Yep, I’m at 216 for the year, with 127 phone calls that didn’t result in intakes. As I mentioned in the last update, an awful lot of the non-intake calls are from the metro-Atlanta area, so in an attempt to forestall such large numbers of calls from people who obviously have no basic knowledge of the geography of their home state, I created a new page on the LWR website—just for metro-area residents. Okay, actually, it was a result of one particular call, the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back—the one-too-many condescending call…this arrogant person, who turned out to be from the metro area, started the conversation with, “Look, sweetie…” Oooohhhh, did that raise my hackles! People who don’t know me have no business calling me “sweetie,” and those who DO know me have better sense than to do so! Those who do know me will be proud to learn that I exhibited great restraint: said caller is still alive and has all body parts intact (to the best of my knowledge; I can’t be held responsible for what those flying monkeys do when I’m not looking).
Enough nonsense—on to business: I’ve started releasing some squirrels; since I do soft releases, it’s hard to get photos of them when they begin leaving, so here are some shots of the older babies about two weeks before their release. Cute, huh? I opened their cage door Sunday and today only two of the eight are still hanging around.
And these little rascals now have their eyes open and are headed to the porch cage within the next week or so. There are nine of them, and I have one little girl whose eyes just opened today, so she’s got about a week before she moves to the indoor cage…which is good, as it’s currently occupied by these nine.
Here’s one of the older babies being adorable.
I have to admit, though, I’m hitting extreme gray squirrel fatigue at this point, as every time I get the number of babies requiring round-the clock care down, another two or three come in…this is apparently a boom fall for gray squirrels!
I have to admit, though, I’m hitting extreme gray squirrel fatigue at this point, as every time I get the number of babies requiring round-the clock care down, another two or three come in…this is apparently a boom fall for gray squirrels!
“Nine possums all in (more or less) a row…” Possums are so disorganized and clueless, but ya gotta love ‘em—and Lord knows they love their food! These gourmands have now been released. (Okay, I’ll admit that, given their diet, “gourmand” is stretching it somewhat, but they do eat with great gusto!)
They scattered to the four winds as soon as the cage door was opened, but here’s a good shot of one of the cute little rascals as she headed off into the woods.
And just this weekend, I got in a gorgeous first-year male red tailed hawk with a broken wing. After Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends raptor rehab, vet Peggy Hobby of Smalley’s Animal Hospital and I discussed the situation, we decided to stabilize the wing and hope for the best. The x-rays showed two clean breaks that were still properly aligned, so we’re all cautiously optimistic. Wing fractures are very iffy things; they can appear to have healed perfectly and yet leave the wing “frozen,” as it were. We really won’t know anything for several more weeks, but we all have our fingers tightly crossed. He’s a beautiful bird and very large for a male, so his DNA really needs to be out there in the gene pool, producing more big, gorgeous red tails!
This shot was taken before his wing was wrapped; below is his head shot—know any agents looking to hire a handsome young red tail? (But he really wants to direct…)
This shot was taken before his wing was wrapped; below is his head shot—know any agents looking to hire a handsome young red tail? (But he really wants to direct…)
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