Mixed week

Any week in wildlife rehab is a mixed week, I suppose, but last week was one of those “highest of highs, lowest of lows” weeks: releases, a death and a euthanasia, all within slightly over 48 hours.

Beginning with today’s intake, this gorgeous mature red tail came in with a massive concussion, badly bruised eye, and a full crop. He’s well fleshed and nothing appears to be broken, so we’ll give him time to decompress and see how he looks in 24-48 hours.

Moving to the releases, both red shoulders regained their freedom. Red shoulder 1, who’d come in with a broken “hand,” had what would have been an utterly gorgeous release, had the focus lock on the camera stayed locked… As it is, if you follow the blur in the approximate middle of the screen, you can see him flying low to the ground right up to the end, when he shoots up into a tree.

Red shoulder 2, who’d come in with the massive eye infection, was more than ready to go and convinced I was preventing his flight. He had a death grip on the glove, and when I released my grip on him, he flipped upside down, batlike, for a second before realizing he was free.

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The barred owl went a few feet from the glove, landed on the ground, and when I put away the camera and started toward him to retrieve him, it suddenly dawned in him that he was, in fact, free, and he soared away as I scrambled to get the camera back out and on.

The red tail with the swollen toe didn’t survive. He was alert, eating voraciously, and then…dead. I honestly suspect some sort of venom from maybe a spider bite or something, even though no wound was ever visible on that toe.

A small male great horned owl came in with an open fracture at the right wrist and required euthanasia. Given that great horneds are on the nest right now, that likely means a female is out there having to leave her babies unprotected while she hunts to feed them. Scenarios like that make me shudder…

The falcon is, quite frankly, on borrowed time at the moment. We’ll see what next week holds.

And when the screeches were moved into the mini-pen, they both surprised the heck out of me by flying—and flying well. Maybe it was sheer adrenaline aiding them, but we’re talking straight, strong flight. Recall that their x-rays indicated they would NOT be releasable because they wouldn’t be flighted…and yet they seem to be preparing to prove us wrong. In cases like this, I’m delighted to be wrong!