The fundraiser ended with $1480, $320 shy of the $1800 goal, so we’re not ruling out another smaller fundraiser in December. Heartfelt thanks to those who donated—all 7 of y’all—and to those who missed the deadline, the LWR website has PayPal links on every page; you don’t have to wait for a fundraiser to donate.

The big news this week is this young osprey—I mean, like this year’s late-hatch, still-slightly-bluish-tinge-to-the-feet young. A family came home to see him on the dam to their lake and walked over to investigate; instead of flying away the goofball dove into the water. The husband had a fishing catch net and scooped him out to find blood on his chest and wrists.  When he arrived at LWR nothing felt broken and I couldn’t find an actual wound associated with the blood clotted in his feathers. Obviously, he was headed for x-rays at Smalley’s...

The really sad thing is that vets Jim and Peggy Hobby’s minds immediately went exactly where mine did—did the bird have lead in his body? We’ve worked with raptors long enough to know that’s a distinct possibility when they come in with blood and no clear wound—bird skin quickly closes up around an entry wound to the point that it can be undetectable aside from the blood.

This bird was lucky—no lead, and while we weren’t actually x-raying to confirm no fractures, the rads showed that, as well. Where did the blood come from? Maybe his last meal before capture; we don’t know. Given that even for a juvie he was a little on the skinny side, I opted to see if colleague Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends could take him, as Steve has a better setup for ospreys than I do.

Since basically the whole state of Georgia was in the path of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Nicole late last week, though, we opted to wait till this week to transfer, so this gangly, awkward, gorgeous “teenager” will be headed to Bubba & Friends early this week.

Of course, we didn’t have all good news; that almost never happens. The barred owl with head trauma turned out to be blind and required euthanasia, and an adult red shoulder came in with his left wing broken at the shoulder and his right leg broken at the hip. He also required euthanasia.

The gray phase screech is still not using that left wing at all; until he shows at least some ability to use it, he can’t go into a flight pen.

And ending on a happy note, the illegally held red phase screech with the ruined feathers is molting! His tail feathers look wonderful, although he refused to cooperate for a photo of them—he’s finally starting to act like a proper footy, bitey, hissy, pissy screech! His head is looking a little rough due to the molt, but y’all have to admit, the unkempt look is kinda cute when you know it’s from a healthy molt.

Given our predicted frigid nights this week, though, he’s back inside for a while—better safe than sorry when dealing with compromised feathers and a molt at the same time.

We’re 81% toward our fundraising goal of $1800—just $350 to go, with 3 days left! Many thanks to those who’ve already donated, and for those who’re waiting till the last minute, well, procrastinate no longer—the deadline approaches!

The red phase screech, our fundraiser “mascot,” continues to do well; his bumblefoot is improving daily, thank goodness, but his feathers will remain an ungodly mess till he molts next year. He’s at least starting to act more “screechy,” hissing softly and glaring at me when I enter the mini-pen to deposit his food.

Appropriately enough, on Halloween, LWR received another screech, a gorgeous little gray phase found on his back in a driveway. Nothing felt broken but he guarded his left wing and refused to flap it at all, even standing on the primaries as if it was badly broken. X-rays at Smalley’s on Tuesday confirmed no fractures; vet Jim Hobby and I suspect soft tissue or nerve damage—you can see the shoulder muscle looks a little swollen on the x-ray. This will be a wait-and-see situation; sometimes soft tissue/nerve damage resolves for flight and sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, it could take days, weeks or months to see any improvement. At least he has a healthy appetite!

Thursday a barred owl came in after finders rescued it from the middle of the road. Nothing is broken but he well and truly had his bell rung. On intake, he sat in the box, head lowered, jerking it back and forth ever so slightly. He’s still not wanting to eat, which isn’t unusual with severe head trauma, but his body weight is good, and raptors can go several days in the wild without food—their eating in the wild depends on both their hunting skill and the availability of prey. At least as of this morning, he’s looking slightly more alert than in these intake photos.

The fundraiser is going well, with $1250 raised thus far and just $550 to go to meet our goal. Many thanks to those who’ve donated already and for those who haven’t, YOUR donation could be the one that pushes us to the goal—so what’re you waiting for? Time’s a-wastin’!

Only one new intake this week, an adult great horned owl with a massive eye injury. It was an older injury: It appeared somehow his eye may have gotten injured and infected in the wild and by the time he was found sitting in the middle of the road, it had ruptured. Essentially, he had no eyeball left; when I gently pried open the eye to see the extent of the damage, my fingers were resting on the exposed orbital bones. Probably because of this, he was also near-starvation thin, but he was still alert. He was offered mice, which he eagerly ate. The plan was to check with DNR and FWS to see if the regs on euthanizing a one-eyed bird could be waived if the remains of the eyeball were surgically removed and the bird placed as an educational ambassador (one-eyed birds are frequently successfully used as ed birds), but the poor fellow died overnight. I suspect the infection from the ruptured eye had spread throughout his system.

Georgia’s back to more temperate daytime and nighttime temps, so the screech has been back in the mini-pen for the past week. He’s lost all his damaged tail feathers but is showing no signs of going through a molt. His overgrown talons are slowly being trimmed back, and the bumblefoot in his right foot is showing slight improvement. His will be a long road of recovery, but I’m hopeful he’ll eventually be releasable sometime next year. Let his situation be a constant reminder that all wildlife requires professional care when in captivity; the wrong diet and housing can ruin that bird or mammal’s chances of release and, indeed, often lead to the need for euthanasia.

Of course, even when there’s no weekly update, our work at LWR continues, and part of that work this past week was to work on creating a fundraiser. This is our first fundraiser this year, and if we meet our $1800 goal, it should be our last for the year—that’s the plan, anyway!

As for our actual birds, the screech had to be brought inside last week due to the cold snap we experienced pretty much throughout the South. His severely compromised feathers provide no insulation against the cold, so this will be the pattern throughout the winter: in the mini-pen when the weather is fairly moderate and inside when it gets too cold. Those overgrown talons also needed trimming back, which is a slow process, and his right foot is swollen, an indication of bumblefoot, caused when one of those overgrown talons pierced the pad of his foot. That has to be treated daily, so his being inside was best for that, too. So overall, the poor fellow has numerous issues going on at the moment, none of which will be cleared up overnight.

During our “downtime” we also had a red-tailed hawk come in, emaciated and with a large wound at the base of his tail. Despite being given pain meds and having topical meds applied to the wound, he continued to pick at it, which meant it continued to bleed. At the end of his day of intake, it appeared we finally had both the picking and bleeding under control but during the night the bleeding started back and the next morning the pad in his box was saturated; he bled out overnight. And yes, it sucked big time to find him dead the next morning; I don’t like losing birds, and I especially don’t like losing red tails.

And late last week, LWR received a call about an injured barred owl that was at a local school. The teacher had the bird in a classroom, apparently unsecured from the students, as when she called LWR she indicated a child had been scratched when he or she tried to pick the bird up. As teachers cannot leave their schools during the day, as a general rule, I told her to bring me the bird after school let out; meanwhile, I canceled a meeting to be available at the end of her school day. By dusk, no bird had arrived. No message. I contacted the person and was informed she’d put the injured bird out on the school grounds, as she couldn’t fit delivering it to LWR into her busy schedule.

People, first off: SECURE any wildlife you find and immediately place it in the darkest, quietest place you can find. A classroom full of noisy children doesn’t qualify as quiet or dark. Second, in no scenario is it acceptable to simply release an injured bird in unfamiliar surroundings. THIS IS A DEATH SENTENCE for that bird. Third, if you KNOW you cannot bring a bird to LWR or any rehabber, tell us this up front; most of us have volunteer transporters who can pick up wildlife for us and get it to us. Finally, if you plan to bring the wildlife and something comes up to prevent this, LET US KNOW. We have lives, too, and when we disrupt our schedules to be available and are left hanging, it’s extremely frustrating. A simple call or text saying you can’t make it after all will give us a chance to mobilize one of the previously mentioned volunteer transporters.

Rant over...for this week...

The screech who was held illegally from July through late September will be paying for human arrogance, ignorance, stupidity or error—whatever you prefer to call it—for quite a while. Last week I was infuriated about it; this week, I’m more saddened for him than anything else.

His feathers—his tail feathers in particular, but all his feathers in general—are in godawful shape. Providing a shallow water pan for him to bathe in once he was in the mini-pen only reinforced their awful condition.

Additionally, his talons are so overgrown he can’t grip the perch properly. I’m trying to let the wood of the perches and roost shelf wear down the talons naturally to avoid further stressing the poor fellow, but I may end up having to trim them by hand. And his flight muscles are so underdeveloped that if he lands on the floor of the flight pen, he can’t flit up to the low perch. That, at least, should resolve itself as he now has the room to fully utilize his wings.

So what’s in his future? Potentially a long period of captivity while we wait for him to molt the damaged and most likely weak feathers and grow in a new set of undamaged and stronger feathers. Normally screeches molt in July/August but their molt can extend into October/November, so maybe having him outside in natural weather conditions in the mini-pen will stimulate this traumatized little fellow to begin this process...unless he’s already done so while being held illegally. Then we’re looking at a year before he molts again...Y’all keep your fingers crossed he begins to molt soon so he can regain his long-denied freedom ASAP.

Y’all are well aware of how much I adore screeches because of their fierce little attitudes. This poor fellow currently has no fierceness, only fear, and it breaks my heart.

There will be no update next Sunday, Oct. 16. I have other obligations that day.

That would be owls and vultures, of course. (And if any-blasted-body dared even THINK about bats as birds, hand in your naturalist card. Now. I’m not kidding.)

Early in the week, a red-phase screech owl came in after having been held illegally since July. Although the finders indicated a foot injury, when the bird arrived at LWR both feet turned out to be fully functional, although his feathers are a mess. More on him later, but first let me hop on my soapbox for a minute or two.

I’m not even gonna get into the full rant about the public keeping birds illegally; you’ve heard it all before. What I will do is remind y’all that rehabbers don’t get paid for what we do; we are not salaried employees of DNR or FWS. Most of us have actual jobs to pay our bills. And yet there seems to be a widely shared opinion that we should drop everything we’re doing, including our PAYING jobs, to drive all over the state to pick up the wildlife the public finds. News flash, people: Georgia’s a big ol’ state and there aren’t many of us out there who’re properly permitted. We can’t abandon the wildlife currently in our care to drive up to 4-6 hours round-trip to pick up wildlife, and even if we could, we can’t just stop working to do so. And even if we could leave behind those other animals in our care and stop working for up to half a day, we still need MONEY for gas to pick up the wildlife and then to feed it. Less than 6% of the people who bring us wildlife in a given year donate toward its continued care, and of those <6% who do donate, it’s most often in the range of $25 to $50, and quite frequently not that much—and I can promise you that doesn’t come close to covering care for even one week in rehab for one bird. But no rehabber denies care because a finder can’t pay; that’s not how this undertaking operates.

Further, there are myriads of “armchair quarterbacks” out there who think they have the right to denigrate, attack and threaten us because we refuse to become homeless in order to pick up wildlife, and we utilize our colleagues at DNR and FWS to confiscate and transport for us when the need arises, particularly when a caller indicates they’ve had the wildlife for weeks or months. By the terms of our permits, we’re required to report illegal activity—and keeping wildlife long-term without a permit is illegal on both the state and federal levels; further, when DNR or FWS confiscates illegally held wildlife, they have the legal right to euthanize on the spot. It is only their close working relationship with rehabbers that prevents this. On a personal level, I can promise you your “hurted feewins” are less important to me than the permits I worked so hard to obtain and maintain and the trust that DNR and FWS people have in me.

My very “favorites,” though,  are the sanctimonious types who are “horrified, I tell you, horrified!” that rehabbers dare to euthanize wildlife if its injuries preclude release. Again, speaking personally, I’m up-front about that possibility on the LWR website. From a purely HUMANE point of view, if the bird’s injuries would mean a life of discomfort, yes, I euthanize. If the bird could survive and potentially be used as an educational bird, I, my vets, and at least one other rehabber evaluate the bird’s overall personality to determine if it’s suited for ed bird status. Some birds are too stressed by human contact and captivity to ever make good ed birds; euthanasia is a kinder option. Humane issues aside, LEGALLY, by the terms of our permits, rehabbers are required to euthanize nonreleasable wildlife that cannot be placed or function as ed animals. So again, I will not be inhumane enough to sentence an unhappy/pain-filled bird to a life in captivity, nor will I break the law to allow the public to get the warm fuzzies.

Nature is cruel. Wildlife often comes into rehab in such condition that we cannot save it, or if we did, it would be inhumane to that wildlife to do so. If the ONLY release I can offer the birds who come into my care at LWR is a release from suffering, I will give them that release. And I can promise you any rehabber worth his/her salt will tell you the same thing. It never gets easier, even when you know it’s the right decision. It hurts, every single time. But it is THE RIGHT, THE LEGAL AND THE HUMANE course of action when it’s the only means of ending suffering. If you’ve never had to make that decision on a regular basis, don’t you DARE criticize rehabbers for making those tough calls.

Hopping off the soapbox now, we return to the illegally held screech. As I said, his feathers are a mess and he’s very paranoid, more so than is normal for a screech. Due to the threat of bad weather from Hurricane Ian, he’s been kept inside all week but tomorrow he’ll be moved to the mini-pen to see how he does. If the feather damage isn’t too severe and he can be flight conditioned fairly quickly, he’ll be released ASAP. My fear is that he may need to remain in care until he molts—not ideal for an already-stressed bird, but in the mini-pen we can minimize human contact and hopefully lessen the majority of his stress. We’ll see...

Here he is on intake:

And these photos were taken after he was moved to a clean box with a perch.

A mammal rehabber in another county sent a barred owl to LWR late in the week; her vet’s x-rays showed no fractures but his left wing droops badly. I’m thinking coracoid fracture. I may ask Smalley’s to do a trunk x-ray to see if we can see that fracture, although they often don’t actually show on x-rays. Might be worth a try; we might get lucky.

And of course, the vultures are still hanging around, although not as often and less frequently together.

The red shoulder who’d been hit by a vehicle a couple of weeks ago and miraculously escaped unscathed aside from minor head trauma regained his freedom yesterday, and he was quite a happy camper about it.

He didn’t wait around after landing in that tree; as soon as he got his bearings, he was off again, so no post-release photos.

The vultures are still hanging around, but are beginning to show more independence.

And the latest from Auburn on the eagle is that he’s being treated for osteoarthritis and they plan to evaluate him for flight in another week or so. On Monday the 19th they indicated when they called LWR for some follow-up info that they were most likely going to imp the missing feathers. For those who aren’t familiar with the term, it means the missing feathers will be replaced; Audubon has a great introductory article on the process here: https://www.audubon.org/news/an-introduction-imping-ancient-art-feather-mending.

I’m interested to see if they’re actually able to imp, as this process does require broken feather shafts and the eagle didn’t appear to have any broken shafts and Auburn’s exam confirmed this. I guess we’ll see, huh?

Yeah, hard to believe, right? Used to be, LWR would see one eagle maybe every 4-5 years; now it seems to be multiples every year. I guess that speaks well of Georgia’s conservation efforts.

This guy—and we’re sure he’s male, given his overall smaller size and weight—was found in Jefferson County, about 2 hours away, on Wednesday afternoon and taken by DNR to an Augusta vet clinic until they could transport to LWR. DNR had statewide meetings all day Thursday, leaving no one to transport, and I had appointments I couldn’t cancel, so the transport was set up for Friday morning.

Meanwhile, I called the Augusta clinic and spoke with them concerning feeding, etc., while they had him. Upon my recommendation, they offered him both fish and roadkill squirrel, and he ate both for them Wednesday evening and Thursday. They had also weighed him at just over 7 lbs., on the low end of the scale for a male.

I also called Auburn to give them a heads-up they’d have an eagle arriving sometime Friday, and alerted Smalley’s I’d be bringing one in Friday morning, as well.

Upon his arrival at LWR Friday, he was loaded up immediately for x-rays at Smalley’s Animal Hospital. Vet Jim Hobby confirmed my initial quick intake exam with the x-rays: Nothing was broken. Further, the trunk x-rays showed NO LEAD in his body. Sadly, this is something we always check for with raptors. He was only missing most of his flight feathers on his right wing, which would have impaired his ability to fly. His keel (breastbone) was fairly well-fleshed—the breastbone itself was palpable but not badly so. In other words, he was at a pretty healthy weight but could stand to gain a few ounces.

With a clean bill of health, he left Smalley’s for LWR again, to await our stalwart volunteer transporter Joy Daniels, who arrived shortly after we got back home. We had a little back-and-forth with an ill-informed front desk staff person at Auburn, who informed me they couldn’t take the bird because their primary raptor vet was out of town—which no one mentioned on Wednesday. I then insisted they provide me a written statement to that effect to send to GA DNR and USFWS to explain why I would be holding the bird for over 48 hours. She refused, whereupon I hung up and called Bob Sargent of GA DNR, who monitors Georgia’s eagles, and explained the situation to him.

In less than 10 minutes, Bob had called his contact at Auburn, who overrode the front desk and said to send the bird. By 5:30 Friday, Joy notified me the eagle was safely at Auburn.

Everything else seems kinda mundane after an eagle intake, I know, but hey, we did also have a release! The barred owl regained his freedom late last Sunday, a couple of hours before dusk. He flew to a low limb and when I walked over to get a post-release photo, he took off into the pines behind him.

The HBC red shoulder was moved out into the mini-pen, where he seems to be moving nicely. In a few days I’ll test him in the main flight and see how he fares there; if he’s flying well, he’ll be released, as well.

And, of course, the recently released black vultures are still hanging around being doofuses. How such intelligent birds can be such clowns is beyond me, but they excel at it!

The weird year continues, with reports last month from a county a little over two hours away, verified by DNR and USDA, of some 700 black vultures dead from HPAI, avian influenza. Steve Hicks, a colleague who lives closer to the area, did a little more research and found that the vultures had comprised one of the three or four largest roosts in Georgia.

This leads me to believe, as Steve and I have discussed several times this year, that the HPAI outbreak in Georgia has been more severe than has actually been documented to date. The lower number of intakes—and for fewer species—many of us have been seeing would seem to support this. Unless large numbers of birds are found dead or dying, as was the case with the vultures, most of the public won’t think twice about finding one or two dead birds—if they’re found at all, as most likely died in the woods and were never discovered. People can’t report what they don’t recognize.

It also makes it difficult for rehabbers, who are used to accepting overflow intakes from colleagues, as DNR is discouraging this common practice to avoid potential spread of HPAI into areas not currently affected. Sadly, it’s a sensible recommendation from DNR, as no one wants to be known as the person who brought the disease into their previously uninfected area.

However, all isn’t gloom and doom. The sharpie who’d come in months ago with the wing fracture and subsequently stress-plucked all his tail feathers finally grew enough tail feathers back for a release.

And the barred owl who came in with only road rash on one foot is slated for release early this week.

A second sharpie came in from a game warden in another county last week; he was rail-thin and too weak to hold his head up. After being placed in a donut for support, he was offered slurry every two hours, but it was too little too late. He didn’t survive the night.

The lady who hit this red shoulder said he came out of nowhere and she slammed on brakes but still clipped him. Nothing is broken but there does seem to be some soft tissue damage—maybe a coracoid fracture, which frequently doesn’t show on x-rays. He’s alert and eating well, so we’ll just give him time to heal.

And of course, the recently released black vultures are still hanging around. The older of the two, who’d been at LWR since he was a downy baby, remains more likely to get close enough for good photos and follow me around; the younger of the two, who came in half-grown, is less trusting and tends to go off and do his own thing, but is quite willing to accept handouts.

Given the younger vulture’s swift transition from half-down, half feathers to very little down at all, yesterday seemed like a good time to open the mini-pen door and see what the rascals would do.

They spent the day wandering around the back yard, finding an old log to sit on, then moving over to the path leading to the main flight.

I left the mini-pen door open all day, in case they wanted to go back in, and near nightfall, when I went to close it, both doofuses were back inside, perched and already half-asleep for the night. This morning, they were ready to come out again and roam the yard some more.  Oddly enough, the older vulture, who’s been at LWR since he was all downy, seems to be following the lead of the younger one, who’s not as trusting of humans since he came in as an older bird. This should be an interesting soft release.

Black vultures are so adorable!

The sharpie is eating again but pretty much just perches and glares at me when I’m in the main flight putting the food out. Accipiters are weird, psychotic little things...

The great horned, after taking a turn for the worse, as I mentioned last Sunday, died that night. I’m thinking very slow brain bleed, given the gradual decline throughout the previous week.

A barred owl came in from a state park about an hour south of LWR, brought there by a visitor who found it on the side of the road. Sadly, the owl had an open wing fracture and required euthanasia.

This afternoon, a local off-duty police officer brought another barred owl he and his family found last night on their way home from a city a couple of hours northeast of LWR. This one was luckier; he only had a bad road rash on one foot and some minor head trauma. His wings had no fractures, although he did favor the right one slightly—possibly some mild tendon sprain, as he could fully extend it when tested. He’s fairly alert but a little uncoordinated, which is typical for a bird whose bell’s been well and truly rung. I don’t foresee him having to remain a guest of LWR for more than a week or two.

There will be no update next Sunday, Labor Day weekend.