It seems the blizzard has ended, and today was nice and sunny. The extended weather forecast looks good. Today was a good day to release Doreen’s red-tailed hawk back to the golf course and Moe the Crow back to Palmer Lake. Volunteer Dana Morgan brought Moe back home to release with the family that rescued him from the hawk, and it was a good release; Moe the Crow Was Happy to Go! We’ll post release pix when they arrive.
Sharon O’Toole took the good pix while Tom O’Toole and his helper Natalie release the hawk back to the golf course area where he and his friend Dave picked the bird up, from Doreen after an October ice storm.
Tom O’Toole e-mailed me this picture of what appears to be a sharp-shinned hawk sitting on the fence near his bird feeders. Tom mentions this hawk is a year-round resident!
Okay, the wind’s still blowing and it’s pretty cold outside. But are we done with the snow for a while? Back-to-back blizzards, 2 in the space of a week, have left it pretty messy around here. We had just put the critters outside on Christmas Day, then had to bring back in 2 days later because of the next round of snow! Now we have to dig out AGAIN and put them all back , and get some releases taken care of as well. Does this mean the drought is over? I think I’m ready to move to Arizona or Hawaii now…….
Yep, that’s what they’re calling for-AGAIN! We’re not even dug out from the first one. Interesting, though. We have lots of snow and 7-foot drifts, yet the prairie is almost bare.
We spotted several northern harriers in Lincoln County, coming back from Hugo.
Deceptively barren-looking, the plains are beautiful and teeming with life.
Hugo appears to be another victim of the blizzard last week. He was found out in Hugo, ‘way east of us in Lincoln County, by Mary and her friend, who spotted him sitting in the road there Wednesday morning, at the beginning of the blizzard. They picked him up (pretty brave!) and wrapped him in a coat, and took to their friend Rick Mooney. By that time, the blizzard was in full swing. Rick tried to locate somebody licensed to care for the bird, but there was no getting in or out for days, and with the approaching Holiday, even more difficult to find help. Rick did his best to care for the bird; minimal handling, trying to provide food, which the owl didn’t take. Rick eventually got in touch with Pueblo State Patrol, who contacted Nancy Kelly, a fine wildlife rehabber in Pueblo, who contacted me to take the bird, figuring Hugo is closer to Ellicott than to Pueblo. Well, it was still almost impossible to get in or out due to drifting snow, but Rick took it upon himself to drive all the way out to Ellicott, in the snow and icy roads, with the bird and hike the owl all the way up the long, drifted driveway. Hugo appeared to be in pretty good shape when he arrived here to Ellicott Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, maybe just a bit dehydrated, which we promptly remedied. Hugo has no fractures, soft tissue damage, or other apparent injuries. I’m guessing he was maybe just buffeted about by the wind a bit, and perhaps lightly tagged by a car. He is full of owl attitude, eating well, flying and landing well, restless, and will be released shortly.
Released 12/2006
Happy Holidays from all of us at EWRC, including Cinnabon and Chica! We adopted Cinnabon 6 years ago from Dreampower Animal Rescue, and Chica came to us via Anita Bush and the Humane Society almost 4 years ago. Cinnabon is neutered and Chica is spayed. Chica has a built-in pillow-that enormous dewlap under her chin! Neither rabbit is, was, or ever will be wild. And FYI, rabbits are VERY HARD WORK!!
Jan and Mike, our dedicated Volunteers of the Month December, showed up this afternoon to help dig out the cages! This is after they dug themselves out and the local airstrip as well. I can’t even believe it! They had to park all the way down the long drive, walk quite a distance up and over drifts, to get to the cages. And now they are going to shovel the cages out so we can open the doors and put the animals back outside-YAY!
Yesterday while we were all still working on digging out after the blizzard, Laura from Palmer Lake called me with a different problem. Laura was outside refilling her bird feeders when right in front of her face, a hawk came down and grabbed a crow! Laura scared the hawk off the crow, but not before he took a chunk from the crow’s back. Laura brought the injured crow inside and proceeded to make him warm and comfortable. She was concerned about the wounds in the crow’s back, and she and her husband decided “Moe the Crow Gotta Go!” Laura found us at EWRC in the phone book and called. I told her that normally we’d get out there and pick up the bird right away but due to the snow she may need to wait a day or two until we could get out. I called Dana M., DOW Transport Volunteer who lives in Monument, and she immediately arranged to go pick up the crow and bring to Ellicott Wildlife Rehab. Moe the Crow is looking pretty perky and is eating well, and as soon as his wounds have healed and he can fly, he will go back to Laura’s yard in Palmer Lake, as crows-and generally corvids-are tight family units.
Released, and thank you Dana for taking him back home!
…and this is why we sometimes need to bring them in! The taller cages, like the DOW cages below, are fine. They do get tall drifts but the critters can be up above them, and on one of a couple of sheltered ends.
However, the shorter closures (6-8 feet) don’t fare so well.
Inside the door of one of the cages (below.)
Inside a different door. See the difficulty getting inside to move the critters out?
Outside a cage-you can’t see it because of the snow!
Again, see inside of the door (below.)
Inside a cage.
I’m happy to report that all the critters survived the ferocious blizzard that hammered us for 48 hours, although we had a big scare. Early on in the storm, Phil and I were outside, trying to round up all the critters in outside enclosures to bring inside, reason being the snow inside these structures can drift up to the ceiling, burying the animals. The storm hit hard and fast. Some enclosures we couldn’t even get to. The wind was howling and the snow blowing so hard it was blinding. Upon reaching the enclosure housing 2 kestrels, both ready for release pending extended good weather, I noticed by the door a pile of snow with a tail sticking out. Oh, no. This was very bad. Typically the kestrels sleep in the kestrel boxes when the weather gets cold. I wondered how this bird ended up out of the box and all the way across the cage, on the ground, buried in snow. Maybe he’d been sleeping on a perch and got blown off by the wind, unable to orient himself and get back up in the dark? I brushed the snow off and picked the bird up, holding him inside my coat against me until I could make it back to the house. I placed him in a fleece blanket, keeping a close eye on him to see he was staying dry and warm. I figured he was a goner, as there was no movement at all. But we have to try, and we must always provide comfort and supportive care, no matter what! Well, after a couple of hours, I was surprised when he flew up off of the blanket and perched himself under a heating vent, and proceeded to groom and fluff. After he was thoroughly warm, dry, alert, and comfortable he was moved to a kennel in the ICU room, where later on in the day he was able to take warm food, feeding himself. I’m happy to say, today he looks like a million bucks and seems to be doing fine! I call this a miracle.
This is the worst I’ve experienced since I’ve lived here. It came on so fast and so HARD, it was unbelievable! Our county was declared a disaster area. The entire eastern portion of our state was declared emergency by the governor. We knew we needed to get out and bring in the animals we could reach, and it was terrifying. The wind was so strong it literally sucked our breath away-felt worse than an asthma attack. Visibility was zero; within a few steps from the door, we could no longer see the house. Our eyes were stung by blowing ice and our lashes frozen almost shut. Our boots were sucked off our feet. The enclosures we were able to get to after fighting drifts along the way created another problem-drifts several feet high behind the doors, on the inside, prevented our being able to open the doors to remove the birds. Fortunately, these were the taller enclosures and we could see the birds were safe and okay, perched high up on the sheltered end. Today the storm is supposed to wind down and move out, and we can’t wait; we’ve had a FULL HOUSE since early yesterday, having had to bring in the animals in shorter enclosures so they wouldn’t be buried in drifts. A very scary time! Fortunately-so far-we still have electricity.
Snow drifted up the front of the house; we couldn’t get out the door.
This drift reached to the top of the barn.
Hard to see, but here a drift almost covers the Jeep.
What a huge bummer! Each year we like to light the place up; lights EVERYWHERE. Each year we buy more lights and lighted stars to hang in the trees. Today we went to our storage unit on Highway 94 to get all the lights and stuff out to decorate outside, and some loser/losers had broken in and stolen all the Christmas lights and stuff, and ruined everything else in the unit. We can kind of understand theft-not that it’s okay by any means- but this senseless vandalism is beyond me! Shame on them.
So if you have any holiday lights you’re not using and you’d like to donate so we can do “Christmas right” here, please call us. 719-683-8152
The other day a very nice lady named Claude called me. She’s been trying to get some answers from Parks and Recreation and the City of Colorado Springs, as well as various animal agencies, regarding some concerns she has about the proliferation of geese strolling about Memorial Park.
She is concerned because she observes people feeding these birds all day long, and sees them feeding the birds bread, which is really not good for geese and can cause SERIOUS problems for the birds if the bread is moldy. She worries about the health of the birds. I know those “park birds” have problems, as I see them come through my facility with various problems; tangled in fishing line, fish hooks caught in the throats, wounds from predators (including people,) respiratory ailments, and other problems.
The other concern she relates is simply the mess created by the geese. It seems a lot of these birds have it so good in our area they’re not too inclined to migrate, as some other geese do. This and the separate, sadder problem that people get goslings and ducklings as pets and tire of them, and dump them at the park to “be free” (free meals for predators, I’m thinking.) Anybody that has spent any amount of time around geese and water birds knows of the significant amount of droppings these birds create, and this poor lady no longer enjoys walking through the park because after months of carefully stepping around goose droppings each time she went for a walk, she apparently slipped on some goose poop and that was it for her-no more walks in that park.
Thus began her exercise in frustration and futility; trying to find out who is responsible for maintaining Memorial Park and would that entity be receptive to posting signs asking people not to feed the geese and why it’s not a good idea?
This is one of those hot topic issues, and I can sort of see both sides of the issue. On the one hand, it’s nice to spend some time feeding the critters and feeling like you’ve “helped” them. There are times when wild critters DO need our help; from a respectful, responsible distance, and helping appropriately. On the other, looking at the bigger picture, it seems to me that perhaps we’re interfering a little bit. I see what happens when we start feeding wild critters, which in turn attracts the larger critters and predators. Sooner or later someone has had enough of it and looks to authorities to come solve the problem, sometimes to the demise of the animal. Once the critter numbers are high and their antics not quite so adorable, once the larger predators start showing up regularly, my phone begins ringing with people looking for ways to get rid of these animals that had they been left alone, may have moved on and stayed self-sufficient and healthy.
Anyway, the lady spent her day on the phone, calling various agencies around town. I told her that I’ve seen the signs she mentions in other parks around the Denver metro area but I have no idea who to contact in the ‘Springs. I’m thinking that so many people enjoy feeding geese; for a lot of folks, it’s the only interaction they have with wildlife. Feeding the geese seems to makes the geese happy, too. But there is such a thing as “too much of a good thing” and who knows, maybe we’ve disrupted the balance of nature and have reached our goose max at our city parks?
And if you’d like to help wildlife, how about building, hanging, and maintaining bird nesting boxes:
Bluebird boxes for the Bluebird Trail
Kestrel boxes
Barn Owl boxes
Bat boxes
Wood Duck boxes
Flicker boxes (might just keep them from drilling on your house!!)
Visit us at http://www.ellicottwildlife.com/ and click on TIPS to find more ideas on how to help wildlife.
I received a packet yesterday from Diana Biggs, science teacher at Jenkins Middle School. Inside were pictures and poetry from the students that we visited a few weeks ago with Handsome and Nate, Educational Ambassadors. I could tell upon reviewing these papers that the students didn’t miss any detail of these birds’ stories and they also learned about the particular adaptations these birds have that help them survive in the wild. It was really tough deciding, as all were wonderfully written and drawn, but here are a few examples of the talented work of this class! P.S. Congratulations on winning the Science Bowl!!
Pretty impressive, wouldn’t you say? Thanks, guys!!
Yesterday was a wonderful day! After healing from her fractured wing, “Hawk Hill Hawk” was ready for release back to Calhan, where she came from originally. She flew up to a tree where she sat for a few moments to gather her bearings, then she took off back down to the pond, where her family of red-tailed hawks congregates year-round. Rebecca from Channel 12 drove all the way down from Denver, and talk about a nice lady, not to mention humerous!! Sue from Indigo Mountain Nature Center was present as well, and we appreciate the time, drive, and everything else.
“Hawk Hill” looks around as Terry observes how much better she looked today than when he first picked her up.
And this beautiful bird surveys her surroundings before heading down to the pond.
Our “Feathers and Fur” program, Preserving the Balance of Nature, went well. We were a small group of attendees and everyone present was already pretty familiar with this territory! The “Feathers” portion of our program fell asleep in his kennel when the lights were put out for the Power Point, and he remained asleep the entire time!! Indigo Mountain Nature Center brought a very beautiful and well-behaved coydog, Maya, and she was the star. A big THANK YOU to Gail, who prepared the pinecones and baked cookies, obtained and wrapped door prizes for the program; to Frank and Wild Bird Center for donating quality birdseed for the pinecones; to Debbie and Diana for setting up and doing the speaking part of the program; and to Cheryl and Phil, Heilke, Diana, and Debbie for their generous contributions to EWRC and Indigo Mountain Nature Center to help feed the critters in our care! We’re glad Matt came, too, as he was lots of fun and did the doorprize drawing. Thank you to the DOW for letting us borrow the room, laptop, and projector for the program!
Diana meets Maya, IMNC coydog, while Carol observes the interaction.
Last week was record-setting cold weather. Today it was almost 60 degrees-a perfect day for James M. and Scout Troop 62 to come back and complete the project-a new outdoor enclosure for wildlife! This is a great example of good leadership and planning; everything went very smoothly and with very few complications. Everything fit well and the guys did very meticulous work, and finished up before 2. We appreciate all the time, energy, effort, and good work the guys did and can’t wait to put somebody in there!! Scout Troop 62 has been VERY good to us-several of these guys have done several projects for us and we truly appreciate it!
Getting wire on the sides…
Dan and Kyle do some J-clipping…
Putting the roof on….
James and Dad, Scott, work on wiring around the posts.
The completed project!
Join Ellicott Wildlife Rehabilitation Center and Indigo Mountain Nature Center on December 11th at 6:30 pm when we will talk about the balance of nature. Meet Educational Ambassadors. Make a pinecone bird feeder. This program is free. Visit http://www.ellicottwildlife.com/ for details!
Posted here with permission of the Colorado Division of Wildlife.
CONSIDER WILDLIFE WHEN DECORATING FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Everyone enjoys seeing brightly lit, festively decorated homes of the holiday season. Most of us would never guess that these decorations can be a serious hazard to wildlife, especially deer and elk.
Each year, wildlife officers are called about problems with animals caught in wired lights or decorations stuck on animals’ horns, antlers or legs. Most of these incidents can be prevented by following a few simple tips on where and how to use decorations.
- Wait to put up outdoor lights on posts, shrubs or small trees until after the peak of the deer rut, sometime after the first week of December.
-Trees with trunk diameters of two to six inches are most likely to be rubbed by bucks which entangle lights in their antlers – only string lights on larger diameter trees.
-Use multiple short strands of wire plugged together versus one long strand so that if animals become entangled they will have less wire to deal with.
-Avoid stringing lights “clothesline” style across areas — firmly attach lights to tree limbs, gutters, or fence posts.
-Place some flagging along the wired decorations so that deer can see where the wire is and avoid entanglement.
These ideas can also apply to general yard planning year-round. Wildlife can also benefit from:
-Removing volleyball nets from their posts during the winter – don’t wrap nets around the post, as animals may still be enticed to rub their antlers on it and get caught.
-Disconnecting and storing water hoses, tomato cages and other gardening materials (netting, stakes, ties, etc.) until spring.
-Taking down and storing hammocks and swings when not in use.
-Flagging or removing empty clotheslines until they are needed.
-Fencing yards with animals in mind, as illustrated at: http://wildlife.state.co.us/NR/rdonlyres/196BDD6A-8246-4577-8A7D-598EB149061C/0/fencing.pdf
One of the greatest hazards to an entangled animal can be a well-meaning citizen who comes too close. The Division of Wildlife (DOW) cautions people not to approach or try to help an entangled animal. Greater injury to the animal or injury to the person may result. Precaution is the preferred tool to problem-solving.
Capturing and handling animals can be very stressful to them and can result in fatalities. Because of this, the DOW generally does not remove objects from animals unless the object is impeding the animal’s travel (legs lashed together), has completely blocked the animal’s vision, or is around the animal’s jaw, neck or chest where constriction will affect survival. However, animals which have become attached to each other because of manmade materials do need DOW’s assistance, as this kind of entanglement can result in death. In the case of deer and elk with wire or other non-life threatening materials on the antlers, the problem usually comes off each year when antlers are shed. (See Durango Herald story: http://www.durangoherald.com/asp-bin/article_generation.asp?article_type=news&article_path=/news/06/news061126_1.htm)
Thank you for your help in keeping wildlife safe this holiday season and throughout the year!
The Colorado Division of Wildlife is the state agency responsible for managing wildlife and its habitat, as well as providing wildlife related recreation. The Division is funded through hunting and fishing license fees, federal grants and Colorado Lottery proceeds through Great Outdoors Colorado.
For more information about Division of Wildlife go to: http://wildlife.state.co.us/.
Scott e-mailed some pictures today that he said we could post here and share, and sharing is good! Scott and his son, Kermie, have been busy making woodpecker feeders and made about 10 or so; logs drilled full of holes, then filled with some good woodpecker suet. Since completing the feeders, they’ve needed to be filled several times daily!
A downy woodpecker enjoys some suet…
…and a flicker, too!
Scott was doing some sheetrock work in Colorado Springs one night and saw this gray fox.
