Every rehabber has his or her favorite critter to rehab, and raptor rehabbers are certainly no exception. As most of y’all should know by now, my personal favorites are red tails and screeches, neither of which have been frequent guests at the LWR B&B lately.
But at the moment, this rehabber is in hog heaven (look it up if you’ve never heard the expression) with a less-than-week-old downy red tail. Oh baby, indeed!
Monday afternoon game warden Rodney Horne texted a photo of a tiny downy raptor, asking for tentative ID and making sure the inn had room. He followed up with a call to provide further info. Seems landowners saw the tree the nest was in fall, and the nest itself, in their words, “exploded” when it hit the ground. They rushed over to see if anything had been in the nest and found two tiny babies, one dead from the impact and the wee one Rodney was calling about, and contacted him for help.
Upon arrival, the wee one was obviously VERY wee—still had his egg tooth and weighed 44.9g (1.5 oz)—approximate hatch weight for baby red tails, although his down color threw me off and I actually called colleague Kathryn Dudeck at Chattahoochee Nature Center to see if she’d ever seen a downy hawk whose down was a dirty gray. For a few panicked moments we both feared the baby was our national bird (whose name I don’t utter for fear of jinxing myself), but research on both our parts led to the relieved conclusion that my first guess had been right—this was a baby red tail, probably only 24 hours old.
Baby has, in the six days since his intake, gained 60g; as of this morning, he topped the scales at 104.9g (3.7 oz).
And now, before we move to the remainder of the update, enjoy the gloriousness that is a baby red tail...
But at the moment, this rehabber is in hog heaven (look it up if you’ve never heard the expression) with a less-than-week-old downy red tail. Oh baby, indeed!
Monday afternoon game warden Rodney Horne texted a photo of a tiny downy raptor, asking for tentative ID and making sure the inn had room. He followed up with a call to provide further info. Seems landowners saw the tree the nest was in fall, and the nest itself, in their words, “exploded” when it hit the ground. They rushed over to see if anything had been in the nest and found two tiny babies, one dead from the impact and the wee one Rodney was calling about, and contacted him for help.
Upon arrival, the wee one was obviously VERY wee—still had his egg tooth and weighed 44.9g (1.5 oz)—approximate hatch weight for baby red tails, although his down color threw me off and I actually called colleague Kathryn Dudeck at Chattahoochee Nature Center to see if she’d ever seen a downy hawk whose down was a dirty gray. For a few panicked moments we both feared the baby was our national bird (whose name I don’t utter for fear of jinxing myself), but research on both our parts led to the relieved conclusion that my first guess had been right—this was a baby red tail, probably only 24 hours old.
Baby has, in the six days since his intake, gained 60g; as of this morning, he topped the scales at 104.9g (3.7 oz).
And now, before we move to the remainder of the update, enjoy the gloriousness that is a baby red tail...
In other news, the adult barred owl was released, and the teen who found him, brought him to LWR and picked up back up for release kindly sent a video of the release.
With the main flight vacated, the great horneds moved into larger digs.
The sharpie then went into the mini-pen, from which he was released yesterday. I allowed a self-release for him, propping the door open and letting him choose when he was ready to go. Within an hour, he’d flown the coop. The photo below is from before he regained his freedom.
The red shoulder is likely to be the next occupant of the mini-pen, as soon as his wing has had time to fully heal.
The pre-Easter baby barreds have a while yet before they can be moved outside, but look at the progress they’ve made in the 18 days since their intake!
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