Shootings

Yesterday I received the sixth bird who had been shot in the past year. Most of them had shotgun pellets in their bodies, the crow I got in yesterday was shot with a BB gun. I don't know what possesses people to shoot something just to say they can and did but it's very frustrating to know they'll probably never be caught doing so.

The oldest bird, that I know of, who had been shot was a 20 year old male redtail. He was hatched and banded in CO and was shot in Riverton. He managed to do what most wild birds can't do, he lived to a very old age. And that was ended by some #^$%@ person who wanted to kill something.

So far I've received a rough-legged hawk, a bald eagle, a raven, two crows and a mallard, all shot and with the exception of the roughie, all died. The roughie suffered a fractured wing but with surgery she has survived. She can't fly well enough for release so she's heading for Operation Wildlife in Linwood, KS as a school bird. One in six survived, that is not acceptable but there's nothing I can do other than try to help those injured by ignorant, uncaring individuals.

Updates

ECHO: He is not calling as much now that he's figured out how to take the food from my forceps. The disturbing news is that he appears to be partially blind. His eye/beak coordination is not what it should be and altho he does grab for the food he misses a lot of the time. And then the next grab is right on the money. He's going in on Monday to have his eyes checked.

BATS: I am down to only one left alive. I don't know why they are dying as they eat their formula just fine. The remaining little male is also a very good eater so I hope he makes it. I get up a couple times a night to feed him and he's always done well.

Power

That's what I didn't have just two days after leaving the hospital. On Monday morning just a few minutes after I got up at six o'clock the lights went out. I called the power company who sent Tim out to see what was wrong. The sad news is that apparently an owl landed on my transformer and caused the outage. I didn't find his body so have no idea what happened to him. The damage consisted of that blown transformer plus a fuse on the next power pole.

When I checked around the house I found out the rest of the story. I use TCT for my phone and internet. Their surge protector was fried as was their little grey box inside the house. That, in turn, fried my computer, two outlets in my rodent house and, at the time, my well so I didn't have water. Also tripped four breakers. After going a day without water the guys from Wrangler Plumbing arrived to check out the well pump. Amazingly the tripped breaker plus one blown fuse were all that was damaged, the well pump was okay. A short time later the water was running. As the pump is down 150' it's not easy to pull and very expensive to boot.

I now have replaced my computer, TCT came out to replace their equipment, one outlet still has to be replaced but Jeff fixed the one in the rodent house that melted the prongs of my radio cord to the outlet. Only a bill from TCT is needed and then I can turn in a claim to Farmer's Insurance. Boy, all those things are sure expensive but all is okay for the moment.

All better

Just to let everyone know I'm back to normal. Well, whatever that is. My heart problems have stabilized and altho there is a chance of the a-fib to hit again the percentage is low. I'm back to all my usual chores which includes toting 50 pound bags of grain and feed.

The birds new truck!

I am so excieted, here's the new bird truck. I've had three places looking for a newer Ford Ranger and Brett Whitlock, here in Cody, found thie gorgeous 2009 down in Colorado. It has everything the old truck has and is even in my favorite color.

Unfortunately the birds didn't have enough in their account to fully pay for it. I've not had truck payments for decades and the price of even used vehicles is so high it takes a lot of grant money to pay for one. The old truck lasted for many, many years and I expect the same performance from this beauty. I'll get the vinyl words put on it next week so everyone will know when "The Bird Lady" is nearby.

PRISCILLA's revenge

This is what happens when a bald eagle decides to make a statement about being handled. PRISCILLA had to go in on Wednesday for her weekly foot bandage change but this time she was feeling especially feisty. I am usually very careful when handling any raptor and especially eagles. This time she got her head from under the towel and zeroed in on my finger. I got the bleeding stopped, sort of, bandaged and drove her to the vet.

Then it was a trip to the urgent care facility for me. Three sutures and a large splinted bandage later here I am. It won't keep me from doing chores but it does make typing harder than usual.

UPDATE: I ended up having an IV antibiotic administered on Thursday with the catheter left in just in case it had to be repeated Friday. Not necessary but I have been in three times for a bandage change. Another today (Saturday) too. I'm also on a broad spectrum antibiotic for 10 days. Apparently infections become very dangerous in an extremely short time period. All these precautions were to make sure the tendons in my hand don't become infected and require surgical repair. Eeeeeeek!

What else ?????

Wow, probably shouldn't say that. I just got my truck back with new leaf springs, new sparkplug wires and a repaired tailgate. That was on Thursday. Today, as I was heading home from town the gears refused to change. Add the towing bill plus another whopping one for whatever is wrong this time.

Luckily my friend Susan has two vehicles and she is loaning me the use of her Subaru wagon until I get the truck back. Hopefully that will be only a couple days into the new week. Of course the garage doesn't know they have that ahead of them so I doubt they have the parts on hand and will have to order them.

The super young man driving the tow rig took me to the garage and we left the truck to save yet another charge. Then he brought me home and helped unload the grain sacks we'd transferred to his truck. Thanks Eagle Recovery.

My volunteer job

As many of you know, I do a lot of volunteering at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody. I started back in 1983 as a helper in receptions and the Christmas program. Then when I retired from my "real job" I began putting in much more time doing various projects. One of the neatest was doing a complete inventory of the Buffalo Bill Museum vault. Some of thoses artifacts were extrordinary and it was such a priviledge to see and sometimes handle them. Wearing white cotton gloves of course.

Then a few years ago I started working for the Graphics Dept. under the tuteledge of Kimber Swenson. I found my niche in picking and applying vinyl. On boards, on walls, on anything that it would stick to. And I do a lot of cutting and mounting panels and labels onto various foamcore, boards, etc. This past couple weeks I've been working on a most wonderous project, DRESSED JUST RIGHT. I've included photos of some of the sections of the exhibit which covers all things western and cowboy.

The first photo is of the very talented designer who is now in charge after Kimber retired. Tiffany Olson is an amazing young lady who never ceases to amaze me with her ideas for the perfect design. All the words on this wall are made of vinyl and placed in exact locations by me according to directions from Tiffany. You can see the size of the work.

The other photos show various segments highlighted; rodeo attire, working ranch hands wear, womens and mens "unmentionables", dude ranch clothes, etc. They are all carefully put together and the small signs in front describing all of the articles are something else I helped mount. The hat section shows various Stetson hats so people at the exhibit can try them on to see just what they'd look like wearing the hat that Bat Masterson, Tom Mix, the Boss of the Plains and others wore. There are also other interactive elements for visitors to touch and saddles to sit on for their portraits to be taken by friends and family. Wearing their Stetson hats, naturally.

Borrrrring....

Wow, this has been the slowest start of any year since forever. As you saw in an earlier post I got in an adult female bald eagle the beginning of January and was able to take her back and release her where she was found.

Since then I've had a few calls about birds but they were just informational questions and not one needing rescuing. The resident and rehab birds are still here. I'm waiting for the feds to make up their mind about my sending my male golden eagle to Cornell. It's a long story, Cornell and I are waiting for the feds in Denver to make up their minds to honor his approval to receive the bird. That was granted by the state of NY and the USFWS NY regional office back in November. It's a governmental thing, hurry up and wait.

Until then we're all anxiously waiting for the end of this freezing, windy winter. It's been so long since we've had one we're all not used to the cold. It was -2 this morning when I got up and by noon it had climbed up to.....+2. Supposed to be in the negative double digits tonight. Hard to keep water in front of the birds and I have to quickly gather eggs before they freeze in the nest boxes.

Stay warm everyone, where ever you are.

Here and there

It's been a while so thought I'd just post what's been happening here at IBR. Little kestrel, COOP, has not been seen for three days now. I assume she finally connected with the local kestrels and is now a wild and free bird. I worry but then I can't hold her little foot forever so hope she's doing okay.

I'm planning on releasing one of my swainson's hawks this Sunday. I tried to do that a couple weeks ago but she decided she couldn't fly anymore. She's now in the air so will be set free. The other swainson's still has some feathers to replace before she leaves.

The baby ferruginous hawk, WHIT, is still here. He's eating great but hasn't managed to make a live kill so I won't take him back to Meeteetse until he does that. In the meantime, he's flying quite strongly now so when he passes the prey hurdle he'll be ready for release.

The eagle nest that Nicole and I have been sharing monitoring duties with another couple has not had much happen in the past week or so. One of the babies fledged over a week ago but the other one, I call him SLUG because that's what he looks like when he lays in the nest, is still there. He's made a couple hops around the nest but never out into thin air. We will do one of our twice weekly visit to the nest this Sunday morning and hopefully will be able to watch this very large baby take to the sky. His parents and sibling have been seen so are still in the area.

Happy Birthday America ! !

Here's wishing everyone a very happy 4th of July. Especially all the folks in the military who have made this country what it is and keep it that way.

My parents almost had a couple fireworks in the family as my brother Tom and I were born the afternoon of the 3rd. Just missed by about 12 hours. With three babies in two years, my sister Dorf is a year older, I'm sure my mom thought she had as much excitement as she could stand. In those days doctors kept new moms in the hospital for days so she missed being able to celebrate the 4th by going to our hometown parade and watching fireworks.

I saw the Cody Stampede parade yesterday as this morning is a scheduled eagle nest monitoring day so will miss the big one. There were lots of great entries, color and pagentry. I especially love the pack strings from the Forest Service mules, my friends BJ and Mike Carlson and their Wayfaring Traveler llamas to the best, the string made up of baby donkeys and kids. They've never won the blue ribbon but they certainly deserve it.

Thanks everyone for making this the best country in the world and my home for 67 years.