“Winter is the cruelest season…”

​With apologies to T.S. Eliot, whose original line was “April is the cruelest month…” For rehabbers, winter is generally an awful season, as so few of our intakes can be saved. Yes, the carnage continued this week, as well, but the week ended with an impossibly adorable and amazingly uninjured visitor.

Let’s get the carnage out of the way first, shall we? On Monday, three birds came in back to back, all with injuries requiring a vet visit on Tuesday.

A screech owl had been found in a ditch over the weekend; his wing was broken and I pretty much knew from my initial physical exam it wasn’t fixable. Sure enough, x-rays at Smalley’s confirmed his wing was shattered and showed lead residue from a gunshot, although we found no open wounds. The GSW was reported to both GA DNR and US FWS.

Because vet Peggy Hobby and I both adore screeches, we discussed the possibility of this little male being an educational bird, and I even brought him home with the goal of working with him for that purpose, as screeches are fairly easy to place with educational facilities. However, even with pain meds, it was obvious the wing was causing too much pain, so he was euthanized.

Next up was a great horned owl, found by a roadside. One eye was filled with blood, the pupil in the other remained unnaturally dilated, and his wing was also broken, although it didn’t feel like as bad a fracture as the screech’s. Again, x-rays showed a pretty nasty break. The dilated pupil responded to light, but Peggy said that didn’t necessarily mean the retina was functioning properly. The left, blood-filled eye was still so cloudy that she couldn’t determine how much damage was done.
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Tired of euthanizing, we opted to give this guy a chance, as well, knowing it was a crap shoot and that the odds were against the bird making any degree of recovery that would allow release. Still, it was worth a try, right? As with the screech, it was after I’d brought the GHO back home that the futility of our actions became apparent. He was quite literally blind in one eye and couldn’t see out of the other. He was also euthanized.

Rounding out the trifecta of carnage, a gorgeous late first-year/early second-year red-tailed hawk came in after a couple found him in the bushes around their house. They said they had a picture window, but he wasn’t found near it. Upon further questioning, they also said they had a resident mated pair of GHOs—and GHOs and RTs are about each other’s only predators in the wild. Given that this is nesting season for GHOs, perhaps this hapless RT wandered into their territory and one of the GHOs gave chase, causing the RT to slam into the side of their house—that seems a logical explanation.
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At any rate, he was unable to stand and exhibited slightly labored breathing.  He was also unable to spread his wings or flare his tail. X-rays showed no fractures to the wings or pelvis, but his head was twisted to the side and looked a bit odd, so we did another x-ray of just his neck, straightened—and there it was: his neck was broken. He was also euthanized.

However, the week ended with the intake of a dog-attacked tufted titmouse. When his rescuers called, I cringed, fully expecting another unsaveable bird. To my surprise—and delight, as I adore titmice—this feisty little bird was only missing a few tail feathers, some feathers on his left wing and most of his flight feathers on the right wing. He’s eating well and while he’s not “cussing” at me yet—a trait titmice are well-known for—he is chirping as he hops about his cage. They’re pretty fearless little birds, so having him as a guest while his feathers grow back should be a real treat.

Both “ongoing” red-tails continue to do well; the female is slated to be transferred to colleague Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends soon, so she can get some time in a flight pen and be released—recall, if you will, that my raptor flight is currently full of overwintering barnies and my songbird flight is totally unsuited for use with raptors.  The male will probably go in for follow-up x-rays in the coming week, and as well as his wing fracture was healing at the last checkup, I fully expect the vets to give him “flight clearance” this time.

The flyers were unusually cooperative as far as photos this week, maybe because I gave them some yucca rounds to gnaw on. Yucca is soft but it will help keep those ever-growing rodent teeth worn down as they gnaw on it. They have a piece of antler to gnaw on but have been ignoring it; the yucca, however was a huge hit.

​And the barnies are getting increasingly restless, perhaps sensing that their release is now mere weeks away. Spring is not that far away, and with it, the beginning of baby season—again!