Vulture release!

The black vulture twins finally feathered out enough to release and, well, let the games begin! Those of y’all who’ve been with LWR for a few years now remember the fun we had with the previous vulture twins. These two are proving just as intelligent, nosy and mischievous—they’re into EVerything!

So I might’ve gone just a wee bit overboard with vulture pix, but LOOK at those gorgeous babies—just LOOK at ‘em!

With the vultures out of the mini-pen, the screeches moved in. The adults are going through a molt at the moment so they look a bit rough, especially the red phase male.

The poor juvie just looks shell-shocked; it’s his first time outside since coming into rehab as a downy baby.

The MIKI has moved into a larger box and I’m trying to keep the raptor flight open for him, as probably by the end of next week, he’ll be ready to begin flight conditioning in it.

The string of euthanasias continued with two red shoulders four days apart. The first had been pulled from a truck grille and while there were no open wounds, his wing was shattered at the shoulder and his hip was in just as bad a shape.

The second red shoulder had an open wing fracture.

A juvenile Cooper’s hawk—or possibly sharp-shinned hawk—came in early in the week, a probable window-strike victim. His weight suggested sharpie but his body length suggested Coop. Despite a steroid injection, he never regained use of his legs, although he could flare his wings and flick his tail. His breathing remained labored, as well. I was debating a second steroid injection or just euthanizing but he took care of it himself, checking out between meals.

And in what has to be one of the funniest cases of species misidentification I’ve seen in a while, this mocker came in identified as a magpie. A caller from the local Air Force base said they had an injured magpie. Well, magpies are Western birds; we don’t have them in Georgia—at least not naturally or legally. But the caller’s number showed as from a Western state, so...hmmm...Silly me didn’t ask for a photo.

Volunteer raptor transporter and licensed small mammal rehabber Charydi Gambill works on the base and was as curious as me about a supposed magpie in Georgia so, like me, she didn’t ask for a photo; she just picked up the...mocker. When she sent me the photo of the juvenile mocker she said she didn’t really see anything wrong with it but was bringing it anyway.

Sure enough, the independent juvenile had no injuries, but because we had a massive thunderstorm sweep through that afternoon, the “mocker-pie” wasn’t released until the next morning. And Charydi and I had a good laugh—much-needed this time of year.