'Tis the season...

Happy Memorial Day weekend,

I am up to my eyeballs in birds. I'm out of chambers and have four in the house. With only seven of us with active Federal permits in Georgia, there is no one to call because they are all full, too. Just damn. I am overwhelmed.

I've spent the last three days going back and forth with a well intentioned, but ignorant man who took it upon himself to hand raise a nestling Broad-winged hawk. Fed him nothing but, TUBE FED him nothing but, chicken livers, dog food and hamburger meat and raised him like a house cat. He FINALLY surrendered the bird to a veterinary hospital that took me on a two hour odyssey today. Rather than having a relaxing day and going to a party with a friend, I'm wound up with DNR Law Enforcement because they want to ticket this guy and driving all over hell and gone to retrieve the bird. We will have to euthanize the hawk and this is a good example of what NOT to do if you find a baby raptor and think you can raise it properly without the right food and feeding technique. PLEASE get the adorable little fuzzball to, at least, a local vet and even if they put it down, at least it won't be screwed up only to be euthanized in a month. Grrrr....

Yes, it's a crow baby.

"Wally", the crow baby was picked up by a nice lady over in Waleska. His foot is messed up and he can't open it properly. I'm taking him in Tuesday to see if my doctor can fix him up.

While I was picking up the hawk...

I'd rather not raise baby Screech owls by themselves, but he's pretty old and I think he'll be ok. Just WHERE I'm going to put him is another story... sometimes, you just have to go with what you have. I hate that.



The Harris hawk isn't doing so well. Dr. Martinez pulled the pin yesterday and ended up having to wrap it up again because the fracture is unstable and she still has an infection, so I've started her back on the antibiotics. We'll re-evaluate in two weeks and make a decision to keep going or euthanize. I'm not looking forward to that day at all.

Since I was already bummed out today, I thought I may as well do it up good and create my Mina's slideshow. A few hours and many tissues later, it's done. I set it to Bette Midler's 'Wind Beneath My Wings' and it makes me blubber to look at it. For $12.00, you could blubber too, and it would help me feed all these wonderful little beings currently in my possession.

On a parting note, I now have a young Red-tailed hawk too socialized to be released. She came to me a few days ago by my friend and colleague down at Chattahoochee Nature Center. She knew that I was on the lookout for one since I've had such a hard time finding an appropriate RTH to use as a teaching tool since Mina's death. Thank you, Kathryn. During the afternoon as I was tweaking Mina's slideshow, I was working with the new babe. So goes the circle of life.

The new babe...

Miss Mina, I will miss you every day and twice on Sunday. God made only one of you.

Take care of yourselves and each other and thank you for taking the time to read my blog....m. www.hawktalk.org

NOW the weather is pretty...

Hey Ya'll,

Have you ever noticed that the weekends are a washout and then it clears up during the week? I couldn't even get out to the Scottish Weekend at Ren-fest Saturday because although it was only spitting rain here, there was a doplar radarish green hue hovering over Fairburn off and on for most of the day. Oh well, there's always the Highland Games in October... There is something about naked knees and bag pipe music and either you understand it or you don't. :-) Besides, my new room mate helped me with a plumbing issue, so now I have water in my shower off the bathroom again. A few years ago, another friend helped with a plumbing issue with my toilet in that same bathroom and accidentally hooked up the hot water to the toilet. I will allow your imagination to take that one wherever it will...


A big HawkTalk thanks goes out to Bruce D. in Marietta for getting a couple of dump trucks full of stone donated for our pathetic driveway. He provided transportation from AWARE out in Lilburn last week for a nestling Barred owl and I cautioned him that if he didn't want to get stuck in my driveway, to park at the church and walk the baby down to the house. He surveyed the situation and offered to help. I am so very grateful. He has already been out to start grading the driveway and even without the stone, it's already better.

Another HawkTalk thanks goes out to Dan F. for coming out Friday and helping me with changing out the chain on my Barbie Chainsaw. Then he took down a couple of larger trees that I was too skiddish to tackle alone and helped with a bunch of saplings that are starting to take over.

And ANOTHER big thanks goes out to Mr. and NanaNature Lanier for helping take down a half dead tree and starting me off on designing an adoption program, respectively. Terre S. down in Atlanta finished the graphics and provided the printing and we have already made a little Mouse Money with our new adoption program. One student at a local school where I was pitching it actually thought that Scully would get to go home with her! Not. :-)


The babies are growing...

...and growing! We love mice! More mice, please!

Wouldn't it be nice to live like this, to never know hunger or be scared that you won't be able to make enough money to keep your house? I hope they will never know how scared their mom is...

Ya'll take care of yourselves and each other and thank you for taking the time to read my blog...m.

Sunday Afternoon Fundrasier

Hey ya'll,

I probably should have written this earlier, but I've been running up and down the hall with my hair on fire, feeding babies, caring for my teachers and the injured. Every chamber is full and I have three in the living room and one on the way. My new room mate made it in Sunday and hopefully the extra money will prevent me from going into foreclosure. This spring has been very bad for HawkTalk as our economy is directly tied to the school system's budget. What a life I have picked for myself, eh? And so it goes...



The Harris' Hawk that was scooped out of the road near Gainesville is doing well, so far. We go in tomorrow to have her bandage removed and will know more when we can see the incision site. She had to have her humerus pinned two weeks ago and won't be releasable, so I'm hoping she will become a good teaching ambassador. Thus far, she has been very polite during her confinement, making no offer to foot or bite me and I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. A Harris' you ask? Native to the desert Southwest? Obviously, she got away from her master while out hunting. When I told my dear old friend Hans about this, he said, "How the hell can you lose a Harris' Hawk? It's like taking your dog out for a walk and losing it!" I love Hansy...he has forgotten more than I will ever know. He raises Harris' and I will care for them for three weeks starting this Friday while he visits his homeland in Holland.



The baby Barred owl is doing really well as is the young Red-shouldered hawk.

Jack Cashin www.chukkarfarm.com has so generously offered his venue again for us this upcoming Sunday afternoon from 2-5 to help us raise badly needed Mouse Money. If you could manage it, please shake ten dollars from under the couch cushions, then go over to our site www.hawktalk.org and use PayPal for your convenience. Or if you aren't comfortable with that, you could mail it to POB 130, Holly Springs, GA 30142.

We will be displaying birds inside the club house and will also have greeting cards and slideshows for sale. Please try to help us if you can? Ten dollars from you means sacrificing two latte's. I wish I had the ability of Jerry Lewis to get people off their wallets, but I don't. For those of you who have donated to us in the last couple of weeks, a heartfelt thank you from HawkTalk!


Here are the Bluebird babes. I love those little dinosaurs!








Take care of yourselves and each other and thank you for taking the time to read my blog from the little old lady who lives in the shoe....m.

Hurt Hawks by Robinson Jeffers

The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder.

The wing trails like a banner in defeat,

No more to use the sky forever, but live with famine

And pain a few more days; neither cat nor coyote

Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons.

He stands under the oak-bush and waits

The lame feet of salvation; at night he remembers freedom

And flies in a dream, the dawn ruins it.

He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse

The curs of the day come and torment him

At distance, no one but death the redeemer, will humble that head,

The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes.

The wild God of the world is sometimes merciful to those

That ask mercy, not often to the arrogant.

You do not know him, you communal people, or you have forgotten him;

Intemperate and savage, the hawk remembers him;

Beautiful and wild, the hawks, and men that are dying remember him.

I'd sooner accept the penalties, kill a man than a hawk;

but the great Red-tail had nothing left but misery

From the bone too shattered for mending;

The wing that trailed under his talons when he moved.

We had fed him six weeks, I gave him freedom

He wandered over the foreland hill and returned in the evening, asking for death

Not like a beggar, but still eyed with the old implacable arrogance.

I gave him the lead gift in the twilight.

What fell was relaxed, owl-downy, soft feminine feathers;

but what soared; the fierce rush; the night herons by the flooded river cried fear at it's rising

Before it was quite unsheathed from reality...