain...). So no releases, no moves into flights...just a holding pattern. And this week’s not looking much better, weatherwise.

Actually, the hen-eating first-year red tail is providing competition and encouragement to the first-year re-learning to fly after recovering from the elbow fracture. Last week I walked into the raptor flight to find the “older” bird (the one who’s been here the longest, in this case) on the high perch for the first time since he was moved outside—and he flew across the flight pen to land on the low perch. So looks like “hen-eater” is gonna have his release delayed while he serves as motivation for “elbow” to continue to test his limits.  They’re both eating well and competitive for food, although obviously “hen-eater” is more mobile—and a heckuva lotta fun to watch snag his food. I tried all week to get video of him catching tossed mice in mid-air; the short clip here is the best I could manage: https://youtu.be/dISRQYo90Y8. It’s not the sharpest focus but look at that bird’s mobility! (And sorry I can't post the video directly this week; Weebly's being stupid and refusing to let me upload YouTube videos.)

The barred owl who came in with the foot fracture should be in the mini-pen at this point, but I also need it for the Coop from last week’s update. Given the Coop’s high-strung nature, he’ll probably get first dibs just because I want him flight-ready and outta here before he has time to do anything stupidly “Coopy.”

And the deadly beginning to this year continues, with yet another barred owl coming in Tuesday with both wings broken, one an open fracture, and a first-year sharpie (sharp-shinned hawk) coming in last night with a bad open fracture. And of course, the sharpie managed to nail me as I was examining him. I eased my grip ever so slightly, and he jerked one deadly little foot loose and buried his hallux (back toe) talon right in the webbing between my fingers and the other talons across the top knuckle. While I was dripping blood everywhere, the finder kept asking if there was anything he could do. I had him reach up and flip off the headlamp I was wearing (the bird came in after dark); it took a few minutes but the darkness led the bird to relax his grip enough I could pry him off my hand. Normally a footed hand swells a bit and is really stiff and sore the next day; this one didn’t swell and isn’t stiff or especially sore...which I’m certainly not complaining about! I hated even more than usual to have to euthanize him, given his spunk and the fact that he was only a first-year bird, but his wing wasn’t fixable.

The bright red blood on the lower right wing--yeah, that's mine...I dripped all over him.

This was after most of the blood had dripped on the floor, on the bird, on the box...

Let’s hope the remainder of this month and year is a little less deadly for wildlife; I’m thoroughly tired of getting in unsavable birds, and we’re just two weeks into 2022...