Ironside Facebook page

I am not on Facebook but thanks to my volunteer Sara, the birds now have an account on it. Click on the site in the Links section of this blog to see what an amazing job she did. Thank you Sara for all your help.

Major rearrangement

This past week I've had wonderful help in rearranging my cage and storage rooms. Julie helped me clean out two truck loads of stuff from the storage room. Then she and Mic took them to the city dump for me. After there was room, Nathan moved all my bags of wood pellets and shavings to that newly opened space. Previously they took up a lot of floor space in the cage room.

And because I have not been successful in ridding the building of mice, I bought a bunch of containers that have drawers. Now my bandaging material, meds, nuts, bolts, screws, etc. are contained so they won't have a lot of mouse pee and poop all over them.

A couple weeks ago Julie helped me cut up used carpet so that is all now on shelving. I use them for cages and crates so having such a good supply will make it much easier to clean. I have two more shelving units arriving on Tuesday which will go in the storage room to get the remaining stuff up off the floor.

My trip

For the first time in three years I took a vacation. This time it was to Alaska, a place I've wanted to visit for a long time. My friend Jenny, of Native Bird Connections, and I flew to Juneau on September 20th to spend 10 days covering a lot of ground. In that time we were in six airplanes, two ferries, one excursion boat to see glaciers and had to rent three cars. It's difficult to get around in that state, they have roads but in order to go many places it requires air or water.

Here are a few of the photos I took while exploring a most fascinating place.

Visiting the Juneau Raptor Center on top of the tram ride. Ann Marie introduced us to LADY BALTIMORE, their resident bald eagle.

A shot of two enormous cruise ships after arriving in Juneau. This photo was taken from the tram as we came down, too foggy to see earlier.

The view from our first ferry ride to Sitka

Visiting the Alaska Raptor Center in Sitka, the largest rehab facility in AK. Susan, new Director Peter Colson, and Jenny.

Some of their non-releasable birds. As it rains there a lot each bird has an umbrella for when a downpour comes along.

We were hoping to see hundreds of bald eagles congregating here but unfortunately that happens next month so we only saw five.

One of the plane rides, this one a small eight passenger on a trip that eventually stopped in Haines.

If you get Nat Geo or Nat Geo Wild on TV you've probably seen this guy. It's Steve Kroschel who works with wolverines. We visited his place one day and saw lots of the animals he keeps there including his wolverine, grey fox, caribou and a very huge lynx.

Some more photos. We visited a musk oxen farm, saw some very large glaciers (I missed one calving), moose, bears at a facility near Girdwood, and hoped to see beluga whales but the closest we got was some sculptures at a visitor center.

In front of one of the very large glaciers.

And one picture that's worth a thousand words. When we parked at a turnout in the bald eagle preserve we were right next to this pile of bear scat. You'll notice that besides seeds there are three pieces of plastic. From someone's lunch perhaps?

Not again!

This job does have it's ups and downs. And Sunday was both. The up was releasing five birds, four young GHOs and one young magpie. The down was what happened when one of the baby great horned owls decided to leave me with a memento. I'm definitely NOT ready for my close up Mr. DeMille......

Very unexpected happening

I had a very interesting two days after I got the call for a downed hawk in Lovell on Wednesday night (see below post).

Now comes the interesting, unexpected part. When Malcolm was through with xrays and an exam of the hawk I asked him to listen to my heart as it seemed a bit off. He did and immediately said “you should go somewhere”. You should always listen to your veterinarian. Okay, I stopped at Cody Urgent Care Clinic and saw my friend, Dr. Harvey, who did a EKG and said “go to the ER”. I still had the hawk in my truck so brought him back home and got him settled in. Then I drove to the ER.

That was on Thursday morning. I got home Friday evening about 6:30 after spending the intervening time in ICU hooked up to lots of wires, oxygen, bags of fluids, etc. And wore those lovely thigh high pressure stockings plus automatic squeezing things on my calves to prevent clots. The medicine the ER doctor gave me to slow my heart worked immediately but not completely hence the two day stay.

My heart still wasn’t completely back to normal rhythm so they took me downstairs on Friday and shocked my heart. You know the routine, grease the paddles, yell CLEAR! and then hit the switch. I was out as they also put a tube down my throat to check the back of my heart to see if there were any clots hiding there. And found out one of my valves is a bit thick making a bit smaller opening than normal but the cardiologist said it shouldn’t cause any problem at this time. They will keep a watch on it.

Amazingly I was sent home about five hours after all that was done with a perfectly normal heartbeat. Unfortunately I now have to take blood thinners (not Coumadin) for about six weeks and probably the anti-arrhythmia meds forever. I don’t know what the charges will be for the two days but in ICU ????? Probably tens of thousands. Thank goodness for Medicare.

Also thank goodness for the following:

Kimber for driving the two dogs to Lifetime Small Animal Hospital to board til I came home. That resulted in massive amounts of Corgi hair in her car and she's probably still picking it off her clothes.

Liz for quickly going to my place to take care of all the mice, cavies, bunnies and cats. She's my regular help if I'm on vacation so stepped in and knew just what to do.

Sara, my volunteer, for dropping everything and taking care of the birds which included the new roughie (see below post). That meant wrapping him in a towel and handing him mice as he was pretty thin and I wasn't sure he'd eat on his own. She called me on Friday morning to say he was scarfing down whole mice on his own so she didn't have to go through hand feeding him.

And to Lisa Harvey plus all the doctors and nurses at West Park Hospital in the ER and ICU. They were super and obviously I needed their expertise and caring to make everything come out okay.

As I didn't sleep at all Thursday night it was so great to be home, showered, fed and warm. One of my cats never let me out of her sight from the time I walked in the door til we climbed into bed at 8:30. Ahhhhh heaven to be in my own bed again.

Great releases

I don't have any photos but I've released four birds in the last little while. Two Cooper's Hawks right here at IBR as they are immatures so have no home territory. I also have lots of small birds and mice for them to snack on when hungry.

I got a call from a local church about a bird that they found on their lawn unable to fly. It turned out to be just what I thought, a grebe. This young eared grebe couldn't fly because they have to be in water to do so. I just took it to Beck Lake and released him in the water.

The fourth was a very tiny immature male Wilson's Warbler found after hitting a store window on the strip. I drove that fellow to the best yard any bird could find and released it there. All in all a great couple of weeks.

Happy Valentine's Day

Hey everybody, Happy Valentine's Day to you all. Or as my friend Linda in TX and Cheryl in Scotland say, y'all. It's a beautiful day here, sunny and amazingly, 59 degrees so far. I have three birds going to new homes and this warm weather will certainly make it possible for them to fly out of here. One male golden eagle is going to Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, one female golden eagle to Zuni, NM and one female, I think, black-billed magpie going to Chapel Hill, NC. Good wishes for all of them during the rest of their lives.

Notes....

Just some catch up on things. Last Saturday I received a call from some people who were traveling up this direction from their home in MO. Just this side of Thermop they spotted an injured golden eagle on the road, gathered her up and brought her to me. Unfortunately it was the weekend so she had to wait until Monday for x-rays. In the meantime I sprayed her to get rid of the many large lice she had plus filled her up with good elk meat and mice.

Monday and a trip to the vet ended up sadly. The x-rays showed that the bones in her pelvis were in pieces and altho she had very warm feet she couldn't move either of them or her legs. Apparently there was also nerve damage so she was euthanized. She is the 16th golden eagle of the year so far.

Also, John McGee is working on refurbishing the original mews we built about 20 years ago. By we I mean people who didn't have a clue about "treated" wood so what was on the ground has slowly been rotting. The old is now new with matching metal siding to the mews John built a few months ago. Every time I think I've finished with such work I find something else. The next will be small, just covering the front and one side of another old addition.

Harvest moon almost

Tonight when I went out to open a window and turn out lights in the rodent house there was the most beautiful moon out. It was quite dark orange, sort of like what my folks called a harvest moon. It's full and wonderful to see. I know it's too early for Indian Summer but this was one photo I couldn't miss.

Amazingly enough it was almost dark but when I put my camera on the night mode it came out lighter. And when I asked Photoshop to use it's enhanced program it came out as if I'd taken it during the day with the sun on the mountains. Both photos were taken within seconds of each other but on different settings. I love being able to lay in bed at night and look out at such a wonderful sight as the full moon.

Non-stop day

This morning started early with an 8a.m. phone call about an injured hawk up the Belfry Highway near Cottonwood Creek. Thanks to Patty O'Mara and a young man who works with her the bird was rescued. It wasn't a hawk but a falcon, an adult female kestrel. She has a broken humerus in her left wing that appears to have been there for some time. Then after stopping at Dr. Blessings to have the wing x-rayed it was back home so I could clean my rodents. Another phone call had me heading east to meet Bill Robertson, WGF warden from Greybull. He brought me yet another starving GHO. Before I got home I received another phone call about a baby crow on the ground in town. Mom was there but this silly baby wouldn't stay in the tree.

Another quick stop at home then it was out to Oregon Basin to gather up a baby golden eagle. The bird had other ideas and with the wind blowing at a pretty good lick we were unable to capture the bird. Every time I got close enough he just spread his wings and the wind took him aloft. With the heat I figured that by making him fly it might kill him so the field staff is going to keep an eye out for him. He's not strong but enough so to keep out of my clutches today.

While I was in and out of service range in OB I got a call about some baby songbirds, 3 robins, that had been taken out of their nest in a low tree. One of them didn't make it but the other two may do so. I finally got home and sat down for a bit but not for long. The next phone call was to go to KMart and pick up a baby bird that had fallen out of a nest in their roof structure. It's a starling and he's now in the box with the robins as they eat pretty much the same things.

Hopefully that's the end of the calls for the day as I have to be at the museum tomorrow morning at 5a.m. to go out on a field trip about golden eagles. Whew! I'm sure ready to hit the sack early tonight.

Pending release & catch-up news

Hi, everyone. Been a few days since I've posted a message so this is a catch-up on what's happening at IBR. This weekend I'll be releasing the last of my birds ready to go. It's a rough-legged hawk, TIMMY, who came up from Riverton last month. She only came for some flight conditioning and now she's strong enough. Roughies live half their life, the summer months, at the Arctic Circle so they have to make that long migration before breeding season. They leave Wyoming during the month of March. I'll add a photo if I can get one as she flys away.

The old golden eagle, BURL, is gaining strength every day. He still has some balance problems but is eating everything I give him, able to eat on his own without me having to cut up his meal. He was moved to the 20'x 25' pen today and is enjoying being able to hop up on a higher floor perch. He has also gone from 6.25 pounds to 7.50 pounds, Elk steak and bunnies are super for putting on weight.

TRONA, the adult female golden eagle from Green River, is in the flight barn and making short flights. Her right wing is still a bit weak but she too is coming along nicely.

My baby eagle, DAVE, is now in an outside 8'x 8' pen. He's been inside for so long I'm sure he's feeling better about seeing the blue sky through something other than a far window. He's a lovely baby and very easy to work around. He has also gained needed weight going from 7.50 pounds to 9.50 pounds, a very hefty weight for a male golden eagle.