 Baby Season
Baby
season is something we usually look forward to after a winter of trauma
and starvation cases. But this year babies were late, few in
number, and often broken, themselves. We cancelled our ‘baby
shower’ again this year - the youngsters refusing to follow the
calendar we’d laid out for them, and then coming in few and far
between. I hate losing babies or, worse yet, having to euthanize
them. But we had a badly electrocuted great horned owl fledgling
and a severely damaged red-tail hawk fledgling that had really been
smashed up by a car that we had to euthanize. A fledgling screech
owl - nice and plump and doing very well - until he was hit by a car
and left in the road. He died within an hour of coming in. And a
gorgeous, almost-fledged male peregrine falcon who must have gotten
separated from his parents, as he was severely emaciated when we got
him from Blue River. He died overnight. We did get a wonderfully
feisty, plump pygmy owl fledgling - found simply standing in the middle
of a gravel road. He probably bounced off a car - and his very
kind and conscientious finders - visitors from San Diego, CA - drove
him all the way into town from Cougar Reservoir, where they were
camping.
We did not get many very young babies this year - with the exception of
a great horned owl whose nest we simply could not find and one we were
able to get back to its nest. For the former, thanks to our
volunteers who spent several hours and two different days tramping
through the woods, playing baby begging calls on their lap top, hoping
to call in an adult; for both, thanks to Scott Altenhoff, arborist, for
climbing a possible nest tree for the first and successfully returning
the second to its sibling in the nest. We got some 'brancher'
screech owls and one brancher Coopers hawk - all doing fine.
Several older barn owl youngsters are moving their way through Mouse
University; six have already been released and more are in line.
Some screech owls are moving their way through; one baby came in badly
bruised from the fall but not broken. One badly broken up
red-tailed hawk nestling has been leavening our days with laughter,
though.
She fell from the nest when she was just about 16 days old; two siblings had fallen previously
and been killed. We suspect that maybe the parents are new to
this nest-building business and cwe an only hope they get better with
age! The survivor came in with two broken wings and though the
humeral fracture in the right wing seems to have healed well, she lost
about 3/4" from both the radius and ulna in the left wing. Our
deep gratitude to Dr Cameron Jones from Amazon Park Animal Clinic
for pinning both wings. We still have doubts that this bird will
be releasable, though she’s surprising us with her extension and
ability to get around. The healing power of young bones is phenomenal -
so we definitely are just waiting to see. In the meantime, we
enjoy watching her antics as she explores and practices her pouncing
skills.
We also have received two non-releasable young barn owls as education
birds. Young raptors are like kittens, or any young animal -
playful, exploratory, clumsy, endearing. It’s not that often we get
youngsters in that we get to play with and watch grow up, as we usually
try not to socialize them. Nani has done her first on-site
programs, and Soren has been off-site as well. They have the
attention span of any youngster, but they both are doing very
well! Check out their personal stories at
http://www.eraptors.org/rr_barnOwl.htm and come visit them! |
