And just as with humans, wildlife has turned its thoughts to love—well, not in the human sense of the word, but mating season is in full force for most critters now. Squirrels are nearing the end of their first breeding cycle; owls are trying to get their babies out of the nest; songbirds are building nests…Speaking of which, here’s an interesting bit of trivia before I get into this week’s LWR update.  Did you know that Eastern bluebirds (EABB) can sometimes lay white eggs? The normal color for EABB eggs is a lovely light blue, but 5% of female EABBs lay only white eggs. The babies are normally pigmented, and the female will lay only white eggs for the rest of her life.  Neat, huh?  And why is this interesting to me? “My” bluebirds this year have five pretty little white eggs in their nest—first time this has ever occurred in the population that’s been using my nest boxes!

Okay, so maybe you’re not as impressed with that little factoid as I am.  Oh well…on to the update!

The squirrel’s eyes opened this week, although you can’t tell it in this photo. He’s still at the “eat and pass out” phase of his life; this week he should start becoming a little more active between feedings.

He also has a neighbor: LWR received another gray squirrel last week, a couple of weeks younger and a whole lot skinnier than Mr. Buddha Belly. This little guy was probably attacked in the nest by a crow—see the abrasion on his flank?  He has a somewhat smaller matching wound on the other flank; his left ear has a small scab; and his left eye was massively swollen when he came in. He also had a nasty case of pneumonia, complete with horrible congestion and rattling breathing.  He’s still on antibiotics and is still a bit lethargic compared to his older neighbor, but he’s much better than when he came in.

We also had a juvenile rabbit come in, attacked by cat. He was lucky that he had only minor wounds, but he still needed a couple of days of antibiotics, as cat saliva is toxic to rabbits. He was quite a happy camper when he was released—the arrow in the photo below shows you the hiding place in the brush that he quickly scampered to in his dash to freedom.

This red shoulder hawk wasn’t as lucky. He was found in the road, but a vet exam revealed only 3-4 tail feathers missing. He was eating well—self-feeding, too—but when I went in the fourth morning to check on him, he’d died during the night. Sometimes the stress of the original injury, combined with the stress of captivity, can cause latent and otherwise benign conditions to flare up, often with fatal results; also, we don’t know what happened for him to’ve been in the road in the first place, so...we just don’t know. Steve Hicks of Bubba & Friends (www.bubba-and-friends.org) and I had actually been discussing releasing this guy within a day or two, as he was doing so well…

Today an adult mocker came in, rescued from a hawk. As cruel as it may sound to you, I don’t actually advocate taking prey away from raptors, normally. It’s not pleasant to see them take out songbirds, but they have to eat, too. In this case, however, in addition to a leg that appears broken in the joint, the mocker seems to have some neurological issues that might indicate pesticide poisoning, so the person who rescued him may also have saved the hawk’s life: If he’d eaten a poisoned bird, he would have died, as well.

Let me hop on my soapbox here once more and remind you that pesticides and insecticides are deadly to songbirds, too. They get the poison on their legs and feet, or on their feathers, or they ingest a poisoned insect or plant, and then they take the poison back to their nests on their legs/feathers or feed their babies poisoned insects or berries, killing their babies…or they become too weak and disoriented to fly and are easy prey for raptors, who then die from eating poisoned songbirds. Is it really worth the risk of all that death just so you can take out a few dandelions in your yard? A weed is just a misplaced flower, according to some pundits. While that’s a lovely, poetic notion, here’s something a little more concrete to ponder: those so-called weeds you poison are a source of food for all sorts of wildlife—and some beneficial insects like dragonflies.  Bottom line—I’d rather have a ragged yard and living wildlife than some fake-looking perfect lawn that comes with much too high a cost to the wildlife associated with it. And if that’s not incentive enough for you to lay off the pesticides and insecticides, stop and think about this for a second: you, your children and your family pets are walking on, lying in and otherwise exposed to the very plants you’ve doused with poison!

Ending on an up note, the barn owl from the last update continues to make progress.  His vet exam showed nothing broken and just a slight bruise to that left eye, which thrilled us all. He’s such a gorgeous man! It took him the better part of a week to recover from the vertigo accompanying his concussion, and as of this past week, he’s started fighting me when I feed him—and broke free the other night, leading me on a merry chase through my main rehab area. (Thanks to Steve Hicks for alerting me to the fact that when adult barnies are in rehab, they often refuse to self-feed.) He’s starting to hiss loudly and attempt to scream, but—if you’ll pardon the bad grammar (it sounds funnier this way, for some reason)—his screamer still don’t work right! He IS improving in this area, as well, though, and his flight is looking better and better, so we’re hoping he’ll be release-ready soon.

Spend some time outside tomorrow to celebrate the official beginning of Spring. Go—get out and just sit and do nothing but listen to the birds singing!