Babies, babies, babies...

Hey ya’ll,

I hope everyone had a spiffing holiday. Mine has been spent feeding a plethora of new babies, plus caring for a Barn owl that will never fly again, transplanting tomatoes and other flowers, not to mention mowing in between rain showers. I’m glad as heck I’m not camping this weekend…

Update on Johnson – I cried for two days after I made the decision to find him a new home. While he was an interesting experience, he had completely DESTROYED my pond. What used to be a lush, beautiful thing had been reduced to a mud hole in the Amazon. You look out there and expect to see a rhino coming out of the water. He is now living La Vida Loca at a perpetual care cemetery over in Roswell with about 30 other Canada geese. When I went out to see him, I took the requisite corn, bread and salad. I sat on the edge of the water and although he wouldn’t come to me, every time I yelled out “Johnson!”, he would honk…over and over again. I cried like a fat dog because I felt guilty. But just think how guilty I would have felt had he paddled over to me, jumped in my lap and begged me to take him back home…

Anyway, I still love Johnson. He will always be a part of my life experience…but sometimes, you just have to let go. **sniff-sniff**

Johnson


I am now caring for an American Barn owl that lost the tippy-tip of his right wing somehow, along with all the primaries and all but five secondary feathers on that side. My wonderful doc, David Martinez over at Loving Hands AH, did surgery on him last week to cut away the exposed bone and try to re-articulate the skin. So far, Icabod is a very good patient, which means he isn’t banging around in his crate and bleeding everywhere. They are inherently wild as snakes and so I will move heaven and earth to try to glove train him as a teaching tool. They are so incredibly beautiful…and so different anatomically that they have their own sub-family…Tytonidae.

Icabod


I have released the two young Barred owls and they are hacking beautifully!


A rare shot of them together


Coming in for a landing on the hack board – their life line to survival until they teach themselves how to hunt.

The smallest batch of Red-shouldered hawks this year. Notice the black holes just under the eyes? Those are ears filled with maggots. Ugh. Also take note of the lackluster demeanor of the one on the right. I didn’t know at the time but he had an open fracture on his wing when their nest collapsed and the maggots would be hatching in the middle of the night. I had to take him in the next day and thankfully, Dr. Thompson over at Persimmon Creek AH euthanized him for me. I hate maggots, but they have a job to do, I guess. This is the sucky part of my job, not to mention no rice for me for a few days!

It’s amazing what a difference 2 weeks can make for the surviving bird.


Their older brethren…what juvy RSH’s look like coming and going.


And the lion lays down with the lamb...


I sure am glad those new nerve pills are working for Face… I was beginning to worry about him. Between him and momma, this is why I have a postage stamp size area on the bed left for me… I am here to serve.

Who couldn’t love that “Face” …

Momma looks like she’s been playing in my make-up drawer. Are those actually kitty lips???

Brought to you in part by the Screeching Law Offices of Dewey, Cheatham, Howe and Wynne! To give you some perspective, these little guys are only about 4 inches tall. They’re good eaters…the best three words a rehabber can say.

Grace is so beautiful and kind. I have just applied to add her to my education permit.

Just like the hack board is the life line to my newly released babes, YOU, the reader, are our life line for survival. We rely heavily on your financial support because we can’t do it without you. You would be stunned and amazed how I can stretch twenty dollars. Please consider reaching down and continuing to help us feed and care for the birds. You can go over to www.hawktalk.org and click on the PayPal link for your convenience, or send a check to the address below.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog….m.

Monteen McCord
770-720-1847
POB 130
Holly Springs, GA 30142

Live hand in hand and together we will stand...

I know…it’s been a while, but here I am, finally. I hope ya’ll have been enjoying yourselves.

Thanks to everyone who donated some Mouse Money. Just got a shipment in and I can’t tell you how grateful I am to everyone who could help keep us afloat.

Lined up like little soldiers. I can’t do my job without these…or a house, for that matter…

I just had a conversation with Sean O’Keefe today about holding a fund raiser. Please keep all those fingers and toes crossed for us. I am aging faster than a road-kill on a hot summer’s day with more money going out than is currently coming in… http://www.seanokeefeevents.com/

Here is the first and hopefully only baby Great Horned owl of the season…


The term ‘hacking’ means that you take a young babe that someone has rescued, house it for a while and condition it to come to a certain spot for food (like a portable hack board you install in their chamber). Then you start moving the board closer and closer to the door, so when you let them go, they will know to come back to the board for food while they are flying around learning the ropes on their own. I also toot a little whistle when I come up with food, so then after they are released, all I have to do it toot the whistle when I come out and they will hear it and come by for supplemental feeding if they choose. Now, it’s not a law that you must hack young, but you certainly up their chances of survival if you do. I don’t care how many live mice you give them in chambers, life doesn’t work like that after they are released and since their parents are not there to help them find food, it’s up to the rehabber to do it.

Now for some reason, Great horned owl babes don’t hack worth a flip. I don’t care how long you keep them or what sort of operant conditioning magic you pull out of your hat, the very second you open the door, they fly away and you never see them again. That means, most likely they promptly starve to death, which means tremendous amounts of time and resources wasted, not to mention a horrible death for the bird.

So, the next best thing to do when they are found is to check them out, make sure they are eating ok, make sure there is nothing wrong with them and then re-nest them. It was nice this day to have someone schlep the ladder, climb the ladder, hang the basket, climb the ladder again and install the baby. All I did was take pictures! Diva Teener? Say that fast three times…

Babies leave the nest before they know how to fly and care for themselves, so I encourage people to leave the babes alone, unless there is something obviously wrong. This baby must have gotten booted out because he was a little young to have fledged of his own accord. Could have been an older sibling that evicted him. I doubt he got blown out since the weather had been calm in the preceding days. I guess he should count his lucky stars that mama didn’t serve him up to the older babes for dinner since the GHO’s nest in late January around here. I guess he was a mid-life baby…

Jeremy found the little guy in the woods at Reinhardt.


One last meal to fill his tummy…he ate like a trooper and that eases my mind somewhat.

Don climbed the ladder and installed the basket. Thanks, Don! Nice spot, eh?


Jeremy- installing the little tot…now we wait for mama and daddy to do their job…


Jeremy kept an eye on him and reported that he stayed in the nest for a full two weeks! Here’s hoping that he will take that second chance and run, er…fly with it…


Oh, the riff-raff….notice he has his hand on my purse, or is it my leg??? I haven’t been accosted by a pirate since last year! Ren-Fest is lots of fun…


Sam sporting some kids shades I scored at the local Michael’s. He’s too cool to fool!


Chattahoochee Nature Center asked if I would take these babes from them to hack. For some reason, they don’t provide that service and I don’t know why (see diatribe above **sigh**). These are Barred owl babes and they are doing just fine, growing like little weeds and the older one is wild as a snake. The younger they are when you get them, the better they hack. I will have better luck with the smaller one…


Can you believe the size of this chicken egg I found in the nest box yesterday???? It either came from one of the Orpingtons or the Wyandotte since the youngsters aren’t laying yet. Chickens really have quite a poker face, so no one’s facial expression gave it away, but I think I noticed Barbi stepping a little lighter yesterday! Can chickens get stretch marks??? YOW!

The girls were just hanging out this weekend…


And the frogs…they like to hang out, too.


Did I mention I’m a fool for frogs…unfortunately, the cats like them, too…


My friend Nancy was so kind to buy me a ticky to the Atlanta Garden Tour. It was nice and all, but must admit, it got a little depressing after a while. Only two of the houses had animals and for some of the mcmansions, it looked like no one lived there. Soulless, perfect shells… I didn’t make it by Arthur Blanks house…dang, I could have left him a business card!













I learned to hack eagles from this man, Ted Touchstone. He died suddenly of a stroke a couple of weeks ago. RIP, Ted…



Thank you for taking the time to read my blog….m.