What a week!

Despite uncooperative weather, last week was amazingly productive. Only two new intakes for the week, but LWR now has a raptor flight pen almost ready for  occupation!

Remember Cody Rogers, the Georgia Southern engineering senior who coordinated the group of volunteers in January who got the songbird flight pen up? He and a friend from his hometown, Tyson Krantz, my nephew Alex and his friend Aaron Baeumel busted their butts yesterday and got the raptor flight almost completely done. These hardworking young men continued by four-wheeler headlights after dark to get the last of the slats up, so that all we have left is the latticework roof, the hardware cloth on the top, sides and interior floor, and the door and roofing tin.

I don’t even know where to begin expressing my gratitude to Cody, Tyson, Alex and Aaron. I have, however, promised to name the first downy raptor intake of the year in Cody’s honor, as he coordinated both construction efforts and made these flight pens happen!

L-R: Tyson Krantz, Cody Rogers, Alex Bracewell

Alex and I finished with the hardware cloth predator guard in the songbird flight, so now we just need to get the door up on it.

The poor screech is still glaring at me from his nest box;  rain early last week and then frigid (for Georgia) temps thwarted his planned release. Toward the middle of this week, the weather’s actually supposed to be nice for several consecutive days, so fingers crossed we can get the peeved little fellow out then. Meanwhile, this is pretty much all I see of him:

This female house finch came in with a very advanced case of “finch eye”, or mycoplasmic conjunctivitis. It’s a highly contagious avian disease most often seen in birds who frequent feeders that aren’t cleaned regularly. In its early stages it’s treatable but by the time this poor girl came in, it was too late. I didn’t even have to euthanize; she died shortly after intake.

And finally, I love it when people work together for the benefit of an injured bird. Late Thursday, a UPS driver named Mike (didn’t get his last name) called and said he’d found a hawk by the side of the road. His route was nowhere near LWR, but he did have customer on his route he thought might be willing to meet me in Dublin with the bird. He said he’d ask her when he delivered her package and have her call me if she was willing to transport the hawk. Less than 10 minutes later Michelle called me and quite cheerfully agreed to bring me the hawk. Way to go, Mike and Michelle!

The hawk, an adult male red shoulder, had a massive concussion but surprisingly—and happily—no broken bones. He had a bit of a head tic to the right and was unable to stand, sitting back on his hocks with his feet balled. I gave him meds for pain and left him alone until the next morning.

Friday he was standing with his head tucked, so aside from medicating again and offering him a low perch, I just let him rest. Saturday—head still tucked most of the time; still no interest in food. It’s not unusual for a concussed raptor to refuse food for 24-48 hours, so I didn’t stress this guy out with force feeding.

Today he’s mostly kept his head untucked and is more alert, but now his head tic is more pronounced and to the left. He still won’t lower his head to pick up food, so I hand fed him earlier. He was resistant at first but pretty quickly decided he was hungry, as long as he didn’t have to lower that head!

We’ll be watching that head tic closely, as it indicates some sort of neurological issue. It may be just “fallout” from the concussion, or it may signal more serious problems. Right now,  I’m leaning toward lingering aftereffects of the concussion, but only time will tell.