“Marching” in like a lion

The end-of-February winds and those heralding March’s arrival have been insane. “In like a lion, out like a lamb,” indeed! The gusty, nearly non-stop winds have precluded any releases at LWR. A slight, even a stiff, breeze is one thing; winds that nearly blow your chin-strapped hat off don’t make for good release conditions.

So that means the screech is still at LWR, although he’s more than ready to go. Maybe this week; we’ll see…

The sharpie who may be a runt red shoulder is flying consistently from one end of the flight to the other, so he’s also ready to go once the wind stops trying to blow us off the map.

The mature red tail is ready for a flight pen as soon as one’s free.

The first-year red tail still has a few weeks to go before we can even consider moving him to a flight.

The red tail with the damaged head feathers died unexpectedly late last week. Still not sure what was going on there; he was alert and eating well one evening and dead the next morning. I’d love to have been able to get a necropsy to see why, after 17 days of textbook perfect behavior, he dropped dead with no signs of any problems, but UGA charges both DNR and rehabbers for necropsies, so we avoid them in most cases.

An adult great horned owl who came in early last week had a blown eye and a leg fracture; the plan was to get him in for x-rays but he died from apparent internal injuries before that could happen.

This morning a barred owl came in with an open wing fracture; he was humanely euthanized.

The barred owl from last week’s update continues to do well but may have some vision issues. Both pupils respond normally to light but he seems to have problems finding his food. We’ll give him more time to see if this resolves.

And while I don’t have all my ducks totally in a row, I won’t keep y’all in suspense any longer about last week’s cryptic announcement. As y’all know, LWR sees several bald eagles a year and must triage and transfer them, since I don’t have an eagle permit. I don’t have an eagle permit because LWR doesn’t have an eagle flight pen.

I hope this year to change that and ease some of the pressure on my colleague Kathryn Dudeck at Chattahoochee Nature Center. Currently Kathryn is the only eagle-permitted rehabber in the state of Georgia, and CNC has the only eagle flight in Georgia suitable for rehab. She and I agree that having one eagle-permitted rehabber/facility in the northern part of the state and one in the southern part of the state would be ideal, but I have to get that eagle flight built first.

I’ve got contractors working on a quote and once I have that quote, I will be approaching city and county governments to see if they’ll pony up funds to assist with the construction. I’ll also be starting a long-term fundraiser once I have that quote in hand, as this will be a major expense.

So right now, keep your fingers crossed the quote isn’t too eye-wateringly high and that city and county officials will see the benefit of having one of only two eagle rehab facilities in the state…and start saving those pennies for when we’re able to officially start a fundraiser!