I took, FABIO, my turkey vulture, in for a followup xray on Wednesday and all is wonderful. The break is healing beautifully so he'll have one more week in his 6x6 mew and then into the flight barn. He has to fly south by the middle of October and will have to get those flight muscles in shape for that trip.

More traveling

Another trip to Thermop. What would I do if that town disappeared? And thanks to Jessica Beecham, WGF warden from Riverton, that's all the farther I had to drive today. We have found that's a good halfway point for both of us.

This is FABIO, an adult turkey vulture found in Riverton two days ago and not flying. I don't see anything wrong with either wing but xrays will tell if there's unseen damage. In the meantime I've given him an opened rat to eat and hopefully he'll take me up on that offering.

Another young visitor

I was waiting for the USFWS person to arrive yesterday when I got a call from a WYDOT worker about a young vulture he found alongside the road. After all the driving I've done for the past week the good news is it was just the other side of my eagle flight barn so he brought the baby here right away.

I don't find anything broken other than perhaps his spirit. He hasn't eaten yet even tho tonight's meal is a yummy half quail. He is a bit sore on his right side, hopefully it's only bruising. I'll put him out in a larger area to see if he can fly and then if he's strong enough I'll release him.

UPDATE: Unfortunately there must have been internal injuries, baby vulture died on his third day here.

In the eyes of the beholder....

And In my eyes vultures are really neat. This is my newest t-shirt promoting them. It is put out by the International Association of Animal Trainers and Educators. I didn't realize there were this many vultures in the world.

New residents

Her/his name is ZENITH because after all this is a TV. Turkey Vulture that is. Friday morning I received five more residents at IBR from Diane Morse in Gillette. She ran NEW Raptor Center for over 20 years and just recently retired. She still has permits to take in birds until the end of the year so agreed to accept any from her side of the mountain while I was on vacation.

It wasn't but an hour into my flight from Cody that she got a call about a Great Horned Owl that had been burned, possibly from a flare in one of the oil/gas fields. Then not much later she took in a baby Red-tailed Hawk, HIGGINS, who was starving. He also suffered from a broken fibia in his left leg so now has an external fixation device on the leg to hold the bone ends in the right position for healing. A great deal to overcome at such a young age (six months).

She also received another GHO with a wing problem who had been held illegally by some people. Altho they had been feeding the bird the right diet, mice, it was still against the law for them to have the owl.

And, of course, I also took in the two birds she'd had from her rehab work but were not quite ready for release. The vulture is flying but not quite strong enough. And the same for the kestrel. Both will be here until they can make it. I may send the TV to another rehabber in the south so s/he won't have to spend the winter in the cold. S/he is bald, after all.

Isn't she cute?

Well I think so. Her name is CHARM and I made a trip down to the other side of Thermopolis to pick her up. I say her but don't know if that's correct. She was found by Tony in his yard not able to fly. I think her wings are just fine but legs, not so much. She has a weak left leg and a bad wound where her right leg attaches to her body. She's been down long enough for flies to blow that wound so I had to deal with cleaning the maggots out of it. A lot of them but newly hatched so not very big.

She'll go in tomorrow to have xrays and see just what damage has been done to her body. Hopefully it's just bruising and will heal quickly. The open wound will have to be sutured and she's already on antibiotics. That wasn't fun getting one down her as vultures are very accomplished in vomiting. I'll update her story as soon as I get more information.

UPDATE: Sad news again. The wound was so severe it was almost into her abdominal cavity. And her pelvis was fractured, her left foot didn't work at all. She was euthanized this morning. Her body will go to the natural history museum here in Cody for use in educational programs.

Temporary visitor

Yesterday a bird came for a visit. This is STINKY, an immature turkey vulture who is going to live with a falconer in Kentucky. Because he was taken as a very young bird and imprinted to humans he cannot be returned to the wild. Now he's going to be an educational bird. Okay, he's not the most handsome bird in the world but he does "have a great personality".

M.A.S.H. ??????

Well, it's TRAPPER JOHN but not from M.A.S.H. fame. This adult Turkey Vulture was found in a yard in Greybull with a leghold trap attached above his right foot. I have no idea how long it was there but luckily he was found by some caring people who called Bill Robertson, the warden in that town. I drove over to Greybull, along with Pat and Nathan, to retrieve him. He was fiesty but at least didn't throw up when I put him in a carrier. Well, he did a little but that was probably because he hadn't eaten in a while.

As you can see in this photo, TJ has a bandage on his right leg after having surgery to repair the fracture near his foot. Only time will tell if this will work as the foot color wasn't the best. That may mean it's dead from lack of circulation. Maybe it's my wishing making it so but to me the toes on his right foot now appear pinkish, the normal color for TVs. He is totally flighted so if this works he will be headed back to the wild when ready. In the meantime he's realized this is a pretty good place to land as there are lots of mouse pieces to eat and they're tossed his direction, he didn't even have to hunt for them.

Baby TV

Yesterday I got a call from our city Animal Control Officer, aka dog catcher, Duane Wiener about a turkey vulture down in a yard in town. It was very close to where they roost for the night but not one of the regulars. This is a baby of this year, only about four months old. As you can see from these photos, compared to those of the vultures in a previous post, this youngster has a completely dark head.

By the time I got to the sighting the bird had managed to get to the top of a portable carport then to the roof of a nearby house. After watching him for some time he decided to fly in the direction of the roost tree. He didn't make it all the way but was up in a tree nonetheless. I'm sure he was a bit hungry and wasn't the strongest flyer so hopefully he followed all the older birds in the morning to where they could find something to eat.

Visitors

Okay, first the spider then these, Halloween must be in the air. These two adult turkey vultures came to visit and landed not far away from my gate. And they let me get quite close to them before taking to the air. They came because there is a meal for them near these fence posts. You'll also notice in the photo where they are perched there is another bird right in between them, a black-billed magpie. He didn't stay long as I don't think he was very welcome. In the flying photo you'll have to look closely in the dark cloud near the bottom to see the second bird.

I rarely see TV's around this area altho I know they nest someplace not too far away. One year there were about a dozen of them holding either a meeting or just gossiping behind my eagle flight barn. Was quite a sight to see.

Long day into night

Yesterday I spent a very long time behind the wheel of my little Ford Ranger. And drove 169 miles in the process. In the morning, Nicole and I headed up to visit the Beartooth Nature Center in Red Lodge, MT (not included in the mileage). When we were almost there I got a phone call from the state salix operator telling me about a downed turkey vulture in Greybull. Red Lodge is about 70 miles north of Cody, Greybull is 50 miles east. I stopped at home to let the dogs out and drop Nicole off at her car but when I was halfway to Greybull I got another phone call about a downed hawk in Meeteetse.....32 miles south of Cody.

After getting the Greybull police department to open their dog pound so I could get the vulture I headed further south to Basin to get the road to Burlington and then on to Meeteetse. Of course the hawk wasn't right in the town, it was on to Turnell's Whit Ranch which is west of Meeteetse about five miles then north a few more. The bird turned out to be a baby ferruginous hawk that had just come out of the nest a bit early. They are the largest hawks with the adult female weighing around four pounds. This baby isn't flying so he's now here at IBR. His photo shows a very good looking bird that just needs more time before being on his own.

Good news is that I think the vulture was just a bit overheated and had come down in town and was spotted in an alley. I took it out early this morning and released it near where our resident turkey vultures roost for the night. Some of them were still in bed so I tossed my bird in the air hoping he'd see them and join their ranks when they took off. As you can see from the above photos, he did great.