The eagle is being really good (knock on wood) about tolerating his wing wrap. Honestly, these two juvie eagles have immeasurably improved my opinion of eagles…the juvies, at least. Being so young, they haven’t had time to become quite so…ummm…eagle-like (ill-tempered, aggressive, unpredictable), and so they’ve actually been a bit endearing.
Thanks to colleague Kathryn Dudeck for identifying last week’s “not red shoulder” as a juvie broadwing hawk. I so seldom see broadies that I just don’t recognize them; in fact, the last broadie at LWR was about 10 years ago, and I had to call on Kathryn and Steve for identification on that one, as well.
Since I had broadies on the brain, this week’s only new intake looked slightly broadie-ish to me until he opened his beak and that definitive black tongue identified him as a juvie Mississippi kite (MIKI). And then he let loose with the signature MIKI “pip-pew” call…He refused to eat for two days, until I put his food in a dish; then he went to town on it. They can be strange little birds.
The second-year red tail continues to heal from his coracoid fracture and should be ready to flight-test in a week or so; if he can fly well at that point, he’s good for release.
The juvie red tail is getting quite food aggressive, and I did manage a couple of not-great shots of him mantling over his food. To hear him tell it, he’s starving to death. Hah! Not likely on a diet of 6 large mice a day!
And the poor barnie desperately needs to be in a pen for flight conditioning and live prey testing before release, but both flights remain occupied. The anticipated transfer of the juvie red tail to colleague Steve Hicks, which would’ve freed up a flight for the barnie, has suffered weather delays: it’s been too hot and dry or too humid and rainy (or that lovely trifecta of too hot, humid, and rainy), so he hasn’t been able to properly prep a flight pen for the bird. We’re hoping maybe this week; we shall see…The barnie certainly hopes so, I’m sure!
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