Honest, Mom, They Followed Me Home!

Can I keep 'em?!

Til next time...

Then Again, Maybe Not!

So, when I went back in to Wolf Hollow the following Saturday, not only was the Red-tailed hawk not released, but he was back inside with his foot wrapped.

It turns out that he was still leaning on his right foot a bit more than we suspected and, coupled with the fact that the main perch in the slatted flight cage must not be a good fit for his feet, he ended up with the initial stages of bumble foot. This was discovered when we went to put him into the Heron cage for a few days of flight muscle build-up.

See, a bit scabby but not a full case of bumble foot, where an infection has started and gone into the foot. So he stayed inside for a week or so, got his foot soaked a bunch, then rewrapped, and then was placed back out, with his foot wrap still on, into the Heron cage, so he can build up flight muscles.

There are some birds that just need to be out flying, perching on different sized branches and whatnot, and therefore not perching on the same thing over and over, for their feet to stay in good shape and methinks he is one of those.

Ugly-Cuteness Alert!

Some would say this is a face only a mother could love...yes, he's missing an upper canine tooth and yes, he's drooling....but I find him SO CUTE! As you can see, he is NOT happy about being messed with during what, to him, is the time he should be sleeping. This guy (Ed. Note - It was just brought to my attention...Thanks Amy!...that I never said what this animal is exactly. It's an opossum!) was found, completely caked in dirt and mud, sleeping under a parked car in Mt. Vernon. He had some scrapes on his face and feet, with a bit of blood coming out of his nose. We took him in and gave him a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory for possible trauma. He also seemed to have limited vision in his left eye. He stayed with us for a week or two, eating and sleeping just fine, and finding nothing wrong with him, was sent back to the mainland to be released.

Eee! We got in a Western Screech Owl!

This wee one flew into a truck on Lopez Island. As you can see, the brunt of the impact was on the left side of his face. His left eye, which was spotted with blood and has no pupillary response, was closed for the first week we had him. He was given a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory for his head injury and a homeopathic drug for trauma and shock.

Now, I just LOVE the smaller owls, like the Screech and Saw-whet owls, when they come in!! I like to think of them as the Chihuahuas of the owl world. They are these cute, tiny things, yet they have these HUGE attitudes. For example, when I went in to get him so we could give him his meds and put drops in his eye, I was unprepared for the reaction that I got. It was like he had taken the Barn Owl Tantrum 101 class! And I mean the full works....throwing himself on his back and kicking his tiny legs at me. I literally was taken aback and then, with an "Are you kidding me with this?" attitude, reached in and grabbed him, chuckling the whole time. His eye has since opened and now it's waiting game to see if he will ever be able to use it again.

CAUTION! GRAPHIC PHOTOS FORTHCOMING!!!!!

We got in this Great Horned owl around the same time that the Saw-whet owl came in. This unfortunate fellow was found in Sedro-Woolley dangling by his left wing from a barbed-wire fence. Eegs! You just KNOW that can't be good!

They cut him free of the fence and then sent him to Wolf Hollow with cuts and puncture wounds. Upon first glance, it looked like the wing just needed some suturing, that is until they got a closer look at it after the owl was anesthetized.

*At this point I would like to thank the Shona and Penny for taking pictures of the surgical procedure and loaning them to me for bloggage purposes. Thanks you two!!!

It turns out that the barbed wire had hooked the patagium, which is the tendon/skim making up the leading edge of the wing, pulled it down and hooked it to the muscle of the elbow region. NOT pretty! And there was still a piece of wire enmeshed in his flesh. So Dr. Michelle Loftus came over to try and get him put back together. After he was put under and as much of the blood was cleaned up as possible, she examined the wing thoroughly.

Michelle has her finger on the section of the barbed wire poking out through the patagium. This was removed...

...and then the post barbed wire removal cleanup began.

After everything was cleaned up, Michelle sutured up the wing.

And here is the end result.

Yes, it still looks raw and painful, even as of this week. He was put on antibiotics, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory, and an iron supplement to help counteract his blood loss. We are also doing laser treatment on the sutured area. He is now eating on his own and Shona is the one who takes him out and holds him while I clean up.

Weirdly enough, he seems to do better without his head covered up, so Shona lets him "watch me", as she calls it, while I clean up his carrier.

I think we can all agree that it's more like he is glowering at me rather than watching me.

As a side note, I would like to thank all the wonderful people who came out and participated in the Work Party yesterday. I REALLY appreciate it!!

And lastly, it's my 2 YEAR BLOGIVERSARY! WOOHOO!!! Thanks to everyone for the support over the last two years!!!

Til next time...

What's with All the Ruckus?

I went outside to go feed the adult Red-tailed hawk last Saturday and heard quite the commotion amongst the trees, with crows and seagulls all very disturbed by something and loudly vocalizing their distress. I continued walking down the path and an eagle flew off of our compost pile to a nearby tree!

Now, in all the years I have been at Wolf Hollow, I have never seen an eagle eating out of our compost pile. I have seen crows, ravens, song birds of all shapes and sizes, and even a fox picking through it like a buffet, but never an eagle. So, me being me, I went over to see what it could have possibly found worth eating and saw this:

It's the remnants of the deer leg that we fed our eagle in residence the other day. Looks like it did a good job of stripping it, even removing the fur. Yum!

I continued on to drop off food for the Red-tailed hawk and he is doing so much better. Now out in the Slatted Flight cage, he is flying and eating well and can catch live mice, which is always the last stumbling block they need to overcome/master before their final bid for freedom.

It wouldn't surprise me if it was released sometime this past week. The younger Red-tailed hawk was released a few weeks ago as well.

The eagle is still with us, still slowly healing, and still pissy. They took another x-ray of him to see how the dislocated joint was doing.

The big bulge at the base of his neck is his crop full of venison, so let's move our focus a bit south of that to his "shoulder" area. If you notice the joint on the right, which is actually the left wing, the ball of the main wing bone, the humerus, is in the socket of the shoulder, or coracoid/scapula area. Now take a look at the other side. You can see that the humerus is displaced out of that socket area. Here's a closer view:

Left shoulder....looks good! Right shoulder....

...not so much. I didn't see the initial x-ray, but hear this is an improvement over what it looked like upon his arrival. So that's good I guess. But if he would just keep a wing wrap on, it would help to speed things up! But since he won't, it's a steady but slooow healing process. I sometimes wonder if it actually will heal completely. I was told early on in my stint as a WH volunteer that soft tissue damage in birds is extremely hard to heal, more so than breaks, as if the tissue stretches too much it won't restrict back enough for the bird to be able to use that muscle/tendon to the extent it needs to, which is a bummer if it's a wing injury, as that means it won't be able to fly again. So let's keep our fingers crossed.

His feet look good though!

Til next time...

Lurkey Loos

Hello everyone. Or I guess I should be asking, are there enough people reading this to classify, en masse, as an "everyone"?

I know there must be...hopefully...some lurkers out there. Right? And when I say lurkers, you know what I mean and who you are. You check in to see if I have posted anything new and curse my name to the heavens when I inevitably haven't. And you hopefully get some enjoyment out of the posts I do publish. But after doing this for....Gads, has it really been almost two years?!!...I am really curious as to who is reading this. Are you family and/or friends? Are you past or hopefully soon-to-be current Wolf Hollow interns/employees?

I seem to have the same few people leaving comments...Thanks family/friends-close and extended!!...but that's about it. So, this ONE TIME, I am hoping you all will do me the favor of doing the "publishing". If you could just leave a brief comment, even if it's just to tell me to stop my whining, I would really appreciate it. And it would help sate this burning question I have had almost since the day I started this blog for the betterment of Wolf Hollow, and that is "Who is reading this and why?"

Mucho thanko!! Til next time...

So Long and Don't Forget to Write!

Yep, we finally released the Merlin today! WOOHOO!! The re-imped feather stayed put and after one last look at Dr. Loftus' handiwork (sorry about the blurry pic)...

...Shona released it back into the wild.

At which point, instead of flying as far away from us as possible, as I would like to think I would if I had just been released after a few months in solitary confinement, it flew back over our heads and landed in the tree right behind us.

And then it just sat there, alternately glaring and bobbing up and down at us.

Fare thee well, little one! Til next time...

I Call "Do Overs"!

Yes, this is how I felt when I found out that the Merlin broke off, a day after the imping procedure, his outermost feather, the one that is technically, I am told, called R10.

As you can see, it really was the wood piece that couldn't take the pressure and it broke at the joint area, as when the Merlin, or any bird for that matter, goes to land on the side of the cage, it braces itself with its wings, like this:

I then tried to get a picture of the feather nub on the wing to find out just how much of the wood piece was left in that.

There was still quite a bit of it left in there. At this point, Dr. Loftus needed to decide if we should try this again, and that we did on Friday morning. The only difference is that we decided to just have Penny hold the Merlin while we did this instead of anesthetizing him. And luckily, more of the wooden skewer bit had fallen out of the wing nub over the last week and a half, making this a bit easier.

First, we measured the broken feather against the new one, and marked the new feather so we knew where we were going to cut it at.

Then we glued another skewer bit into the wing nub portion.

And yes, we did wrap his feet, although I am sure Penny wished we could have done the same with his head, as the procedure was punctuated with Penny "ouching" when his head would get out of the towel and he would start trying to bite off one of her fingers, glove and all.

We then glued on the new feather and then thoroughly glued all around the joint section.

At this point, we all brainstormed and came to the general consensus that we needed to somehow strengthen this area. Dr. Loftus said we should just use another feather bit, so I cut off the hollow bit of another feather and then sliced it open down one side.

This was then wrapped, as much as it could be, and glued around the joint area.

No, it isn't pretty, as this is just the initial stage, where we were just trying to get it around the joint area without getting glue everywhere! We then went around the area and crimped it down as much as possible while the glue was drying, but not hard enough to break the feather or wood.

We let this dry and then put him in a small carrier for a bit to de-stress and let the feather solidify in its place before letting him go back into the aviary.

As of today, the feather is still holding strong!

Let's take an imping break and chat about our largest resident in right now and that is this eagle.

He was spotted on New Years Eve walking across a road here on San Juan Island. Yes, "walking" is the key word here. Local law enforcement officers called Penny and she went out to wrangle him into a kennel. Turns out he dislocated one of his wings. But, being the wild raptor that he is, he removed all 3 wing wraps we have put on him. So, he has been staying in the Indoor Aviary so as to keep his movements to a minimum. I was concerned that something more might be wrong with him, as up until the 5th, he wasn't eating on his own and when I went in to clean up the aviary, he just sat on his perch. I didn't get the usual defensive display...spread wings and gaping beak. In fact, I had to take one of the folded sheets and use it to nudge him off of his perch. Want to know how close that is? It's this close:

No zoom was needed. I am happy to report that he is now eating on his own and is feeling well enough to act a bit pissy when people walk into the aviary.

Til next time...

Just Keep Breathing, Just Keep Breathing...

..just keep breathing, breathing... That was the little tune that Penny, our head rehabber, would softly sing to the Merlin at various intervals throughout the morning's procedure of imping its wing. I know that was my one worry as well, all for naught as it turns out, as it came through the procedure like a trooper. But let's start at the beginning, shall we?

First, you need some wooden skewers, which you must cut into small pieces and then these pieces need to be shaved down small enough to fit into the hollow feather shaft.

Then, one needs to make sure you have all of the tools of the trade at hand.

Super glue? Check! Alcohol? Check! Scalpel? Check!

Then, you need to take a dead bird of similar species and cut off, as close to the quick as you can, the feathers which you have determined need replacing on the live bird.

It's crucial that these remain in the correct order, so we taped them to a piece of paper towel and labeled them.

Notice how the R1 and R2 feathers look different? Here's a closeup of the R2 and R3 feathers.

Those indented feather tip ends, I found out, help the bird to dive quickly, as they do hunt on the wing.

One end of the skewer bits are then glued into the shaft of the feathers. The feathers on the paper towel already had these glued into them. This next part was something that we did on a whim and it ended up being a big help during this imping process. Avian vet and Board Member Dr. Michelle Loftus, or "Zarinda, the Imping Queen" as she was dubbed by the end of the imping procedure,...Smile Michelle!...

..asked me yesterday, the day we had originally planned to do this, to take a picture of the Merlin's good left wing....

..which I printed out and brought with me this morning.

We then numbered the feathers from 1 to 5, starting with the outermost one, flipped the page over and made outlines of the wing tips on the back.

This template helped us in determining length criteria of the feathers and some of the ones we cut off the first bird ended up being too short. Good thing we had a second bird to get feathers from!

Next, we need to prep the patient. It must be anesthetized, of course, so out comes the technical medical equipment and cone mask.

Penny held the Merlin while Dr. Loftus held the mask up over its face. You're getting sleepy...

...sleepy....

...and it's out like a light! At this point, after fitting the cone completely over it's head, supplying a continuous amount of anesthesia to it (I learned that birds, especially small raptors, metabolize anesthesia very quickly), we needed to secure the feet. This is in case our little feathered friend here came out of the anesthesia at an inopportune time, like when someone was leaning over it, they wouldn't get taloned. Their talons may be small but trust me, they can still do some damage.

So, we placed a gauze square in the middle of the foot....

..and then wrapped surgical wrap around the entire foot.

Then, with the Merlin sound asleep and the feet secure....

...we are ready to begin the actual imping process. First step is to cut the broken flight feathers as short as you can get them.

Then, while the Merlin was still on its back, we took each feather that we wanted to imp, aligned the two cut ends, and compared the result with our chart to determine if the feather was long enough.

Once we determined that they would all work, some took a bit of adjusting with the shaft and/or skewer lengths, we turned the Merlin over and handed the feathers to Penny, or "The Skewer Gluer Princess" as I was calling her by the end of the process, to have her carefully add some glue to the end of the skewer bits.

The feather is then, making sure it's still in alignment, carefully slid into the corresponding shaft portion on the wing itself.

Then a strip of paper is placed under the shaft juncture and the juncture itself has a spot of glue placed on it.

After every feather, Dr. Loftus always checked to see how it looked. Were the wings looking symmetrical?

Did they look correct when the wings were folded up?

Once all the feathers were glued in, the Merlin was then turned back over. She then looked at the symmetry of the wings from the underside,....

...took a quick peek to make sure our patient was still sound asleep,...

...which he was, and then the feather joints on the underside of the wing were glued as well.

After this, the procedure was done and it was time to wake up our patient. Shona held him upright during the initial wakening period.

Come on little one, time to wake up.

Wakey...wakey!

That's more like it! We then placed it in a small kennel, but because they do metabolize the anesthesia so quickly, it was fully alert within minutes of this picture.

We then waited a couple of hours and decided to take it out to a larger aviary, as it needs to build up its flight muscles after sitting for over a month. Shona slowly opened her hands and it flew up to the farthest and highest perch in the back of the aviary with no problems whatsoever! WOOHOO! Or, as Dr. Loftus kept saying throughout the morning, "This is SO COOL!"

So now we wait, make sure none of the feathers fall out, make sure it can turn mid-flight, and once we determine everything is good, it can be released!

Whew! Well, that was my day at Wolf Hollow. I hope you found it as interesting as I did! Til next time...