’Twas the week before Christmas…

…and all through the house, the raptors were stirring, demanding their mouse. (With apologies to Clement  C. Moore, and I’m aware that’s grammatically incorrect, but it rhymes!)

Yeah, for the past two weeks it’s been a revolving door situation around here with raptors: owls out, hawks in…

But first, a reminder that we do have 2013 LWR calendar available through Lulu.com: http://www.lulu.com/shop/lwr-2013-calendar/calendar/product-20508997.html;jsessionid=9A82168D6909525E23A40D22846C7A80. It features full-color photos of 12 of this year’s intakes, one per month.  It may be too late for a Christmas gift,  but all proceeds ($10 per calendar) over Lulu.com’s printing fees will be used to support our rehab efforts in 2013. The more calendars we sell, the more funds we’ll have toward next year’s expenses, so feel free to buy several, and thanks to those of you who have already done so!

Now to your (ir)regularly scheduled update: The GHO from the last update didn’t make it through the night, sadly. The screech and barred owls were luckier; both were released. The screech didn’t hang around once I let go of him, but I did get one good shot of him just before I loosened my grip. He headed straight into the deepest, darkest brush immediately, which is a good sign.

The barred owl, as befits a larger predator, flew to the tree line of his release site and perched while he preened…

…and preened…

…before surveying his territory carefully.

The flyers are slated for release this week, weather permitting.

These three gray squirrels, app. 3 weeks old, came in last week. I can’t decide if they’re late fall babies or early winter babies. Either way, they’re struggling. The finder had them for a week, feeding them human baby formula, and called me only after they began looking dehydrated. They were dehydrated because they had diarrhea. I’ve said before, and I’ll reiterate yet again: HUMAN BABY FORMULA USES COW’S MILK. WILDLIFE CANNOT DIGEST COW’S MILK.  Odd, too, how people always manage to miraculously “discover” my number after they’ve nearly killed (or succeeded in killing) some poor wild critter(s) with well-intended but clueless kindness…

Folks, your FIRST response upon discovering distressed wildlife should be to contact a rehabber; sometimes there’s not even a need to “rescue” the critter in question. Had these babies been left near the tree their nest was in, there’s a very good chance Mama Squirrel would have come back for them and moved them to one of her alternate nests—squirrels have several nests at any given time. I’ve watched them do this before, and it’s one of those sights that’s well worth the viewing. As it is, a week of inappropriate nutrition and dehydration is taking its toll on these babies. They’re surviving but not yet thriving, and honestly, they may never thrive.

As the owls were exiting, the hawks began arriving. First was a first-year sharp-shinned hawk with a broken wing. Fortunately, the break was fairly close to mid-bone, so vet Shelley Baumann of Smalley’s Animal Hospital stabilized and wrapped the wing, and we joked about setting up a pool on how long she’d leave the bandages in place. Sharpies are accipiters: small, quick and very maneuverable raptors whose primary diet is songbirds. They’re also slightly psychotic. Okay, maybe more than slightly. Who’m I kidding? They’re little feathered nutcases!

This gal will eat ONLY white mice, which she pounces on with great gusto. I offered black and brown mice; she refused them, even when they were cut open. (Hey, I’m just happy she’s eating mice at all, since they’re not her normal diet!) She left her wing alone for a whole week, surprising us all; then politely stepped out of the wrappings. I re-wrapped. She’s out; I re-wrap…all weekend. Yesterday, I took her back in, and vet Peggy Hobby wrapped her wing so securely Houdini couldn’t’ve gotten free. Within 15 minutes she had twisted the bandages so that she’d forced her shoulder into an awkward hunched position. We decided it might be safer to just leave the wing unwrapped and hope she’d at least be still in her box while it continued to heal. So far she’s mostly cooperating…until her next psychotic episode…

This photo was taken before the sharpie started "unbandaging" herself.

This adult red shouldered hawk wasn’t as lucky. The finders reported seeing him hanging from baling twine (used to secure bales of hay or pinestraw). They cut him down but had not attempted to loosen the twine wrapped around his body.  It only took one look to see that his situation was not good. I rushed him to Smalley’s, where vet Peggy Hobby examined him and agreed that it was hopeless. In his struggles to free himself from the twine, he’d wrapped it like a tourniquet around his wing. As the circulation was cut off, the resultant pain and tingling led him to mutilate his own wing beyond repair.

Folks, another rant here: PLEASE MAKE SURE TO DISPOSE OF YOUR TRASH PROPERLY. FAILURE TO DO SO CAN HAVE LETHAL CONSEQUENCES FOR WILDLIFE. This was a healthy, well-fleshed bird that the finders had seen flying with his mate a few days earlier. Someone’s laxness in cleaning up their own mess cost this bird his life. That’s inexcusable.

And over the weekend, this gorgeous young female red tail came in. The finders saw her by the roadside, and when she didn’t fly away at their approach, they knew she was in trouble. They got her into a pet carrier and to me ASAP. One of the finders indicated that their neighbor, who raised pigeons, might have shot her, but there were no obvious signs of foul play. She did have a broken leg, but without x-rays it was impossible to say how bad the fracture was.

Yesterday, we got the x-rays, and—surprise, surprise—there was birdshot all up and down that leg. Birdshot is so small that it doesn’t leave obvious entry wounds; sometimes the wounds close up around the pellet with little bleeding at all. The break is so close to the joint that it’s impossible to splint without actually destabilizing it further, so she’ll be confined to a doughnut for the foreseeable future. Luckily, this is a red tail we’re talking about, so she’s being very cooperative. Because she can’t use her feet to tear her food, she needs hand-feeding bite-size chunks of rodent, which she’s willingly taking from me, which is good. When she stands on her good leg, she props the broken one on the side of the doughnut; when she’s tired of standing, she nestles down in the doughnut.  I’ll also be putting some egg-crate foam in for her to stand on in hopes of relieving the pressure on the good leg.

Will this work? Only time will tell. The lead pellets are small enough that they shouldn’t pose a serious health risk, and it’s my understanding that they usually work their way to the surface.  However, there’s still the very real risk of bumblefoot developing in the good foot from the stress of all her weight being on it.

Rant the third: People, I don’t care if you’re raising friggin’ gold-plated guinea hens, THERE’S NO EXCUSE FOR SHOOTING A HAWK. NONE. I’ve reported this bird’s shooting to the state and federal authorities, and it will be investigated. Since there were no eyewitnesses to the shooting, though, only suspicions, it will be difficult to make a case. I know that, and that makes me even more infuriated, as the cretin who shot this bird deserves a similar fate, in my book. It’s my sincere hope that well-deserved karma bites this hawk’s shooter in the butt, very soon and very publicly.

Here’s hoping you have a merrier Christmas than this gorgeous lady will…