Shhh! Has “slow season” started?

I’m almost scared to ask, for fear of inviting an influx of late babies! In the past week, though, I had just one new intake, so maybe…we’ll see!

The squirrels continue to grow apace; below are photos of them taken earlier today. In case you’re wondering, pecans are a treat, and I use them as a bribe to keep the little rascals still for photos—and sometimes, it actually works!

The single intake last week was this juvenile Eastern cottontail, who had massively infected eyes. After conferring with Rhonda Woods, a metro-area rehabber who specializes in rabbits, I made the decision to euthanize the poor little fellow. Had he survived the stress of captivity and several-times-daily treatment of his eyes, he still most likely would have been blind. Rhonda and I discussed the options, and I agreed with her that euthanasia was the kindest.

The female red tail from last week has issues aside from possible frounce and/or capillaria. The second time I fed her, she strained to reach the plate I had the cut-up mouse on, so I moved it closer. She ate from the plate, but I still had her restrained. For the third feeding, I sat the plate in my lap—on a folded towel—and let her sit in my lap and eat from the plate, with only my hand resting on her back as restraint. For the fourth feeding, I placed a bit of mouse on the glove and held it out so that she had to flit over to the glove. She rocked back and forth a couple of times, then launched herself right at the glove, tearing into her “reward” as soon as she landed.

In fact, she refused to come off the glove; I had to ease my hand out of it to finish feeding her. I sat her and the plate in my lap and let her have at it, totally unrestrained, as I snapped photos. Yep, we have a bird whose major problem is her past interactions with humans…If she’s a screwed-up falconry bird, which seems likely, someone needs to lose their falconry permit; if it’s “just” a case of some untrained idiot attempting to make a pet of her, which seems less likely but still possible, that person should be fined to the max for illegal possession of a raptor. Sadly, we have no way of knowing who screwed her up, but this should be “fixable” so that she can return to the wild. At least, that’s the plan right now; her behavior will dictate whether she’s releasable or a candidate for an educational bird. So far, so good: she’s progressed to eating whole rats, which I honestly didn’t think she’d manage this quickly!

The mourning dove and Eurasian collared (EC) dove are looking less like cacti and more like birds now. The EC dove seems to have some nerve damage to his right foot, but at the moment it’s not slowing him down any.  We’ll have to wait and see how it affects his perching. So far he’s not attempting to perch but is flapping like crazy when I feed them. He can lift himself about two inches when he tries; the mourning dove can manage short flights/jumps from the perch to the cage floor and back. If they continue at this pace, they should be in the flight pen by the end of next week, maybe sooner!

Eurasian collared dove

Mourning dove