Insane week…

Let’s start by stating that I actually had to make a LIST of everything that came in this week, along with a list of the “old” birds, just so I was reasonably sure no one got left out—and I probably still omitted someone.  And when I finished and looked at the “new” and “old” columns, it suddenly dawned on me just WHY I’m so exhausted…

Starting with an older guest, I’m sad to report we did have to euthanize the leg trap GHO. When I took him in to Smalley’s Friday, both Peggy and Richie agreed that given the lack of neural response and “freezing” of the foot in a splayed position, his chances of survival in the wild were nonexistent. A songbird can survive and even thrive with limited use of a foot; a raptor cannot.  And sadly, this GHO didn’t have the personality to be an educational bird…unless you like to see your audience maimed…

As an aside here, a huge THANK YOU to the fine folks at Smalley’s, who worked me and SEVEN birds in just before they closed for a holiday weekend Friday.  World’s best vets and staff!
​
The downy screech continues to do well and has been joined by another downy screech of approximately the same age. Given the size difference between the two, I’m pretty sure the screech from last week is female and the new one is male. Despite being at about the same level of development featherwise, he’s tiny compared to her!

​Of the two adult screeches from last week, one started having seizures. I attempted to treat for this with no success and subsequently euthanized him. The second, the one with the eye swollen shut, was one of the birds Peggy examined Friday. His left lens is luxated, which means the impact when he was whacked by the car literally tore the lens loose. When this happens, the lens can fall backward into the eye or forward through the pupil. Forward is actually better, as it may then pop back into place, given time. Luckily, this fellow’s lens fell forward. While Peggy examined the eye, I snapped a photo to show you what a luxated lens looks like when it’s illuminated where it can be seen.

​The older fledgling blue jay who came in last Sunday has been released; due to his age and probably having been mostly on his own for a while, he didn’t opt to hang around when he left. Below is a photo of him, the cardinal and the brown thrasher in the songbird flight.

“But I thought the thrasher had already been released?” I hear you ask. He had, as had the red bellies. But since I’m leaving the “escape hatch” open to give the cardinal a chance to leave, the thrasher and red bellies take advantage and fly in and out as they please…Brats…
​
This nestling brown thrasher is, as are all thrashers, the sweetest little fellow. He was a cat-attack victim who was lucky enough to escape severe injury.

​An adult female cardinal was DOA; a young adult female had been cat-attacked and had a broken hip, requiring euthanasia. Other euthanasias included this poor little female bluebird fledgling who’d been dog-attacked and had a badly fractured shoulder...

​…a red-shouldered hawk with a nasty open wing fracture…

​…a HBC barred owl with trauma-induced glaucoma in his left eye…

​…and a pre-fledgling house finch whose fall from the nest resulted in nerve damage that caused wry neck so badly he couldn’t even eat. He seemed alert but a bit sluggish on intake just before dark but his neck had started twisting by morning and although I gave him time to see if steroids might reduce any inflammation and restore the neck to its proper position, it just got worse. I didn’t even take photos of it as it progressed; it was too painful to look at. The photo below was taken while it was still only mildly twisting…

​This broadwing hawk was found in the woods, grounded and unable to stand. He was on the verge of starvation but has perked back up considerably now that he’s getting regular meals.

​The nestling red shoulder from last week was joined by his sib this week. The same people found his sib in their back yard, where they’d found last week’s baby, and this week’s was also way too thin. Last week’s reluctant eater no longer has that issue, and while his sib, who looks to be the older of the two, has a healthy appetite, he’d rather scream and bow up in threat displays than eat at the moment.

Last week’s adult barred owl with vision issues seems to be improving; we’ll wait and see. The barred sextet are still in the raptor flight; the plan is to release them either later today or tomorrow. That way the GHO trio can go in the raptor flight and the two “bee” red shoulder sibs can go in the crate that currently houses the GHOs. Sorry no current pix of any of these; it’s been a busy week and I focused more on the new intakes with photos…
​
The trio of nestling woodpeckers did turn out to be red bellies, and they’ve feathered out quite nicely in just a week…

​…as have the Carolina wrens. We did lose one Carolina, sadly. They’ll just suddenly stop eating, sit in a corner, and within an hour or so, they’re dead. I’ve seen it happen so often I can almost nail down when the time of death will be, and nothing you do will change it—no force-feeding, no meds, nothing. They’re just odd little birds like that…

​The goslings have been moved outside to give them room to move around; the next step is to locate adults with babies near the same age and put these rascals out to be adopted. Geese are actually excellent parents and will readily adopt babies that aren’t theirs, but I wanted these fellows to be a bit older before we went that route, given the location they’ll be placed at.

​Many of you know I adore pileated woodpeckers, so when this gorgeous male came in with a swollen wrist, I feared the worst—a joint fracture that would necessitate euthanasia. Happily, his x-rays showed just a fractured “hand”, which should heal with no problem. Meanwhile, he’s set up with water, a log to demolish, and mealworms and suet to his heart’s content.

​This warbler (or maybe chipping sparrow…) was kept by his finders for TWO WEEKS and fed a crap diet they found on the Internet.  When I asked how they couldn’t find information telling them it was illegal to keep the bird yet they managed to find a crap diet, they claimed they “didn’t know” until recently that it was illegal, and that’s when they started looking for a rehabber. Oddly enough, they were reluctant to take the bird to either of the bird rehabbers I knew were in their area but were willing to make a day trip to get it to LWR…Hmm…Makes ya wonder, huh? 

The bird’s posture just isn’t right and he holds his wings oddly, making me suspect MBD may be at play from the crap diet. His breast and belly feathers were covered with old food, which is totally unacceptable.

As you well know by now, CLEAN feathers are a MUST for birds. Crud like this on the feathers is not only unhealthy; it will interfere with both feather development and waterproofing.
​
Rather than stress the poor fellow out with a hand bath, I first offered a small dish of water to see how much of the gunk he could clean off on his own. Surprisingly, most of it came off when he took advantage of the bath water, but as you can see in the photo below, there’s zero waterproofing there.

He’ll probably go in for x-rays next week if that weird posture continues, just to see what we have going on bone-wise.

When a nest containing four killdeer eggs was in the path of a tractor, instead of simply avoiding the nest, the people stole the eggs and placed them in their chicken incubator. Let me stop right here and explain something ONE. MORE. TIME.

People, disturbing an ACTIVE nest—one with eggs or babies in it—is ILLEGAL. These people broke the law when a simple detour would have allowed Mama Killdeer to hatch her own young.

The eggs must have been close to hatching because the egg thief called LWR in a panic the morning they hatched, and it took all day to find a transporter to get them here. Killdeer are beyond simply stressy; they’re “look at me cross-eyed and I’ll die” stressy. This being the case, I wasn’t really hopeful they’d arrive in good shape or survive the night.
​
They were indeed stressed when they arrived.

​But once they found their foster mama, they nestled right down under “her” and got quiet—well, as quiet as killdeer ever get. Thus far the sweet, paranoid little things are doing well, but killdeer and I don’t have the best history, so I kinda tiptoe around them with bated breath and crossed fingers…

This gorgeous late second-year red tail was found in a parking lot and, upon intake exam, was found to have what felt like a nasty wing fracture. I wasn’t hopeful we had something we could work with here, but she’s got the BEST personality—and that’s saying a lot, because red tails generally do have good personalities.
​
She was also one of Friday’s vet visitors, where I was delighted to see on her x-ray that while the fracture is pretty displaced, it’s close to mid-bone and Peggy and I agreed that given her personality, it’s worth seeing how this heals. If she can’t fly properly after it heals, I’m going to do my level best to place her somewhere as an ed bird.

And while I was trying to work on this between feeding birds, two more birds came in, but ya know what? You can find out about them next week! I've been at this update long enough!