"Jack" is back!

Jack was hit by a car on Superbowl Sunday and was gotten to me that night. He was pretty limp and didn't look so good...

He had a concussion with a boo-boo eye and blood coming out of his nose. I started him immediately on this non-steroid anti-inflammatory stuff that reduces swelling on the brain and helps with pain management. I also started using steroid drops in his eye after I made sure there weren't any scratches on his cornea. He didn't want to eat so I hand fed him some yummy mice.

Here he is in about a week. He started self feeding and was still a very kind patient as he allowed me to continue medicating his eye.

After about week three he really started improving and I moved him out to the big boy chamber...

I was a little worried about him the first day, because he was having trouble finding his food that I dropped through the chute. I decided the next day that I would pull him back into the house, but when I went out the next morning, he had gobbled the mice all down. "I want MORE! Those were quite good!"

We six and he was ready to go back home. Whenever possible, the grown-ups need to go back near to the pick-up site because that is their territory and their mate is waiting and wondering, "I sent Jack out for a gallon of milk and, POOF, he just disappeared!"

Well, Jack didn't look both ways when he crossed the street and so he had to make a little detour via Canton, where some medicine, food and love and sometimes help them find their way back home!

One last look-see to make sure all systems are 'go'. It's patients like 'Jack' that remind me why I do what I do, he was kind and patient to the very last second and I released him, instead of flying out of fright until he dropped dead, he quietly settled upon the rooftop of the Good Samaritan's house for a good long while, then hop-scotched up an beautiful oak, ruffled his feathers and watched in amusement as the the last few songbirds that hadn't yet gone to bed yet stopped by to greet him...

If you can, please continue to help HawkTalk, so we can continue to help these magnificient creatures that try so hard to live among the chaos we call civilization....m.