LWR, “home” for the unusual…

LWR seems to get its fair share of unusual intakes…well, okay, we get the weird stuff, the unexpected stuff, the “how did it get here from there?” stuff…

And so it should come as no surprise that LWR ended up with a juvie peregrine falcon late last week.

Yup.  You read that right: a falcon. In Middle Georgia—not exactly “falcon central” by any stretch of the imagination. Although in the interest of fair disclosure, the bird came from South Georgia, where she apparently was found in a hospital parking lot and taken to a local state park, whose superintendent sent the bird to LWR.

According to Georgia DNR Head Biologist Bob Sargent, Arctic peregrines are migrating through Georgia right now, which was my “one new thing” to be learned for the day of the peregrine’s intake.

There were no apparent wing fractures, but given that dove season had just ended, it seemed best to take the peregrine in for x-rays to make sure there was no birdshot in her body. To our delight at Smalley’s, the wings and body were clear, but something seemed “off” about a toe on her right foot, so we x-rayed her foot and…she has a broken toe, right at the talon.

Go ahead, laugh. Colleague Kathryn Dudeck of Chattahoochee Nature Center and I snickered about it for a good ten minutes. I mean, having experienced a broken toe myself, I know it’s dang painful, so I do sympathize with the poor bird, but there’s just some sort of twisted rehabber humor in, of all things, a broken toe. The issue for her is that she can’t really push off to take flight, nor can she grasp her prey properly, because it hurts like Hades to do so, hence her thinness and being grounded.

She’s a drama queen but is eating well and is as calm as a falcon can be. Her reflexes are lightning-fast, as two of my poor fingers can attest—payback for laughing at her toe fx, I suppose. Colleague Steve Hicks suggested I just decide where I want my new scars; I replied that it appears she’s making those decisions for me.

She’ll be at LWR for a good month, which Kathryn, who deals with peregrines on a much more regular basis than I do (LWR has had three falcons in 20 years; Kathryn sees them yearly at CNC), says shouldn’t impact her migration; she’ll still be good for release, rather than overwintering. Thank goodness. She’s gorgeous but good Lord, the melodrama…

Meanwhile, the “oldest” (meaning the one who’s been at LWR the longest) of the two barreds is good for release; he’s flying from one end of the main flight to the other and back again. Work obligations (yeah, you know, my actual paying job that keeps the lights on) have prevented his release thus far, but next week is looking promising.

The more recent of the two, however, isn’t doing as well. She has balance issues and doesn’t want to eat consistently. Apparently there was some true TBI (traumatic brain injury) associated with her concussion, so we’ll just give her a little more time and see what happens; there’s no real treatment for TBI aside from time.