Typical slow winter week

With only two intakes, it was a fairly normal winter week.

Today’s intake is a barred owl with a broken left wing. It feels mid-bone but it’s still too swollen to be sure, as he was found in the road this morning in a county south of LWR. He’s also still very woozy, as you can see below. (That's his third eyelid showing in the photos.)

Last week’s surviving barred is in the mini-pen now, where he prefers the ground still but will use a low perch occasionally. He’s still got some head trauma going on, and it’s causing issues with depth perception.

Mid-week a first-year red tail came in with what initially appeared to be bumblefoot—a wounded foot that had gotten infected. Closer examination and input from several colleagues led to the conclusion he actually had avian pox, a highly contagious (to other birds) viral disease. The general consensus was his was a treatable case, although it would be a lengthy process. However, he also had a large wound above his tail that smelled infected and looked partially necrotic—my fear was that would be the deciding factor in his fate.

I cleaned the dirt and muck off his feet so I could more clearly see how bad they were and started oral and topical antibiotics for both the pox and the base-of-tail wound. He had to be hand-fed but he did eat a large mouse, so I was fairly optimistic he had a fighting chance—he was alert and aggressive despite not being able to stand on those poxy feet.

Sadly, he died during the night. And yes, as red tails and screeches are among my favorite raptors, I did more than a fair amount of cussin’ over losing him...

The screech who came in the week of Christmas with a wing fracture is doing well. He footed the fool out of me yesterday when I was freshening up his box, but hey, he’s a screech. I’ve seldom handled a screech who didn’t draw blood; they’re just vicious little snots that I love dearly. As I’ve said repeatedly, if screeches were as big as they think they are, I’d never go outside again at night!

He needs about another month for that wing to fully heal; the fracture was close to the joint so we’ll have to wait and see, but I’m hopeful it’ll heal for flight and not freeze the joint.