FedEx driver Jennifer called from Peyton yesterday. As she was doing her route, she found a little bird in the road, apparently having suffered a car hit. She brought the bird to Ellicott and the bird is a female crossbill with, of course, major head trauma. She looks a little better today and is trying to pull pine nuts out of her pinecones, eating seed, and sleeping.
Monday was a beautiful warm sunny day for a change! We were scheduled to visit the FCNC Day Campers for a raptor program and decided with Nancy’s help that the locale was also exactly the right place to release Woody, a wood duck we had raised from golfball-sized duckling found in a downtown Colorado Springs bank lobby last July. The large group of Day Campers assisted with Woody’s release (video will be in our Video Gallery soon,) and we watched the happy duck swim toward a marshy area complete with wood duck boxes, where he was soon joined by a curious American Coot.
Nate called from Fountain Fire Station 1 after an injured American Kestrel was brought over for help. Unfortunately, a cat had toyed with the falcon and his injuries are quite serious-a broken humerus, ruptured air sacs, and all the bacteria that accompanies cat claws and teeth. This bird is definitely not out of the woods. Very few survive cat attacks and we don’t begin feeling optimistic until 10 days have passed. Keep your fingers crossed…. Update 03/22–I think it’s safe to say the falcon has survived the cat attack, and now we have to see if that broken wing has mended properly. Update 04/04–This falcon is now flying nicely in an 8-foot aviary and will soon be moved to a larger one to continue flight exercise!
The Fort Carson pocket gopher that rehabber Kris has been wintering over has become very active in the last several weeks, awake during the day and most of the night. When Kris checked on her one morning and found she had chewed thru’ her container, Kris decided it was time to release her. Kris had located a perfect release site, one where the gophers were already above ground and active, and one morning last week Kris released the pocket gopher there. The gopher immediately began digging her way underground, and when Kris came back to check a few hours later, there was a nice mound (above) indicating Karen the Gopher tunneled and did exactly what she is supposed to do!
GHO hit not once, but TWICE by cars! Enjoying a meal of jumbo mice.
Here’s what DOW wildlife officer Jeromy Huntington says about his very early morning “wake-up call” from Colorado Springs Police Department, who named the owl Lucky.
“When I got the wakeup call early AM, a guy hit the owl somewhere near Powers and Briargate Pkwy. The guy did not know what happened to the owl until he pulled into the YMCA parking lot near Austin Bluffs and Family Place and noticed the owl on top of his luggage rack, holding on. Before the owl was able to be captured, it flew off into the street to be hit by a different car for the second time. PD captured the bird for me and kept an eye on it until I arrived to take to the vet. I thought I had a bad start by getting woke up from the phone call… this owl had a worst one by getting hit twice.”
When an Ellicott resident decided to evict pigeons from her barn to prepare for horses, she had no idea what she was about to find! After chasing the adult birds out of the building, she was shocked to find she was left with a whole lotta babies-approximately 50 in all. She didn’t know that unlike most other birds, pigeons don’t have a “baby season;” they have babies all year long. Not knowing what else to do, she placed the bigger, feathered babies in a stall with seed and water, and then loaded up the neonates into a container and drove into town, where she searched pet stores in an effort to find baby bird formula, to no avail. She ultimately caught up with Phil and handed the babies to him. Phil brought the babies to EWRC. The tiny babies were only a few hours old, and were icy cold and wet on arrival. A few were DOA. The remaining neonates are doing well so far, and are on syringe feedings. An enormous THANK YOU to Laurie, Aurora, Nancy, Lynette, Chris, and everyone who responded to help take some of the neonates and bigger babies into their care. Update 03/02: The “teenie weenies” are doing well, receiving more concentrated formula via more feedings, and able to take a little more at each feeding. I think a few eyes will be opening very soon!
Same babies, same container…
Update 03/08–What a difference a week makes! All the babies are growing very quickly and seem to be doing well. All of their eyes have opened and they’re getting fuzzier. They’ve been divided into 2 groups, larger and smaller. They are still on heat 24/7 and snuggle together after feedings. Lifting each one up for feeding is like pulling from a Barrel O’Monkeys-their wings are growing and they sort of tangle together. Already the babies are opening their beaks for food. They can’t yet stand, but are very mobile, scooting along and very active. The smaller babies are fed first, and the larger ones weeble-wobble themselves up to the cloth wall and tumble over into the area of the smaller babies, where they hunker down and try to blend in with the smaller ones, hoping to get fed sooner!
Update 03/15–Now the “teenie weenies” have been separated into two large containers. They are growing so quickly! This rowdy, boisterous, noisy group is very mobile. The yelling, flapping and frenzied activity combined with their scrambling up to the the tops of their containers and then flinging themselves over remindes me of the spring break crowds, so instead of the teenie-weenies they are now the spring-breakers! One of them developed crop stasis, so the crop was suctioned free of formula and the baby is being given apple cider vinegar water in small doses, and seems to be improving. Thye’re taking formula well from the syringe, and will have solid food introduced in the next couple of days. Pin feathers are appearing now and they are starting to groom themselves a little bit.
Phil feeds the squabs formula via a 60 mL syringe…
…and additionally, the kids are pecking at seed now, on their way to self-feeding!
Update 03/22–The squabs are now 3 weeks old and wow, what a difference! Feathers are coming in, the kids are alert and active, and beginning to feed themselves seed. They’re flapping their wings and bouncing around, and as soon as the weather is warm enough they’ll be moved to an outdoor aviary to prepare for release!
Update 03-29–Today was 60+ degrees outside-a perfect day to put the flock outside to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air! We left the kids flapping, preening, and picking at seed. When we came out in the evening to bring them in for the night, several came running to the door to meet us but we couldn’t find the rest. We took the top off of an owl box and here they were, snuggled together! Before long they’ll be a free-roaming feral flock!