Last “peak” month for baby season begins with a bang

And I’m not referring to fireworks on the Fourth, either.  Got in everything from wrens to a hawk this past week, and more on the way today.

The swifts continue to do well, although the wry-necked one did require euthanasia, so there are six left. The older clutch, the most recent intakes, are actually pretty close to heading for the flight pen; the younger two, the first two to come in, are about a week behind them, I think.


Below are two short clips of the swifts hungry and fed. 

The kite is growing like a weed; he’s almost doubled his weight since intake and is starting to feather out.

And the screech’s eyes opened, although I’m not really sure when, as he has a tendency to keep them closed when he’s being fed. He has some eating issues that we’re working on, refusing to gape or lunge for food and spitting his entire meal back at me if he’s offered one piece more than he wants.  Despite this, he’s almost quadrupled his weight since intake. He’s also feathering out quite nicely and cast his first pellet last night.

Last week’s red bellied woodpeckers are now clinging to the side of their nest and peering over the edge, so they should be in the flight pen next week.

And another storm unnested yet another clutch of red bellies in a neighboring county, so we have two clutches of woodpeckers about a week apart in age. This second clutch, which is actually the third clutch LWR has seen this year, has a bully bird in it; I sometimes have to remove him from the nest in order to feed his sibs because he pecks the living crap out of ‘em if given half a chance.

The red shoulders in the raptor flight need to be released but the weather hasn’t cooperated yet. We need the rain so I’m not complaining, though. They’re feisty, vocal rascals who can nail a mouse lightning-quick!

And another red shoulder came in last week, as well, but he’s a bit younger than the two currently in the flight.

When these Carolina wrens were found in a pool pipe, the finder tried to do the right thing and was given bad advice by DNR’s answering service and worse advice by a backyard exotic bird breeder. The result was that when the birds finally made their way to LWR, two didn’t even survive the drive home. These two are doing well, though; hopefully no lingering issues will crop up.

It actually amazes me how many people don’t realize possessing wildlife without a permit is a violation of state law and, in the case of birds, is a violation of federal law, as well. However, the person who had this brown thrasher with limited vision in one eye for a year—yeah, you read that right, A YEAR—was not native to the US and didn’t know the law. When the person was informed by someone in their city that it was illegal, the person contacted one of LWR’s volunteers, who coordinated with another volunteer to transport the bird from several counties away to LWR.

Aside from feather damage from being caged and total lack of flight conditioning, the thrasher was in pretty decent shape, all things considered. His erstwhile captor had provided a wide variety of food for him, and most of that food was fairly species-appropriate.  He’s actually doing better than expected in terms of wilding up but the flight muscles will take some time to build up. 

And this pre-fledgling brown thrasher was seen falling from the nest and the rescuer initially tried to leave him where he was, as the parents were feeding him. He began heading for a dog pen, though, and no amount of shooing him in the opposite direction was working, so the sweet little fellow is now at LWR.

As a rule, I generally see robins as “onlies” so getting these two little darlings in has been a real treat. Robins are big, sweet goofballs with the best personalities. But then, they’re the largest members of the North American thrush family, and I adore thrushes of all species, so I may be a bit biased in that assessment.