Still baby season, yep…

And the babies, juvies and adults keep rollin’ in. Now, however, we’re getting to the “ugly” part of the season, where intakes are severely dehydrated from the heat or are already badly compromised from injury or illness when they come in. Late baby season is never pretty…

The red shoulder is about ready for release and is pouncing on his food very aggressively—always a good sign.

The hatchling blue jay didn’t make it, poor baby. His little eyes began to open and he began to decline. Antibiotics didn’t help; he died overnight.

All red bellies have been released but about half are still mooching. No pix of that yet; it’s kind hard to photograph six sibilant red bellies while feeding ‘em and keeping ‘em from attacking the other moochers too! Still have two blue jays and two mockers as regular moochers, as well. The jays, of course, are hysterical, swooping down with strangled cries around beaksful of food that they carefully reposition in their beaks so they can beg for a handout from me…

The great crested flycatcher and house finch flew the coop when offered the option and didn’t look back.

The lighting and focus are off on this shot, but the expression on the finch's face is priceless!

Still in the flight pen, we have two robins, a brown thrasher and a mocker.  Robins remain big babies for the longest time, but their personalities make their prolonged dependence tolerable. And the thrasher bonded with the robins when they were housed together pre-flight pen, so she’s not goin’ anywhere till her buddies do! The mocker tends to shadow the thrasher for some reason.

The adult brown thrasher who’d been kept as a pet for a year wilded up nicely with limited human contact and is now flitting around outside the flight pen. Sometimes she’ll hop back in for an hour or two or a day or two and then demand to be let out again. Because of her circumstances this form of very soft release is working well to re-introduce her to the wild.

The swifts were released and nearly immediately “replaced” by four others, a clutch of three transferred from Chattahoochee Nature Center near Atlanta and a singleton from a nearby county. Sadly, the singleton was in pretty bad shape on intake and struggled for 24 hours before giving up the fight. The trio from CNC is doing well, though.

Their finders took them to CNC in the remnants of their nest, which was sent on to LWR in the transfer, so you get to see what a chimney swift nest looks like! The parents “glue” the twigs together using their saliva, so their nests are quite literally held together by spit and a prayer.

The kite continues to grow like a weed; we tried self-feeding today to see how it went and he was not happy, so he’s since been hand-fed his morning mice.

Trying the same for the youngest screech, hoping this will resolve her reluctance to be hand-fed. She seems to be a little more willing to at least scatter her mouse nuggets, so…we’ll see…

The older screech is fine—an aggressive, self-feeding little snot that I totally forgot to snap any pix of this past week…

Early last week an adult kite came in with a shattered shoulder and was euthanized. Below is a photo of one of his wings, taken after euthanasia, to show the gorgeous coloration of the adult birds.

This adult great blue heron didn’t appear to have any fractures but couldn’t stand. He was otherwise alert and attempting self-feeding but given the difficulty of healing what was probably a pelvic or hip fracture in a bird this size, we opted for humane euthanasia.

This fledgling cardinal wandered into the rescuer’s chicken yard and was set upon by the chickens. Aside from a few scrapes and a badly damaged eye, he seemed alert and ate well, but died overnight.

When a young man called about an injured hawk, he was afraid the bird might have a broken wing. Happily, the juvy red tail, who still makes baby ki-ki-ki cries when upset, had only sustained a concussion. He’s still a bit woozy and reluctant to eat, but that’s normal for up to 48 hours after a concussion.

And this sweet fledgling brown thrasher was observed the previous day being fed by her parents but was on her side on the ground the next morning.  On intake she reeled drunkenly, was unable to perch and tossed her neck back in the most  godawful position to swallow her food… She has a healthy appetite but remains sorta klutzy. She’s less wobbly than at intake but she still has room for improvement.

And the green heron was released! Given his emaciated state on intake, I’m quite pleased that he rebounded so quickly. I went back a few days later to check on him, as I’d released him in a very isolated area in keeping with the shy nature of his species. I really didn’t expect to see him, but the release site is rich in minnows—a veritable heron buffet—so he was still there and alarm-called and disappeared into the surrounding brush immediately upon seeing me.

Digital zoom, so not the greatest photo in the world, but still...

And finally, as most of you know, wildlife rehabbers operate using their own funds, small grants and donations from the public and from people who bring wildlife to us. Only about 10% of the people who bring us wildlife make a donation, and it’s usually nowhere near enough to cover care for that critter.

Thus far this year LWR has received 178 critters, the vast majority birds. Last year our total intakes for the ENTIRE YEAR were 191. There are still 5 ½ months left in this year, and yes, baby season is about to wind down but then we start getting in the injured migrants, so I expect LWR to top 200 intakes for this year.

This takes funds, and our coffers are running low, so this is a heads-up that later this week I’ll be organizing an online fundraiser in hopes of garnering enough funds to see us through the remainder of the year. Start hoarding those pennies (although dollars buy more rodents) with this in mind, please, and look for the fundraiser announcement later in the week.