Winter one night, spring the next—our wildlife must be SO confused!

Georgia’s weather alternates weekly—sometimes daily— this time of year, so one night we hear frogs and crickets and I see a lone bat flitting about at dusk; the next night it’s frigid out and nearly dead silent...The wildlife HAS to be confused; I know I am!

Only one new intake last week—one of the local game wardens brought a barred owl that had been caught on a barb-wire fence. His wing was pretty rough looking and raw but nothing was broken and he was alert and active, albeit a bit thin, so the plan was to treat the wing and hope there was no tendon or ligament damage. Unfortunately, he died the night of intake. We don’t actually know how long he hung from the fence before being discovered, and we’d just had a couple of near-freezing nights, so exposure and stress were most likely contributing factors.

The mature red tail is in the main flight and slowly regaining his flight skills. He’s gone from unable to gain lift to flying in short spurts at the full height of the flight in under a week, so if he continues to progress at this rate, within a couple of weeks, he should be good for release.

And of course, the screech remains pissy. It’s a particularly endearing screech character trait and a large part of the reason raptor rehabbers love screeches. If the weather has warmed up enough by early- to mid-March, he’s good to go, so he’s got another month or so at LWR to give me daily stink-eye...