Y’all, LWR had intakes out the wazoo last week, and there is quite literally no room at the inn. There are bird boxes everywhere and both flights are full. The good news is we should have three days of “low-to-no” (rain chances, that is) midweek, at which point Operation Fruit Basket Turnover goes into overdrive so we can free up some space.
Where to begin? Let’s start with another “naming names” intake. Y’all know I don’t generally name names, not so much to protect the guilty as to keep myself from facing defamation lawsuits for calling out idiots. But when, as with last week’s eagle, people engage in praiseworthy acts, they deserve to be mentioned by name for doing the RIGHT thing.
Case in point: A young woman, Julie Pierce, had stopped at a local gas station and heard a trucker bragging about how he’d hit a hawk and mouthing off about what he was going to do to this injured bird. When Ms. Pierce went over to see how badly the hawk was injured, she found the sociopathic trucker and some of his equally sadistic buddies poking the bird with sticks, and the trucker who’d initially hit it threatened to run over it again. Ms. Pierce didn’t hesitate to wade into the middle of these pathetic excuses for humans and rescue the bird, calling around until she reached Game Warden Rodney Horne, who gave her the LWR number. I cannot begin to adequately express my admiration for and thanks to Ms. Pierce for rescuing this gorgeous, albeit highly stressed, red tail from the scum of the earth. (And yes, I hope and pray that those arseholes of truckers are plagued with all sorts of engine, tire, code and law enforcement headaches for a looooong, loooong time.)
Interestingly enough, as you can see, he’s banded but I’ve not tried to examine the band yet; that can wait till he’s fully destressed. Nothing appears broken, and he’s eating well as of this morning, so the next step will be to check the band.
Where to begin? Let’s start with another “naming names” intake. Y’all know I don’t generally name names, not so much to protect the guilty as to keep myself from facing defamation lawsuits for calling out idiots. But when, as with last week’s eagle, people engage in praiseworthy acts, they deserve to be mentioned by name for doing the RIGHT thing.
Case in point: A young woman, Julie Pierce, had stopped at a local gas station and heard a trucker bragging about how he’d hit a hawk and mouthing off about what he was going to do to this injured bird. When Ms. Pierce went over to see how badly the hawk was injured, she found the sociopathic trucker and some of his equally sadistic buddies poking the bird with sticks, and the trucker who’d initially hit it threatened to run over it again. Ms. Pierce didn’t hesitate to wade into the middle of these pathetic excuses for humans and rescue the bird, calling around until she reached Game Warden Rodney Horne, who gave her the LWR number. I cannot begin to adequately express my admiration for and thanks to Ms. Pierce for rescuing this gorgeous, albeit highly stressed, red tail from the scum of the earth. (And yes, I hope and pray that those arseholes of truckers are plagued with all sorts of engine, tire, code and law enforcement headaches for a looooong, loooong time.)
Interestingly enough, as you can see, he’s banded but I’ve not tried to examine the band yet; that can wait till he’s fully destressed. Nothing appears broken, and he’s eating well as of this morning, so the next step will be to check the band.
His intake came on the heels of two DOA red tail intakes, and y’all know red tails are my favorite diurnal raptor, so it really stings to lose one, let alone two within 12 hours of each other.
The first DOA came from Monroe County, where the finders said they saw a woman standing by the road with the hawk, holding her phone, so they went on about their shopping. When they came back by, the woman was gone but the bird was still standing by the roadside. They rescued the bird and brought it to LWR the next morning. On arrival it was lethargic and rapidly losing body temperature. The inside of the beak was white rather than a healthy pink. Its keel was razor-sharp; there was quite literally no flesh on its breast. Despite supplemental heat and attempts to feed it a slurry, it didn’t last an hour after intake.
The first DOA came from Monroe County, where the finders said they saw a woman standing by the road with the hawk, holding her phone, so they went on about their shopping. When they came back by, the woman was gone but the bird was still standing by the roadside. They rescued the bird and brought it to LWR the next morning. On arrival it was lethargic and rapidly losing body temperature. The inside of the beak was white rather than a healthy pink. Its keel was razor-sharp; there was quite literally no flesh on its breast. Despite supplemental heat and attempts to feed it a slurry, it didn’t last an hour after intake.
That afternoon, the game warden brought me a late nestling/early brancher red tail from Laurens County who seemed alert and had no discernible injuries. She ate well and everything looked promising. The next morning she was dead. No clue why, unless there was internal bleeding from the fall.
In between those two DOAs, a late nestling/early brancher red shoulder from Toombs County came in. He’s doing well, despite a reluctance to self-feed. He wants the food but doesn’t want to be hand-fed and also doesn’t want to pick it up himself. We’re working on self-feeding because I’m tired of the mouthy rascal screaming in my ear as I hand-feed.
And yesterday, UGA transferred three birds to LWR for flight conditioning prior to release: two juvie red shoulders and a feisty and highly peeved second/third year red tail.
The osprey continues to keep my cousins busy fishing; he’s got about another three weeks before we try for follow-up rads to make sure his wing fracture healed well. And yes, I know, every week’s photo of him is a variation on the same pose. What can I say? He likes to look threatening, the big doofus.
The barreds are slated for release in that “low-to-no” window I mentioned earlier—both the juvies and the adult barred with the eye injury. He was moved into the main flight with the juvies late yesterday and is flying well despite lingering cloudiness in that eye.
The juvie red shoulder who’s been at LWR for a couple of weeks will then join the UGA red shoulders in the main flight for a week or so of flight conditioning, followed by (weather permitting) release.
Then we’ll move the two red tails into the main flight.
The screeches are eating their mice whole now and getting right footy when I reach in for their food dish. Pretty sure, based on size and general behavior, we have a male and a female. The male tends to hunker down; the female lunges right at my hand. And y’all know screeches are my favorite nocturnal raptor because of their pissy little attitudes, so they can get away with all sorts of shenanigans!
The screeches are eating their mice whole now and getting right footy when I reach in for their food dish. Pretty sure, based on size and general behavior, we have a male and a female. The male tends to hunker down; the female lunges right at my hand. And y’all know screeches are my favorite nocturnal raptor because of their pissy little attitudes, so they can get away with all sorts of shenanigans!
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