Typical mixed week

As is the norm in wildlife rehab, the past week at LWR saw status quo for some critters and releases of various kinds for others.
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Let’s start with the release: the Coop…ummm, pardon the pun…flew the coop so fast I barely got a video of the release, and no post-release photos because he headed straight into the woods and disappeared!

It’s always with a sigh of relief that I release Coops; they’re known for slamming themselves into flight walls and breaking their necks, so the sooner they’re outta here, the better—that’s my philosophy, anyway, and the Coops seem to share it!
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The barred owl with the blood-filled eye is now in the raptor flight and slated for release within the next couple of days. His eye is almost normal-looking now, he can fly well, and he’s able to find his food no matter where I place it in the raptor flight—in other words, he’s good to go.

No new pix of the male red-tail recovering from a wing fracture, but he’s doing well and will go in for follow-up x-rays in the next week or so to see how things look. He’s a typical laid-back red-tail, though, and hasn’t done anything stupid to aggravate the injury, so I expect gorgeous calluses on his next x-ray.
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Unfortunately, this young female RT, probably early second year, wasn’t as fortunate and required euthanasia. She came in with both wings fractured—both open fractures. If you’re wondering what could have led to fractures of both wings, my theory is that she tangled with a great horned owl and lost. GHOs and RTs are both apex predators and, aside from man, about each other’s only real threats. This is the time of year in Georgia for GHOs to be pairing off; by next month there should be eggs in their nests. Maybe this RT wandered too close to established GHO territory or a nest—who knows? I discussed my theory with Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends raptor rehab, and he agrees it seems the most likely explanation. Nature is truly red in tooth and claw…

​Speaking of GHOs, this gorgeous male came in the same day as the doomed RT—no, not from the same area; that would’ve been a bit too coincidental, right?!—with a nasty case of capillaria. It was so bad the inside of his beak was almost white. As a reminder, capillaria are worms that raptors pick up from their prey. The worms fill the crop, and the bird starves to death because it feels full. Fortunately, although he was weak and thin, he was found in time for the treatment to work and his appetite now is typical GHO bottomless pit. He’d like to leave LWR immediately but has one more treatment in a few days—and he needs to fatten up a bit—before he can bid us adieu. Try explaining that to a GHO, though…they’re known for their aggression, not their smarts!

​The flyers are just hangin’ in there, overwintering in style. They’re getting more skittish about the camera, though, so photos might be fewer over the next couple of months. We’ll see…

And the barnies are essentially fully feathered and self-feeding, although I’m still having to cut open their mice. We tried whole mice for a couple of days and they weren’t happy. The plan is to move them to the raptor flight as soon as possible, but the barred has to be released first, and then the GHO needs a turn to build his strength back up, and once the RT gets vet clearance, he’ll need some time to regain use of that healed wing…I really need a second raptor flight. In the meantime, we’ll just keep playing fruitbasket turnover, switching birds in and out…

​Oh, and early notice—there will be no update on Dec. 25. I’ll post it on the 26th instead. I’ll remind y’all next week, too. I’d hope y’all have better things to do than sit at your computer Christmas Day, anyway!