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Reaching goals and setting goals

7/6/2014

8 Comments

 
First, a huge THANK YOU to everybody who donated to the LWR “We’re HUNGRY” fundraiser. I’m happy to report we slightly exceeded our goal, with a total of $2010 by June 30!

As for goals to be set—well, primarily, I’m aiming at having the screech released within the next week. While I haven’t seen him kill prey, I know he can. Ya see, it seems a wharf rat decided the top of the flight pen would be a good place to nest and have babies…and it seems the screech figured out how to get between the mesh and the hardware cloth to raid said nest…His little belly was quite full when I retrieved him from his self-made “crawlspace” and buffet! Our weather prediction looks good for most of the week, so somebody’s about ready to take his place in the big, wide world.
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The possum doesn’t seem to be gaining weight like he should, even though his little belly is round and firm after each feeding. Possums tend to be skinny little things anyway, but his lack of weight gain worries me (and yes, he’s been wormed, so that’s not the issue). He also seems to be suffering from some sort of dry skin condition; the skin peels off UNDER the fur but he’s not losing actual fur. Weird…

At this stage his little life still consists of “eat, sleep, poop”, so aside from his weird issues, there’s not much else to say about him…
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The oldest of the chimney swifts had to be euthanized last week. He wasn’t gaining weight; in fact, he dropped down the point that he weighed less than the smallest and least-developed swift from the nest of five.  Rather than watch him continue to decline and become more and more emaciated and sluggish, I called it on him.

The other five seem to be stable. As I said last week, chimney swifts and LWR don’t have a good history, so I refuse to be more enthusiastic. We take it a feeding at a time: so far, so good.
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The great crested flycatcher gained weight like crazy last week and is flying beautifully, so as soon as she (gender arbitrarily assigned) gains a few more grams and shows me she knows how to snap insects from the air, she’ll be good to go, as well. I really do adore these sweet little birds (I know—I say that about nearly every bird that comes into LWR…); their coloration is such understated elegance.
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And on an otherwise quiet July 4th, I heard a distressed baby bird in my own back yard. After locating the bird, a nestling Carolina wren, I then found the nest in the tool shed. There were three other nestlings. I replaced the wandering baby, checked on them a couple of times before dark and topped them off with a little formula each time, and went to bed that night sure that the parents were caring for their babies.
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The next morning, however, I found just three babies still in the nest, lethargic and dehydrated. One looked in pretty bad shape, in fact. So now I have three more Carolina wrens who’ve perked back up considerably since being rehydrated and getting regular feedings. I still have no clue what happened to the parents or the fourth nestling, but these three will have a chance at life, at any rate.
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Who doesn’t enjoy watching birds bathe? I have an old bread rack in my back yard, the top of which has three small water dishes for birds to use as bird baths; they seem to prefer them to the larger, more traditional bird bath sitting next to the rack. As luck would have it, yesterday, three of the recent releases—the robin, goldfinch and tanager—and a house finch who may have been one of my earlier releases put on a good five-minute show, and I was able to tape the whole thing, which I’m sharing with you!
8 Comments
Sandz
7/6/2014 10:40:25 am

The squirrel takes sunflowers????

Reply
Laurens Wildlife Rescue
7/6/2014 10:46:13 am

Huh? No squirrels in this update. But yes, squirrels do like black oil sunflower seed, as do an astonishing variety of songbirds.

Reply
Sandz
7/6/2014 10:55:37 am

Ohhhh, I watched the birdbath video, then another video, birdbath and flowers played. In that a squirrel took the flowers right off the stem! Guess that was someone else's video! Sorry.

Reply
pam
7/7/2014 03:59:13 am

I love great crested flycatchers too! Still remember the exact time I saw my first one, in Virginia over two decades ago. Thanks for the great post and congratulations on the successful fundraiser.

Reply
Laurens Wildlife Rescue
7/7/2014 08:29:41 am

Aren't they the neatest birds? I love that "fweep" call they make.

Reply
Ann Feldman
7/7/2014 12:53:12 pm

Hmmmm. I thought rats were smart. Making a nest on top of a flight pen that has an OWL inside? (*Burp*)
She won't do that again I wager.
I think that baby possum is missing his mama. Like some children in orphanages, it may not make it, alas. Did you see that NY Times Sunday magazine story on the animal behavior guy? VERY interesting. If not I will send. Kinda says what some of us already knew.

Reply
Laurens Wildlife Rescue
7/7/2014 01:44:58 pm

LOL, Ann, not smart at all, but Sir Screech isn't complaining!

Possum babies do sneeze-call for their mamas; this little guy hasn't done a whole lot of that, surprisingly, but he's definitely not thriving right now.

I saw reference to the NYT article but haven't read it; would love to see what the guy has to say.

Reply
Ann Feldman
7/9/2014 03:42:51 am

I posted the piece on my timeline, so if you go to my facebook page it is likely still there. In any event, if you can't access it I will send it from the NYTimes site.


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