Its only the 2nd day of the work week for me and already so much has happened. Wednesday evening we had to give meds to one of our Red Tailed Hawks - it seemed intimidating, because usually the raptors are not on the med list (or we can just shove them into their food) and as you can guess, raptors are a little scarier than say.. a crow or pigeon. But in the end it was just like giving a shot to any animal - you just had to wear gloves and hold his feet still also :). Thursday I started off watching our vet put a little foot wrap on another red tailed hawk - he had punctured his foot with his own talon. Then we got in a young coopers hawk - who was so cute and small! Well, small for a hawk (still bigger than most birds we deal with), which probably means he is a boy. (a young coopers hawk from wikipedia). He had some dirty scrapped up wings - our hypothesis is that his legs are not working well, so he's dragging himself around by his wings. He had scraped one of the wings so much that some bone was exposed, so his prognosis is not promising, but I hope he makes it. He was a fiesty little guy :). And then that evening I got to assist feed another red tailed hawk! Which means I shoved a dead mouse down his throat while someone else held him. I really had to push to get it down, and you end up with your finger all the way down his throat, it was cool! Then I massaged his chin/chest a little, to get him to finish swallowing (ie until there was no longer a mouse tail sticking out the corner of his mouth).
I also helped weigh our barn owl in the evening, and I was happy that my raptor handling skills have definitely improved.
In other non raptor news - we gave some meds to a little chickadee who was so fierce and tough for his size. He kept biting my hand while someone was giving him fluids, it was cute. It did actually hurt a tiny bit...
And the best part of my day - Someone brought in a young pigeon, and she was convinced it was a bald eagle! For the record it looked just like a pigeon, though he was a little balding. She said she had called fish and wildlife and described the bird and was sure it was an eagle. Then when we told her it was a pigeon, she said "Are you sure??" and seemed skeptical. I personally am pretty bad at recognizing birds, but pigeons are one of the few I know :).
It was a pretty full week at Paws. Wednesday started off pretty quiet - full of volunteers and not that much to do. Then we got the notice that two more seals where showing up at 4pm, AND our big donors would be going on a tour of the hospital at 7pm - so we had to clean up a lot. We worked on making the place more presentable, then at 6pm both seals showed up, and we split into two teams for their exams. These guys had been born on a barge, then the barge moved too far for the mom to find them - which means they came to use healthier than some of the others, because they had not been abandoned for long. The one we examined was nice and chubby and active - making him harder to check out. He was only a little dehydrated, and a little underweight and otherwise seemed fine. Since they came in together the two seals got to remain together, which is nice for them. Then the next day on Thursday we got in ANOTHER young seal. This one a little less healthy - he was skinny enough you could see his hips. So now we're up to 5 seals - one chunky fat guy whose doing well (he was the one learning to eat fish). One younger one who has been clinging to life for a week, but still making it, and the 3 who came in this week... We have some very tiny opposums who get tube fed still, and they are still very cute. Plus we got in our first set of young squirrels for the season - they are so tiny they don't really even have hair on them - you can't recognize them as squirrels! They are slightly lower than the weight we usually set to try to rehabilitate them, but we're trying anyways (And we're not sure yet what kind of squirrel they are). Here is a video from youtube of a 3 week old fox squirrel getting syringe fed - this is what our little guys look like!
On Saturday I went with another volunteer to feed and clean our "young" bald eagle. He is giant even though he's still not bald. While we started cleaning he was perched on his box watching us. Then he decided to fly over us to let us know its his palace, and that was scary! He probably has a 5' wing span already, and we're in a enclosure that's maybe 7 feet wide (maybe 20 feet long), and he flies over us and we have to duck, then he lands right by the door and stares at us. We were slightly startled as you might imagine. Then he lifts up and flies back to his perch (we had to duck again). Eagles are sooo giant up close - especially his legs and talons. He didn't seem aggressive, just wanted to let us know what he could do. Thanks eagle.
(a picture of a juvenile eagle flying, from wikipedia.com).
We have so many raptors that they have to co-habilitate right now. In our largest enclosure (the flight pen) we have two coopers hawks and a great horned owl all hanging out together. They're pretty cute.
Its been a very busy week - I worked 6 days as I covered someones shift, and in the middle also celebrated the 4th of July and a baby shower - thus the lack of posts. Here are some highlights.
We had a turtle come in who had swallowed a fish hook. The end of the fishing line was tied to a dock, and she was stuck for 2 days before someone rescued her and brought her in. The vet took an xray to see where it was, and saw that she was chock full of eggs! The vet performed surgery, but she started hemoraging. He left friday night saying he wasn't sure if she was alive or not, he'd come back in the morning to check! Apparently with turtles its hard to tell. Well, Saturday morning she was walking around looking fine, so we are going to release her with the fish hook still inside her, so she can lay her eggs.
The nudist owl should be released this week, he passed his live prey test. All of the canadian gosslings now look like geese! We have over 50 waterfowl right now - something like 40 ducklings! They are quite adorable as usual. We also have a few wood ducks. This is what a wood duck looks like grown up, ours are still quite young (Click here for pictures of ducklings).
We got down to only 6 raccoons being tube fed, with the rest up on the hill, learning how to be adults. Usually we have a cap at 40 raccoons, but we just extended the limit, as we've been having a few orphaned babies trickling in that we don't have room for, and right now some of our runs, usually reserved for animals like Bears and Coyotes have room. So we are now accepting up to 58 or so. When I tube fed this weekend, I saw two little raccoons in a cage that was totally clean, spic and span - no spilled food or water or smeared feces, and they were just sleeping in the back of the corner. I knew they must be new to us - since the rest are such messy little guys.
For some reason we have been getting in a ton of Northern Flickers. A bird I didn't know before Paws. They are all cute - perching on their logs and pecking up their food... BUT they are total escape artists! Even just trying to put new food into their cage, one has gotten out on me. Catching them is not fun... And it seems like we just keep getting them. A lot of them we think are window strikes - so some of them are healthy once they get over the shock. Then they get to move up to the hill - to a big room, and they fly madly back and forth overhead when you go in there.
We also have a few tiny birds, like wrens and chickadees. That I think I've finally figured out how to catch and hold them for meds. And in the ward (where the sicker animals start) we have another young hawk. He's super cute and hungry. When you put his mice in he eats them right away. You'll throw one in while he's swallowing another, and he immediatly stomps on it with one tallon, and holds it ready, until he's done w/ his first one (these are already dead mice).
Up in the raptor mews (bigger rooms outside they can fly in) the Barn own we assist fed is doing better and flying now, but still not eating, so we still shove mice down his throat. We have a young bald eagle - so young his head is black. And he lies down a lot, cause he's so heavy and his legs don't support him well yet. When you go in to feed or clean he honks at you! ("Hey, get out of my palace!"). We also have a falcon and a hawk up there, and two great horned owls (the nudist one and a fluffy younger one). Oh! we also have a mountain beaver. Its like a giant plump rodent! so funny looking (from wikipedia):
And finally - the bears are still super cute and active. This week their enrichment involved ropes tied to the ceiling and they loved them! swinging and biting and chewing on them. So adorable. Here is a video of the actual cubs at Paws, borrowed from the paws blog (http://blog.paws.org/). Watch the little guy get down from the carrier:
