Wildlife rehab is full of miracles of varying degrees, but each one never ceases to amaze me. It’s always a reminder that rehabbers are just the conduit; the real work comes from the birds themselves.

Remember last week’s older, emaciated, weak red tail who just wouldn’t eat? The one I was sure I’d have to call it on? Yeah, well, after nearly 10 days a switch flipped and he suddenly began eating on his own. Voraciously. And his level of alertness and threat response—his reaction to me opening his box to feed him or change his paper—increased by about a hundred-fold, to normal levels.

Understand, I didn’t do anything except not give up on the bird. He did all the heavy lifting. Now we just get some weight back on him and he should be good for release!

The red tail recovering from the ruptured crop, after staging three jailbreaks in the house, is now in the mini-pen and bouncing off the walls. Literally. All day long, with the windows open now that we’re finally getting some cooler weather, I hear the repetitive thud-thud-thud of him trying to figure out how to stage a jailbreak from the mini-pen. Next step is the raptor flight this week, to see how he does, and then release. He’s eating well and eagerly, so appetite and crop function aren’t an issue anymore. That crop has healed beautifully.

The red tail recovering from the broken elbow will move into the mini-pen once the “crop” red tail is in the raptor flight—again, this week, probably early in the week.

Meanwhile, the poor red phase screech, who was doing so well with his recovery, has been moved back inside so the larger birds can have the outside flights. He’s not a happy camper about that. But then, screeches are seldom happy about anything...it’s part of their charm. (And I’m not being facetious there; y’all know how I love my pissy little screeches.) As you can see, he's back to being a blur of threatening motion. I'm just terrified, of course...quaking in my boots...

There will be no update next Sunday, Oct. 31—just a heads-up.

LWR had no new intakes this week and one release, so it was almost like a vacation...if your idea of a vacation involves thawing mice daily and fighting with a recalcitrant bird to feed and medicate it...

So let’s start with THAT bird—the red tail who’s recovering from a ruptured crop. See, in his mind, nothing’s wrong with him. His wings work. His feet work. His crop works. So why’s he in captivity and being force-fed food and meds?

You ever tried explaining to an aggressive and confused raptor that he needs your help, whether he believes it or not? Yeah, they don’t listen so well...

So far he’s punctured the backs of both hands, through the handling gloves.  The tip of my index finger twice-daily has a new blood blister or outright puncture from feeding him, because he stubbornly refuses to self-feed. That fingertip is numb. I get slapped in the face twice daily by his powerful wings as he bates and tries to get away from me when I take him out to feed and medicate.

And I insulted his ancestry by exasperatedly asking him one morning last week if he was sure he didn’t have some Coop somewhere in his background...
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On the plus side, his crop IS functioning beautifully and he only has a few more days on meds—and every morning, like clockwork, there’s a fresh pellet in his box. As soon as he’s off meds and will self-feed, Mister Spastic is going into the mini-pen and then the raptor flight to finish out his recuperation.

​The red tail recovering from the elbow fracture, while not a “teddy bear,” is certainly laid-back compared to his next-box neighbor and lives to eat. Honestly. I think I could drag in an adult black bear and this fellow would attempt to eat it all. He’s what colleague Steve Hicks describes as a “light eater”—as long as there’s light, he’ll eat. Another week or so and he’ll be ready for the mini-pen. 

​The mature red tail, I’m pretty sure, is just an old bird trying to die. He has no injuries; he’s been treated for frounce and capillaria, but he just sits in his box with his head feathers ruffled when he’s awake. Most of the time he tucks his head and sleeps. All day. He eats very little, even when hand fed. He’s just old and tired and as much as I hate to, I may call it on him this week to allow him to die with dignity.

​The gray phase screech self-released early last week when I walked into the mini-pen to feed both screeches. I wasn’t surprised. He was flying beautifully and I’d planned to release him anyway; he just beat me to it. This photo was taken the day before he flew the coop.

The red phase is looking good. Flights are still short and a bit wobbly but the wing is pretty level, so...we’ll see. He’ll have to come back inside when the red tails are ready to be moved outside.  The chess pieces get moved around the board as needs demand and space allows...
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As are most screeches, he’s a master of stink-eye. This expression is priceless! “I see you, and I don’t approve. Go away.”

For the uninitiated, that’s how we Southerners start a really good tale, be it true or tall. In this case, it’s true, and it’s amazing!

Thursday night an area game warden called with a downed red tail. I asked all the pertinent questions about what injuries he could reasonably detect with the naked eye, and he said the bird had some sort of “muscle” exposed on its chest. Not good. I suspected then it was a ruptured crop and told him as much.

When he arrived with the bird, sure enough, it was a ruptured crop. Friday morning I contacted vet Richie Hatcher at Magnolia Grove Veterinary Clinic and asked if he could see the red tail. He said of course.
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When Richie examined the bird we both agreed that, given the alternative was euthanasia, it was worth a try to fix the crop. The rupture was fresh; the edges were still pink, moist and healthy. After he injected lidocaine around the wound, opting for local anesthesia (safer for such a short procedure) rather than gassing the bird down, Richie proceeded to suture the crop shut while I restrained the bird and vet tech Samantha Wells used my phone to take photos of the procedure. 

We agreed afterward that in addition to antibiotics, small, frequent meals were in order while the crop healed. Our hope was that there was no nerve damage in the ruptured area that might prevent the crop from functioning properly.
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Saturday morning I awoke to find a small, well-formed, fresh pellet in the bird’s box. I texted a photo of it to Richie, letting him know his efforts had paid off—the bird’s crop was functioning as it should! He was as excited as I was. 

​And this morning, the bird cast another small, well-formed pellet.  He still needs to be fed small, frequent meals to avoid stressing the crop but his prognosis is lookin’ good right now!

​Continuing on a positive note, the red tail who was recovering from the broken hand was released this morning. I tried a different approach with his release, just opening the raptor flight door and walking to the middle of the flight to see what he’d do. And what he did was scope out the open door, look at me to make sure it wasn’t a trick, and skedaddle before I could change my mind.

​The red tail recovering from the broken elbow is, obviously, still inside and the wing is looking nice and level.

​A mature red tail came in this morning with head trauma but no other apparent injury, so he just needs a little time to adjust his horizontal and vertical hold.

Of course, it’s almost never all good news in wildlife rehab: The red shoulder who’d been moved to the mini-pen required euthanasia; his wing fracture didn’t heal for flight. He couldn’t even get enough lift to reach the low perch. And a barred owl that came in last Sunday night with no apparent injuries must have had internal injuries, as he died overnight.
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The screeches have both been moved into the mini-pen. The red phase with the shoulder dislocation is looking pretty good but not capable of flight yet.  The gray phase is actually ready for release within the next couple of days.

​And I’m still excited about those pellets from the red tail, lemme tell ya...

Beginning with what’s always big news, another bald eagle came in late in the week. Additionally, LWR had three releases and a euthanasia, we did some rearranging of birds after the releases, and another screech came in this morning.
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Starting with the eagle, of course, he was a 7lb., 3oz. adult bird who came from Emmanuel County. He’d been down a while, as his tail feathers were stained about halfway up and the edges were ragged. He arrived in respiratory distress, so I quickly called Auburn before even notifying my vets at Smalley’s that I was en route with an eagle. The folks at Auburn said get him on oxygen as soon as I got to my vet clinic, so the next call was to Smalley’s as I headed out the door.

Upon arrival there, the bird was quickly placed on oxygen and over the course of about 4 hours we used 2 tanks on him. During this time vet Jim Hobby was in touch with a vet at Auburn for treatment advice, as we’d never had an eagle—or any other raptor, for that matter—come in with such difficulty breathing. The Auburn vet recommended a specific medication, so we had to weigh the bird to determine the dosage. This, of course, meant taking him off the oxygen for a few minutes, so while we had him out of the box we also snapped a quick x-ray—very quick, as the bird was starting to crash from the stress of being handled.
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Back into the box and on oxygen he went until he stabilized. Jim and I agreed the right lung looked cloudy on the x-ray, although the Auburn vet said he could tell little from it, as we snapped only the one, very quickly, before getting the bird back on oxygen.  

As soon as he calmed down a bit, I headed home with him and another dose of the meds for the next morning. We were hoping by then he’d’ve stabilized enough for transport to Auburn,  as Jim, the Auburn vet and I all agreed transporting the bird in his current condition would kill him outright.

His breathing was quieter and seemed less labored the next morning, although he wasn’t standing as he had been on the previous day. I placed him in a donut to ease his breathing even more, since he wasn’t standing. He remained alert and readily snatched food from the forceps.  I again consulted Auburn, and they recommended against transport, given that he’d gone from standing to needing a donut overnight. They also approved my plan to provide small feedings every two hours.

At some point between his 3PM and 5PM feedings he died. As I’d also been in constant contact with Bob Sargent, head of Georgia DNR’s eagle program, I alerted him to the bird’s death and he asked that the carcass be kept cool until he could send a game tech to retrieve it the next morning.

As of Friday morning, the carcass was en route to Athens for a necropsy, as we all want to know what killed the eagle.
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In better news, we did have three releases: the great horned owl, the barred owl and the sharpie. I only managed to get video of the great horned’s release.

​The red tail who came in with the massively swollen eye and had been placed in the raptor flight required euthanasia. If you recall, after the swelling went down, he still had a blood clot right at the pupil. Well, as that dissolved, the eyeball began collapsing. Over the course of last week it shriveled like a raisin. He wasn’t releasable with his eye in that shape, and it would have caused great discomfort throughout his life, so he wasn’t a good candidate for an ed bird.

​With that bird’s euthanasia, the red tail with the broken hand went into the raptor flight.

​His movement to the raptor flight freed the mini-pen for the red shoulder.

​The red tail with the elbow fracture is, of course, still confined inside while we wait for it to heal.

The screech with the dislocated shoulder also remains inside. The shoulder seems to be more level most of the time; if he gets stressed it will sometimes droop, so he’s not quite healed. (And yes, he likes to shred the paper lining his box...)

​This morning a gray-phase screech came in after flying into a man’s car last night. Literally. He said he had his windows down, heard a thud behind him, and turned to see a stunned screech sitting on the back of his seat. The screech is alert and typically screech pissy today and nothing is broken, but one pupil looks a little dilated so he’ll stay at LWR for a few days.

And on that note, let me point out that Google is NOT your friend, nor are its search results remotely accurate on most things. Upon arriving home with the stunned screech last night, the man googled what to feed what he thought was a baby great horned...and found information on Google that recommended feeding the bird shredded celery and other vegetables. Folks, raptors are MEAT EATERS. Any site that suggests feeding them veggies is run by idiots of the worst kind—probably the same fools who tell the gullible public to feed songbirds bread soaked in milk, which is a crap diet for songbirds. In short, don’t EVER trust care and feeding advice for wildlife that you find online. If you MUST keep wildlife overnight before getting it to a rehabber, ASK THE REHABBER what, if anything, it needs to be fed short-term.
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With a solid week of clear skies and mostly mild temps, the vultures have been making themselves scarce, so no photos of them this week.

It’s turning out to be a busy fall, with raptors out the wazoo. At one point this week LWR had 10 raptors crammed into flight pens and the rehab room. I was doing the rehab version of gymnastics just to move around between boxes to feed everybody and change their paper.
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Yet another red tail came in, another first-year bird. This fellow has a fracture right at the elbow. It’s pretty close to the joint but not badly displaced, so we’re gonna give him some time and hope the joint doesn’t freeze.

​My game warden sent me a first-year sharpie—we debated whether Coop or sharpie, as neither of us was sure and the juvies and adults of both species are remarkably similar. His behavior initially suggested Coop but his size suggested sharpie. Now I’m pretty sure he’s a sharpie. His x-rays showed no wing fractures but he does have a broken toe on his left foot, so he’ll stay with me for a while to give it time to heal.

The Coop that came in last Sunday didn’t survive; he was standing up glaring at me and then half an hour later he’d keeled over. Coops are really stressy birds, so it could have been internal injuries or it could have been sheer stress.
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About the smallest male barred owl I’ve seen in a while came in from DNR. He has some head trauma but no fractures.

​A juvenile turkey vulture wasn’t as lucky; he was seen flailing by the side of the road in the rain. Initially, because he was still wet, I thought he was a black vulture, but as the feathers began drying the brown began to show. Sadly, he had no neural response in his legs and required euthanasia.

The former stargazing red tail was transferred to a falconer for further training. I’d planned to release him but the more I watched his behavior, the more convinced I was he wouldn’t survive in the wild without better hunting skills. Transfer to a licensed falconer will give him additional time to learn those hunting skills and when the falconer releases him in a couple of years, he’ll be a skilled and confident hunter.
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Red tail #2, with the eye injury, is looking excellent. The eye is probably always gonna be a little scarred but he’s seeing out of it and flying beautifully in the raptor flight, so in another week or so, he’ll be released. 

​And red tail #3, with the hand fracture, is healing nicely. He’ll move from the mini-pen into the raptor flight when his hand is sufficiently healed.

​The red shoulder is eating like a vacuum cleaner and looking good. Once the mini-pen opens up, I’ll draw straws to see if he or the sharpie goes into it first.

​The great horned owl’s eyes still look funky but he’s finding his food with no problem at all and is getting antsy at his captivity. I’d prefer at least one of those eyes to look “normal” before release but I’m beginning to think this is as normal as they’re gonna get.

​The screech’s dislocated shoulder appears to be healing nicely. Most of the time he’s holding it perfectly level with the “good” shoulder so I’m fairly optimistic at the moment that he’ll continue to heal for release. 

​And, of course, the black vulture twins are still hanging around...I end up with more photos of them than the rehabbing birds each week because they tend to follow me as I go about my daily activities. It’s a vulture thing; they will eventually stop coming around. It just seems to take vultures longer!

With fall right around the corner, injured first-year birds start filling rehab centers everywhere. LWR is bustin’ at the seams at the moment, and the calls keep coming.
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Where to start...let’s start with last week’s screech with the potentially broken wing. As luck would have it, it’s merely dislocated—see the x-rays below of the normal left wing and the dislocated right wing. Given the already fragile nature of bird bones, this is a toughie—twisting and popping it back into place could actually result in a shoulder fracture.  Vet Peggy Hobby of Smalley’s Animal Hospital and I discussed options and decided supportive care was the best option, allowing the muscles and tendons to gradually pull the wing back into near-normal position. The wing is actually looking less droopy and he’s able to extend it to assume threat stance, so it may be working. Below you can see the “fun” involved in getting photos of screeches when they go into “bob and weave” mode, too...

​Today a first-year sharpie with a right leg fracture came in. He’s rail-thin and his scruffy tail feathers would indicate he’s been down a while. The leg itself seems fairly stable, as if the fracture has already started healing, but it’s right at the joint so we’ll wait for x-rays to make any definitive statements.

​The former stargazing red tail is STILL awaiting good weather for his release. And most of next week also looks wet, so... We need at least three days of low-to-no rain chances, and last week it rained nearly every other day; this week shows no clear skies till around the end of the week. 

​The red tail with the swollen eye still has a blood clot sitting right on the pupil but the eye itself looks much, much better. Swelling is down and it’s pretty clear aside from the clot. He’s eating well and I may move him outside into the raptor flight this week, rain notwithstanding.  The raptor flight has a sheltered area for inclement weather.

​The third red tail, with the hand fracture, is in the mini-pen after staging three jailbreaks and wreaking havoc each time in the rehab room. He’ll remain there until the hand heals well enough for the raptor flight.

​The great horned’s eyes still look weird, with dilated pupils and the right pupil still misshapen, but he’s finding his food when I hide it under the paper lining his box to test his ability to locate it, leading me to think that as weird as they look to me—and to vet Jim Hobby—this may be the norm for the bird. I mean, he’s finding that food... And they might look “normal” again once he’s fully over the head trauma.

​The red shoulder is alert, aggressive and eating well as he recovers from the soft tissue damage to his elbow.

​And the vultures are still hanging around, sometimes together, sometimes separately. How often I see them seems to depend to a great extent on the weather and whether they can find carcasses in the woods.  They know the LWR diner is open if the wild pickin’s (not possessive; apostrophe replaces the ‘g’) get slim.

Currently LWR has three red tails, a red shoulder, a great horned owl, and a screech owl—and, of course, the vulture twins continue to visit at least once daily. Space is getting tight inside, as of the six recovering birds, only one is in a flight pen—the former stargazer.
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He’s doing well and would have been released last week except for significant rain chances that cropped up beginning early in the week. And this week is looking to be the same—too few rain-free days to get him released, so he’ll be in the raptor flight another week, poor fellow. He’s so ready to go!

​The second red tail, the one with the massively swollen eye, has equally massive amounts of blood in that eye and still squints badly with it. On his vet visit we did determine his eye is intact; it was so swollen and draining so much I worried it had ruptured. Vet Jim Hobby at Smalley’s said he’s got a blood clot right on the pupil, so we’ll just have to give him time—and eye drops—to see how it heals.

​The third red tail, if you recall, I suspected was a spray-and-pray victim since dove season opened the first Saturday in September and he came in the very next day with a wound that, to me, screamed gunshot. X-rays proved me right, although he wasn’t shot with normal birdshot (shows up as pellets on x-rays). His “hand” is pretty mangled but Jim and I think that with proper management he should heal for flight, given that none of the damage is near a joint. Again, time will tell.

​The red shoulder does not, in fact, have an elbow fracture as I suspected; the elbow remains swollen but the x-rays were clear. Jim manipulated it a bit and found the problem; he has a seriously pulled muscle or possibly torn tendon that’s causing some dislocation of the elbow. It’s not an injury we can treat with anything but time. Soft tissue damage is the most uncertain, honestly: It may or may not heal for flight. I’m beginning to sound like a broken record, but time will tell.

​The great horned owl has a few scraped toes, a broken blood feather—he’s in a molt—a bloody beak, and some serious head trauma. He’s literally blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other. Given the misshapen right pupil, I was afraid the lens was luxated but it’s not. Jim said lens and retina looked fine, so we’re not sure why the pupil is misshapen unless it’s just from sheer blunt force trauma. Neither pupil is responsive to light, however, so again—say it with me—“Time will tell.”

​The screech came in Saturday afternoon and hasn’t been to the vet yet; aiming at x-rays Monday. His right wing droops badly and there’s some scabbing at the shoulder and elbow that may be hiding exposed bone—hard to tell. He’s a typical feisty screech with a hearty appetite, though. Fingers crossed for this peeved little fellow!

​And, of course, the vultures are still dropping by. Apparently carcasses were in short supply this week, as they hung around a bit more than usual, demanding handouts. Yeah, some of y’all saw this video when I posted it on my personal page yesterday, but it’s too good to share with everybody!

Well, okay, a red tail trio, to be more accurate. Still...been a while since LWR’s hosted three red tails simultaneously. This is the time of year the juvies start running into trouble, though, so it’s not surprising I’m seeing more.
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The former stargazing red tail is flying well and antsy, and the weather is looking good for release early in the week.

​A second red tail came in late Friday from Eatonton, home of Joel Chandler Harris of Uncle Remus fame. A huge thanks to the Eatonton PD for making sure this gorgeous fellow arrived. He’s got a massively swollen left eye and had had a bloody nose before intake. He may also have a wing fracture; we’ll need x-rays to be sure. He’s alert but still reluctant to eat. 

​The third red tail arrived just a few minutes ago, and the bloody left wrist wound and possible fracture near that joint lead me to believe he might have been a victim of “spray and pray” dove hunters, as Saturday was the opening of dove season in Georgia. Again, we’ll need x-rays to be sure.

​The red shoulder still hasn’t gotten his x-rays yet; the sooner the better is the general rule but scheduling conflicts on my end prevented a vet trip last week. He’ll also go in this week for those delayed x-rays.

​The vultures ditched their wild buddy and are now showing up in shifts, for the most part: one in the morning, one in the evening. And yes, I can tell them apart by the differences in their heads, so I know which is which when they show.  And one is a bigger clown while the other tends to be more serious and apparently thoughtful. They definitely have their own personalities!

​We reached 85% of our goal on the fundraiser, for a total of $2555. Thanks to the 17 donors who made this possible. For those who missed the fundraiser deadline, there are PayPal links on each page of the website; you don’t have to wait for another fundraiser to donate.

​We’re at $2085, 70% of the $3000 goal, with just three days to go—and that $2085 came from just 12 people.  Folks, if you’re waiting for “somebody” to donate, guess what? YOU’RE that “somebody!”  We need $915 to meet our goal, so if you’re the procrastinating type, you’re running out of time to donate toward keeping our raptors fed.

​The no-longer-stargazing red tail was moved to the full raptor flight last week, where he ran around on the ground for several days before finally rediscovering his wings. This morning he flew from one end of the flight to the other—low, but he was flying, so I’m happy. He’s made tremendous progress, as you can see from his intake photo and those taken two days ago. 

​In new intakes, an adult red shoulder came in with a broken left wing; it feels like it’s far enough away from the joint to be fixable but it’s still pretty swollen so it’s hard to be certain. He came in after my vets had closed on Friday, so we’re aiming at x-rays this week to see if it is indeed fixable. Meanwhile, he’s alert and has a healthy appetite.

​The juvie sharpie who came in this morning wasn’t as lucky. In addition to a shattered left hip, his left wing had an open fracture with a good inch of bone exposed. He was humanely euthanized.

​And not content with freeloading off me still, a good two months after their release, the vulture twins invited a third juvie to join them at the LWR buffet. He’s skittish but follows the twins’ lead when around me—albeit at what he considers a safe distance. The now-triplets aren’t around all the time but they’re hysterical to watch when they show up for a handout.

It was a slow week from both the rehab and the fundraising aspects. The late summer lull is a welcome break before dove season kicks in on Sept, 5, which means a likely influx of wounded raptors, victims of “spray and pray” dove hunters. The lull in donations isn’t as pleasant...

Both MIKIs were released last week; no video or post-release photos, as I simply left their flight pen door open during the day for a couple of days and let them choose when to take their leave. Oddly enough—or maybe not, given the plethora of dragonflies we still have—one is still hanging around the fringes of the hay field. I hear him more often than I see him.
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The fundraiser, with just 9 days left, is currently at $1660; we still need $1340 to meet our goal. That $1660 has come from just 9 donors, y’all. That’s kinda sad that more people haven’t seen fit to donate. “Attagirls” and “God bless yous,” while appreciated, don’t put mice in the freezer to feed our raptors. Thanks to those who’ve donated; to those who’re procrastinating, time’s a-wastin’!

​The stargazing first-year red tail is currently the sole guest at LWR. He’s doing much better—has moved up to the top perch in the mini-pen and is hopping around on it like a pro. His head tilt is less pronounced. I’m not sure it’ll ever go away entirely but then, I also wasn’t sure he’d make the progress he already has.  He has a great personality—as do most red tails, honestly—and in another week or two we’ll see how he does in the full raptor flight.  Sometimes a little time, a steady food supply, and a safe place to mend are all a bird needs.

​And the vultures are still hanging around but are much more independent now. I often see them perching in a tall snag in the woods or circling overhead with several wild cousins. They frequently fly down to be nosy when they see me looking up at them—kinda like that old song: “I was lookin’ back to see if you were lookin’ back to see if I was lookin’ back to see if you were lookin’ back at me.”

​Again, we have just nine days left in the fundraiser and while LWR has few guests at the moment, with the fall migration beginning and first-year birds running into trouble, that number will rise and fall unpredictably into the fall and winter. Let’s make sure the freezer stays full so they can be fed!