There are just some weeks that make you question your sanity, your skills, and your self-control. Everybody has one of those types of weeks at some point; all too often, rehabbers have ALL those weeks rolled into one. This was one of THOSE weeks…
It started badly when first thing Monday morning, the gorgeous little bluebirds who’d been doing so well had crashed overnight. One was dead; one was unresponsive and despite my best efforts, I couldn’t pull her back. She died before the end of the day.
The next day the two Carolina wrens who were thriving also crashed.
Then a mammal rehabber whom I don’t trust with birds—there are a few who are competent to triage birds before transporting them to me; I’ve mentioned those people here by name, and this person is NOT in that select group—called about a barred owl that she was sending to me the next day.
No problem there, but when the transporter showed up, he also brought a fledgling phoebe the finder had fed nothing after finding, on the mammal rehabber’s instructions. This had been the previous afternoon. It was nearly TWENTY-FOUR hours later that the poor phoebe reached me, and the damn mammal rehabber hadn’t fed the bird in the interim, so needless to say we had a dying bird on our hands. I tried fluids, low heat, and small and more frequent than usual meals and thought she’d turned the corner and might make it, but she crashed overnight.
People, rehabbers would prefer that you NOT feed wildlife because the wrong foods can kill it. But SO CAN STARVING IT TO DEATH. If you MUST keep a bird, in particular, overnight or for more than a couple of hours, please, PLEASE call a BIRD-LICENSED rehabber for emergency feeding advice. Do NOT rely on what you see online—too damn much of that crap is more “how to kill a bird in 24 hours or less.”
Oh, but the universe wasn’t through sucker punching me, not yet. Then some person contacted me with a photo of them using an ENORMOUS eyedropper to feed a mocker. I begged them to get the bird to me or another rehabber ASAP, as aspiration was a very real threat, plus I had no clue what crap Internet recipe was in that eyedropper. “Oh, I’ll get him to you this afternoon…”
By nightfall I didn’t have the bird, so I reported the person to DNR.
Then some crass person texted at 9:00 that night with a bird, trying to “bribe” me to come pick it up or meet halfway. I explained that nighttime is when I do my paying job and I was actually working and could NOT stop; I had a deadline to meet.
And let me offer this aside here: attempting to "bribe" me to come pick up your bird with vague promises of a "generous" donation quite frankly insults me, as it implies that without a donation I won't take the bird--reducing what I do out of a passion for wildlife to your crass "money is king" standards. I don't do this for money, as there's no profit to be made in wildlife rehab, nor do I do it out of any love for humanity; on the contrary, I have a great antipathy toward humanity as a whole and immense sorrow and anger at the unmitigated disaster we've made of nature. I'm a licensed wildlife rehabber because someone's got to care for the victims of man's stupidity and utter disregard for nature. That's it, plain and simple: I do what I do to try and correct your screwups where nature is concerned.
But back to our texter: I explained that the bird didn’t need to eat at night, so she could just get it to me ASAP in the morning.
Late that next morning, she informed me that she was sending it by the same person I’d reported the previous night for not bringing me THAT bird…
Yeah, my head nearly exploded, too. Thankfully, both birds did actually arrive and were only slightly worse for wear.
But wait, there’s more…THEN I get a long, semi-incoherent message from a teen who wanted to know AAALLLL about my facility: what I fed the birds, if they were released; could she come visit…See where this is heading? She had what she “thought” was a young red-shouldered hawk, and I could tell from the message she didn’t just find the bird recently.
When I called back, I got some cock-and-bull story about her “holding” the bird for a friend, but she slipped up when I asked her how long she’d had the bird: THREE WEEKS. Blood pressure skyrockets. What has she been feeding it for three damn weeks? BEEF. Apoplexy on the horizon…
Yeah, a growing bird that NEEDS the calcium and minerals from the bones of the prey its parents provide was fed BONELESS, STEROID-FILLED, ANTIBIOTIC-LACED BEEF for three. damn. weeks.
I explained, none too politely, that she was in violation of state and federal law, to say nothing of endangering the bird’s health. In tears, she promised to get the bird to me THAT DAY.
Good thing I didn’t hold my breath. She’s been reported to DNR and FWS, and all I can do is mourn for that poor bird, who probably already has MBD so bad that every time he moves he breaks a bone. I hope the authorities can get the bird, but honestly, they’re likely to take one look at its condition and euthanize on the spot. It’s out of my hands now…
So yeah, there you have it—this is a sampling of what rehabbers experience on an ongoing basis, along with the day-to-day feeding, cleaning and medicating of the critters under our care—and the euthansasias, and the vet trips that we must somehow squeeze in somewhere. And THIS is why we get short with you when you call and hem and haw and hedge about the wildlife you’ve found and want help for. GET IT TO US IMMEDIATELY, PERIOD—no ifs, ands or buts. Then we might actually smile at you. Maybe.
And now that I’m done venting—for the moment—let’s move on to this week’s other events…
The flyers were released over the course of two nights; they didn’t all leave at once.
The phoebes are worrying me—they’re past fledging age but cannot seem to gain lift. They flap and flap but the best they’ve managed is to lift up a few inches off the nest or perch, and when I tried them in the flight pen, they just scooted along the ground. None of this bodes well for their eventual release, but I’m giving them time to see what develops.
It started badly when first thing Monday morning, the gorgeous little bluebirds who’d been doing so well had crashed overnight. One was dead; one was unresponsive and despite my best efforts, I couldn’t pull her back. She died before the end of the day.
The next day the two Carolina wrens who were thriving also crashed.
Then a mammal rehabber whom I don’t trust with birds—there are a few who are competent to triage birds before transporting them to me; I’ve mentioned those people here by name, and this person is NOT in that select group—called about a barred owl that she was sending to me the next day.
No problem there, but when the transporter showed up, he also brought a fledgling phoebe the finder had fed nothing after finding, on the mammal rehabber’s instructions. This had been the previous afternoon. It was nearly TWENTY-FOUR hours later that the poor phoebe reached me, and the damn mammal rehabber hadn’t fed the bird in the interim, so needless to say we had a dying bird on our hands. I tried fluids, low heat, and small and more frequent than usual meals and thought she’d turned the corner and might make it, but she crashed overnight.
People, rehabbers would prefer that you NOT feed wildlife because the wrong foods can kill it. But SO CAN STARVING IT TO DEATH. If you MUST keep a bird, in particular, overnight or for more than a couple of hours, please, PLEASE call a BIRD-LICENSED rehabber for emergency feeding advice. Do NOT rely on what you see online—too damn much of that crap is more “how to kill a bird in 24 hours or less.”
Oh, but the universe wasn’t through sucker punching me, not yet. Then some person contacted me with a photo of them using an ENORMOUS eyedropper to feed a mocker. I begged them to get the bird to me or another rehabber ASAP, as aspiration was a very real threat, plus I had no clue what crap Internet recipe was in that eyedropper. “Oh, I’ll get him to you this afternoon…”
By nightfall I didn’t have the bird, so I reported the person to DNR.
Then some crass person texted at 9:00 that night with a bird, trying to “bribe” me to come pick it up or meet halfway. I explained that nighttime is when I do my paying job and I was actually working and could NOT stop; I had a deadline to meet.
And let me offer this aside here: attempting to "bribe" me to come pick up your bird with vague promises of a "generous" donation quite frankly insults me, as it implies that without a donation I won't take the bird--reducing what I do out of a passion for wildlife to your crass "money is king" standards. I don't do this for money, as there's no profit to be made in wildlife rehab, nor do I do it out of any love for humanity; on the contrary, I have a great antipathy toward humanity as a whole and immense sorrow and anger at the unmitigated disaster we've made of nature. I'm a licensed wildlife rehabber because someone's got to care for the victims of man's stupidity and utter disregard for nature. That's it, plain and simple: I do what I do to try and correct your screwups where nature is concerned.
But back to our texter: I explained that the bird didn’t need to eat at night, so she could just get it to me ASAP in the morning.
Late that next morning, she informed me that she was sending it by the same person I’d reported the previous night for not bringing me THAT bird…
Yeah, my head nearly exploded, too. Thankfully, both birds did actually arrive and were only slightly worse for wear.
But wait, there’s more…THEN I get a long, semi-incoherent message from a teen who wanted to know AAALLLL about my facility: what I fed the birds, if they were released; could she come visit…See where this is heading? She had what she “thought” was a young red-shouldered hawk, and I could tell from the message she didn’t just find the bird recently.
When I called back, I got some cock-and-bull story about her “holding” the bird for a friend, but she slipped up when I asked her how long she’d had the bird: THREE WEEKS. Blood pressure skyrockets. What has she been feeding it for three damn weeks? BEEF. Apoplexy on the horizon…
Yeah, a growing bird that NEEDS the calcium and minerals from the bones of the prey its parents provide was fed BONELESS, STEROID-FILLED, ANTIBIOTIC-LACED BEEF for three. damn. weeks.
I explained, none too politely, that she was in violation of state and federal law, to say nothing of endangering the bird’s health. In tears, she promised to get the bird to me THAT DAY.
Good thing I didn’t hold my breath. She’s been reported to DNR and FWS, and all I can do is mourn for that poor bird, who probably already has MBD so bad that every time he moves he breaks a bone. I hope the authorities can get the bird, but honestly, they’re likely to take one look at its condition and euthanize on the spot. It’s out of my hands now…
So yeah, there you have it—this is a sampling of what rehabbers experience on an ongoing basis, along with the day-to-day feeding, cleaning and medicating of the critters under our care—and the euthansasias, and the vet trips that we must somehow squeeze in somewhere. And THIS is why we get short with you when you call and hem and haw and hedge about the wildlife you’ve found and want help for. GET IT TO US IMMEDIATELY, PERIOD—no ifs, ands or buts. Then we might actually smile at you. Maybe.
And now that I’m done venting—for the moment—let’s move on to this week’s other events…
The flyers were released over the course of two nights; they didn’t all leave at once.
The phoebes are worrying me—they’re past fledging age but cannot seem to gain lift. They flap and flap but the best they’ve managed is to lift up a few inches off the nest or perch, and when I tried them in the flight pen, they just scooted along the ground. None of this bodes well for their eventual release, but I’m giving them time to see what develops.
The barred owl mentioned above is doing well aside from still favoring his right eye a bit, so I’m holding him another few days.
The flight pen denizens of last week are still there, aside from the singleton Carolina wren, who did seize her chance at release. The eyedropper-fed mocker is also in the songbird flight now.
These three hatchlings—I think maybe mockingbirds—were found in a blueberry packing plant, nest and all, mixed in with the hand-picked berries. The worker who brought them thought they may have been there overnight; she wasn’t sure. Since they weren’t dehydrated on intake, I doubted that was the case, but there was no way to be sure. Sadly, they didn’t make it through the night.
And this adult female cardinal was found on the ground and brought to LWR after being kept for two days, lying in her own waste because she couldn’t move out of it. She needed euthanasia but handled things herself before I could euthanize, poor lady.
The leg-trap GHO still awaits follow-up x-rays but his lack of movement in that affected foot makes me think the tendon/ligament damage we were initially worried about is going to be a bigger factor for him than the leg fracture. He’s still refusing to flex that foot at all. Not good for a bird whose feet are his weapons…
The goslings continue to grow and are looking quite good.
This grackle was found in a yard near dark and the finder couldn’t locate the nest before work the next morning. Because of her work schedule, she was unable to bring the bird to me before 7:30 that evening, so a volunteer transporter got it to LWR within an hour of her call. Grackles are kinda awkward, gangly babies and even as adults they don’t have a pretty song, but their adult coloration compensates and then some!
The GHO trio remain as goofy as ever and might be in the raptor flight sooner than I’d anticipated.
The reason? The barred owl sextet are doing quite well and beginning to find their food wherever I hide it—which is a recent development; as of midweek I was still having to hand their food to them using feeding forceps if I didn’t wanna deal with ants everywhere at the next feeding. So now they just need to keep totally self-feeding and then pass a live prey test, and we’ll release them and move the GHOs in…like a Depression-Era flophouse with no pause between occupants…
Hoping for a better week this week—for my sanity, or what’s left of it, and the safety of the public!
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