Dont call it a comeback

Call it laziness. After a month hiatus I am back with lots of good pictures and stories. since our last meeting i have been bullied by a turkey vulture, bit by a raven and done some successful bird grabs. One of the most exciting events since the last post is the California Condor we are taking care of due to his lead poisoning :(.

First lets focus on the Barn Owl. These owls are cute but they can be very mean! When feeling threatened they open their wings and bob their head from side to side, but when this doesn't work they emit this ear piercing screech. I got to experience this screech in ICU one day when I was assigned to grab a barn owl. I open the cage and immediately I get the spread wings and head bob, I strike fast for the grab and thats when the screaming begins. OH MY GOSH, it was so loud. Part of my head was in the enclosure because I had to lean in to grab and owl and the screech was just bouncing off the cage walls and it just amplified the volume. Even my gut instincts in me were telling me to " put the bird down and walk away!" but of course i had to persist and grab the owl so we could deliver the proper meds. The owl kept screeching and screeching! We quickly finished up the meds and put the owl back into its enclosure with some yummy mice to calm him back down. Below is the picture of me holding the owl and I also put a video of the barn owl screech so you can hear what it sounds like.



I will not have any more long gaps between posts I promise! Next post I will talk about the California Condor #22 we are saving.

new post coming soon

I will probably update tomorrow as it is friday and i wont have anything to worry about for saturday! haha

fun day in ICU this past sunday. I got to grab the meanest Barn owl ever ( pic will be included) and a cute little kestrel decided to take a ride on my arm when I was cleaning its cage. Also i want to post a link to a barn owl screech video. It is amazing how loud these birds can get!

stay tuned!

yahoo

I completed my 3 months of training! I have trained in ICU, Rehab and Education, so I can tutor any new people who come in to volunteer. Now that I had each section out of the way, I started again in ICU. I really like ICU because it is so hands on and in the summer its nice to be in air conditioning and in winter its good to be inside and warm. HAHA. Right now the intake of animals is low but at the same time that is good because that means animals aren't getting hurt! A lot of birds are migrating right now so their chances of getting injured increase. This is due to them possibly being hit by cars, powerlines, animals they might not be used to encountering etc. Not related to the season changes is the high mortality among raptors due to ingesting lead from hunted animals. When a carcass is left with lead this absorbs into the body of the dead animal, then when other animals such as eagles or turkey vultures feed on the carcass they ingest this lead. The lead then infects their own bloodstream making the birds very sick and many times leading to death. Recommendations to fix this problems are using as much of the carcass as possible and properly disposing the rest, copper bullets or removal of the bullet if at all possible. I will get off my soapbox now but to learn more about lead poisoning in birds you can click
here
.

Back to ICU. IT was an exciting day.I completed my first successful bird grab. I had done a bird grab before but that was on kestrels which are smaller and also a severely injured owl that wasn't really a training in grabbing. I had first tried to get a red tail hawk out of its cage for him to receive his medicine but he outwitted me. He was able to get my right hand in his steel grip talons and I had to have my friend mike bail me out. Again this is another situation where bird handling gloves come in handy. I still can't believe how strong raptor grasps are, even with the gloves I could feel the talons digging in and even with the glove I had minor scratches on my arm. ( VERY very minor, not even worth documenting really but i couldn't believe it broke skin through the glove, imagine what it could do on bare skin). Here is my buddy mike and the red tail hawk that won.

After that unsuccessful grab I tried again on a cooper's hawk. This time I just went for it fast to give the bird no chance to grab my glove and it worked! Even I was a little surprised at how efficient that fast process worked. Here is me holding the cooper's hawk, sorry for the horrible picture of myself, i am a wreck. haha. . I also grabbed a couple kestrel's later but they are so small you can just cup them with two hands and dont have to worry about one hand being tied up due to them grabbing you.

Later, my team lead was feeding a Harris Hawk while I was tending to some seed eaters and all of a sudden I hear " Bird out! Big Bird out!!" and I turn around to see the Harris Hawk loose in the ICU room! A very organized chaos followed, everyone quickly donned gloves but the big bird net was outside! It was now going to be a little harder to grab this Harris Hawk. Luckily my team lead grabbed a towel and was able to throw it over the hawk and grab him. He was an angry hawk he probably thought his freedom was so close!

That about wraps it up for ICU this week. Now I have to go back to studying for finals boo!

Red tail in my face

Week after thanksgiving and with a lot of people out of town we were a little shorted staffed on the rehab side. No problem me and my buddy mike handled it with skill. However it was cold and the raptor food was frozen which made my poor little fingers freeze in my gloves. But enough complaining on my end, arizona winters are nothing compared to other parts of the states.

I am becoming more comfortable with going into the cages even when several birds are in their at one time. The key is to stay by the walls and to always keep an eye on the brood. However, some birds will just fly like crazy when you are in their enclosure and its these times that the thick gloves we wear for the raptors come in handy.

This week I had two enclosures that were feisty, the sharpshin hawks and the big red tailed hawks. The sharpshins we have are so spastic they remind me of kids running around loose at chuckie cheese. They fly from perch to perch and will sometimes even bounce off of your head as they fly by. This is why i kept my hood on when i went in their enclosure. The red tailed hawks were a little meaner in their enclosure. While I was in the enclosure one decided to stick up for the brood and flew at me. its funny they dont realize that I am giving them their food, they just want the intruder gone! Luckily I saw him coming and i was able to stoop down and put my glove up in case he wanted to foot me. Footing is when a raptor uses its talons to scratch or injure you. Obviously it is not doing it on purpose but is just trying to protect itself. I finished their food and got the heck out of there so they could calm down and eat.

I also got my name badge this week so i feel very official now. :)

Final month of training-REHAB!

BRRRRR its cold outside now and the birds need some extra food for winter!Just like we pack on the food during winter so do our animals in rehab. Not only do they need lots of food to help in their healing process but now with winter here they need extra food to aid in their recovering. We were a little short staffed early in the morning and it was so cold! i was assigned to ICU until some more people showed up so I started my normal rounds with the ever so curious Virginia /Darwin the Owl watching my every move. We also had a cute little burrowing owl in a brooder who was so cute with her puffy round little body!

Luckily about an hour later more people showed up and off to Rehab I went. I had missed the majority of the raptors being fed the kestrels, Red Tailed Hawks, Peregrin Falcons, Cooper's' Hawks and now the turkey vultures were being fed. When I arrived to the enclosure my team members were in discussion right outside the pen. Apparently there was a peregrine falcon in the enclosure too and the Turkey Vultures were picking on him! Every time he went to a perch the closest Turkey Vulture would peck at him poor little couldn't perch anywhere, he was hanging onto the walls! We weren't sure how or why the peregrine was in with the Turkey Vultures it was an odd combo but luckily our Med services on hand saved the day by catching the peregrine and taking him to his own cozy enclosure!

These turkey vultures are VERY mean in ICU so i was nervous about going in their pen with them. One is bad enough but 3? they can peck you really good and with all the bacteria they eat you really don't want them to peck you open and therefore letting all that nasty bacteria in! I went in their enclosure with their food and they were surprisingly calm! They just sat on their high perches watching as I went around and put their food on various stumps. ( The above pic is of our Education Turkey Vulture, Bailey)

Next up was the aviary and the cute little seed and insect eaters! There was a section that contained a cute little Montezuma quail and her baby. The Montezuma Quail is actually an endangered species so it was really fun to see the mamma and her baby , hopes for their species getting nice and healthy to be introduced back into the wild! We also had some red winged blackbirds in there that were singing their beautiful songs! I personally love bird calls and am hoping Santa brings me a bird watching kit this Christmas ( fingers crossed) so I loved being in their section listening to their calls while I cleaned and fed the hungry little birds!

Next up was the last few raptorial birds which included CUTE little burrowing owls and SharpShin Hawks. I went into the owl enclosure and a silent panic occurred. In flight these owls were so quiet while flying all i could hear was them landing and just feel the movement of air from their wings. They all went to one stoop on the back and it was funny to see a bunch of little owls all crowded on this little space! The sharpshins next door were a lot more cantankerous, they were flying back and forth going crazy! They were also were messy, I felt like i was taking care of a teenager hawk, messy and wild!

We finally ended the day with the coot and if you have never seen Coot feet before take a look. They are so funny looking!

Hope the links are helpful, ill work on recapping more often, school is winding down so I should be doing better soon! :)

pictures now with more pictures

American Kestrel
Frodo the burrowing owl
Frodo again
Snickers the Great Horned Owl
American Kestrel
Acoma the Red Tailed Hawk
Peregrin Falcon
Phoenix the Golden Eagle
Liberty the Bald Eagle
Liberty the Bald Eagle
Phoenix the Golden Eagle Talons
Phoenix
Liberty
American Kestrel
Sharpshin Hawk in ICU
American Kestrel

Fundraiser

I am thinking of doing a Fundraiser/ donation collection for Liberty Wildlife. With orphan care season coming up in a few months we could use a some new supplies. If you are interested in helping out Liberty Wildlife this page has a list of supplies that Liberty is always in need for. I will update with a new post soon along with any ideas I might have come up with for the fundraiser.