Checking in

Hey y’all,

Just checking in on this dreary Sunday, but at least it’s 50 degrees and RAINING. Given that it’s only the 8th of January, it could be worse. A LOT worse.

All the owls were successfully released…Stacey, Wally, GW. We had to imp in some tail feathers on GW before the send-off, but that went off without a hitch.



If you watch the above short clip of the imping process, you might see a terse reply to a nasty comment left by just another fool on the hill. I don’t suffer them gladly, no I don’t.

One of my new cases is a mystery…a first year Red-tailed hawk with missing primaries. However, after I received the bird and examined it, his feather issues are the least of his worries because he has a GAPING hole on the right wide of his crop. Too week for surgery, I have been offering him very small, very frequent pieces of skinned mouse over the last week to get him built up enough so he can survive anesthesia for the surgical repair of the crop. I don’t know if he was impaled by something or if he ate something and the bone shard got stuck and migrated out causing the wound. I have him on killer antibiotics and hopefully, we can get him through this rough patch.

He wasn’t doing so well in the first clip…



But what a difference a day (and some mice) makes!



He’s on the schedule for another try at surgery Tuesday…

Look who’s come to dinner?



Feeding some grapes to my very happy chickens…



Morning chicken ritual…



I hope you are saying safe and dry today. Thank you for all the nice holiday well wishes and Mouse Money. I know it’s scary for just about everyone, but with school programs having all but dried up, HawkTalk, like Blanche Dubois, have come to rely on the kindness of strangers….m.

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