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Yep, last weekend, my area of Georgia got a rare and short-lived dusting of snow—beautiful and fun for those of us who generally have to travel to Parts North to see the white stuff.

And what does the weather have to do with wildlife rehab? Only everything—the nastier the weather, the harder it is for wildlife to forage for food, the more desperate they get, and the greater the risks they’ll take for food. Take, for instance, these sparrows and cardinals on my walkway, where I scatter food for them year-round: they were quite literally flocking to the walkway in the rain, sleet and snow, because they knew there would be food there. These are the few that didn’t fly away when I started snapping photos, but as soon as the camera disappeared the cold, hungry birds came back in force.

 
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For insectivores like bluebirds and robins, winter is hard enough; ice and snow make finding food even more difficult.
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Robins eat ice-crusted berries.
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Close-up of robin in icy tree
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And it’s even harder for raptors like red-tailed hawks. Laurens Wildlife Rescue had an adult male red tail come in recently with a broken wing—he’d hit a vehicle antenna in hot pursuit of prey. On the heels of last update’s great horned owl escaping serious injury from an encounter with a barbed wire fence and, after treatment, being released back in the area where she was found, this poor red tail was a definite downer. His wing had a nasty open fracture, with about an inch each of two bones exposed. There was nothing we could do for this fellow except end his suffering humanely.
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And just this week, I got a 911 call about a barred owl found in the middle of the road. Since I met the finders in a parking lot, a full exam had to wait until I got home with the small male. It was obvious once he was under decent light that his left wing was broken, and he was bleeding from the beak, as well. When I turned him over to check his chest and legs, his right leg flopped awkwardly out to the side. Neither fracture was open, though, so I held out some slim hope that maybe the breaks were “fixable.”
He’d come in at night, so I had to wait until the next day to get him to Smalley’s for a thorough exam. Vet Shelley Baumann confirmed that the left wing was broken in two places, at the shoulder and wrist, and the right leg was broken above and below the knee. Additionally, the bird was still bleeding from the roof of his mouth and had not pooped at all since he’d come in the previous night, which is a sign of spinal injury. Basically, he was “unfixable;” once again, all we could do was end his suffering.

If this trend continues, I may have to change my last name to Kevorkian…
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And soggy it is—it rained so much a few days ago that my deer pen was briefly a deer pond. I’ve got to get some edging/flashing up to divert these incessant deluges…

The red tailed hawk from the 1-21 update took a decided turn for the worse the very afternoon I worked on the website, beginning to have seizures and rip at her wing, so after a phone discussion with Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends raptor rehab, we opted for that final vet trip. There were obviously issues we couldn’t see and I hated to euthanize, but I hated more watching her suffer.

The same week that she came in, LWR received yet another red screech owl, a male this time, and a barred owl. The screech was in fairly good shape aside from a concussion and an eye injury, so he’s with Steve now; the barred owl had severe head trauma that resulted in massive seizures, complete with piteous moans. Again, after consulting Steve, I had the barred owl euthanized.

As I said in the last update, this is not a pleasant time of year. Steve swears, only half-jokingly, there will be no orphaned raptors this year because he has all the adults in rehab—and there are days I think he’s right. The cold, wet weather has made it difficult for raptors and songbirds alike to find food, and the raptors are getting so desperate that they’re taking chances they wouldn’t normally take. It’s that or starve. Unfortunately, those chances frequently end in disaster, with the bird brought to rehabbers so severely injured that euthanasia is the only option.

 
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An exception to this rule is the first intake for February, an adult great horned owl (GHO). He was found hung in a barbed wire fence and brought to me by DNR, after hanging from the fence all night in a cold rain. At first glance, his injuries looked pretty serious, but once we got him dried off and vet Peggy Hobby examined him, we discovered that his injuries weren’t as severe as we’d thought.
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This was one more lucky bird—instead of having his wing broken or horribly slashed by the barbed wire, he escaped with massive feather loss and lots of raw, irritated skin. This is not the norm: usually GHOs who hit barbed wire fences are not savable.  This guy is on his way to Steve, where he’ll finish out a round of antibiotics and be tested for flight-readiness. Once he’s deemed capable of flight, he’ll come back to me for DNR to release where he was found.

Why put him back in an area where he might not be so lucky the next time? He’s an adult, which means he has an established territory that he needs to be returned to; also, he more than likely has a mate who may be on the nest now and will soon be needing his help with babies.

 
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While this has been a harsh winter for wildlife, spring is on the way. For those who doubt it, look at the buds on the red maple in these photos of an Eastern bluebird, taken yesterday.  Bluebirds are year-round residents in Georgia, as are robins, the fabled harbingers of spring.
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Finally, a reminder that the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) is next weekend, Feb. 12-15. This is a fun, easy way to become a “citizen-scientist” while spending as little or as much time as you like counting the birds in your area. It gives researchers a real-time snapshot of where birds are, and you don’t have to be an expert birder to participate: you can list only the birds you recognize. For more information, click on the GBBC button at right or visit www.birdcount.org .
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