New temporary residents

Today I met fellow rehabber, Diane Morse of NEW Bird Raptor Rehabilitation in Gillete to trade birds. She's taking my SQUEEK to winter over with her adult and two immature Swainson's Hawks. She gave me ROSY, an adult female Rough-legged Hawk that is fully flighted but blind in her right eye. And ELF, an adult Saw-whet Owl that has a left wing that won't fully extend. As they are both non-relesable Diane made arrangements to place them at a facility for use in educational programs.

They are both here to save Diane from the very long, over six hour, drive to Red Lodge, MT as they are supposed to go live at the Beartooth Nature Center. Because their director suddenly left to work elsewhere it now appears as if he hadn't even started the transfer request. BNC is not contacting the USFWS and the state of MT to find out just what needs to be done so these wonderful birds can go north.

Bad day for babies

Yesterday and today I drove many miles to retrieve two baby GHOs and one baby Cooper's Hawk. The first owl has a broken wing and will undergo surgery on Wednesday to see if we can fix it well enough for him to fly. His name is REDDI.

The second baby owl came from up the Southfork and unfortunately this looks as if it may be an electrocution. He's just about four months old and was found under a transformer. The wounds to his right wing and left foot are typical of this type of damage, I'll give him a week to see what developes.

The Cooper's Hawk baby was found under the nest tree alongside his dead sibling. The mom was very attentive and even tried to feed him while he waited in a bunny cage for me to arrive. I don't know if there are any other babies in the nest, hopefully there are. Unfortunately this baby suffered a very severely fractured left wing at his elbow joint and it was non-repairable. He was euthanized at about 3 1/2-4 months old. So sad.