Are you watching the skies?

I love Spring. All living things are moving to the planets new season, waking and changing are everywhere.

Well our little Merlin is now in New York with Dr. John Parks at Cornell University. He will be a part of their raptor propagation program, raising future generations of Merlin's to be released back into the wild. We're sad that we could not return him to the life he previously had due to his injuries, but we're hoping this new life will suit him, as he is a young bird and should adjust just fine.

Our possible placement of one of our non-releasable Great Horned owls has fallen through. Very sad as these Great Horn's are difficult to place in permanent facilities as their are so many needing placement. We have 2 that are in this situation, so we have long term patients here that truly don't need our help any longer, they just need a home that suits their needs. Frustrating!

We finally got to release our little female Sharp-shinned hawk. She was ready and so were we! Connie took her down to her place and let her go. She said she took off like a bullet, just the way she should have. I hope she does well and learns from her accident.

Spring migration is going on, so clean out your bird baths and feeders and go for a drive! Places near bodies of water are always a good place to start. I ALWAYS have at least one pair of binoculars in my van at all times and 1 good field guide. Yes, I still use a field guide. They are invaluable, no matter how long you've been watching birds. I think the Audubon field guides are my favorite.

I hope everyone likes the new changes to the blogs' appearance. The next thing coming is a Fundraising/Auction page. We hope to have donations of items related to wildlife of various types, then to auction these off every few weeks. Please be watching for this new page and we will also Tweet about it and notify everyone on our Facebook page as soon as it's up and going.
On Facebook go to Second Chance Wildlife Rehabilitation for more info.

Debbie..............

We are now on Facebook!

Hey everyone,

We are now also on Facebook. Just look for us under our name, Second Chance Wildlife Rehabilitation..........
and also check out the link I just posted. What a wonderful story.


http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2722

This is an amazing story.....Enjoy!

Debbie

Will it ever warm up?

I know that most of the country is freezing right now, but this is ridiculous. When you have animals to care for, meaning water needs to be running, not frozen, it's very difficult to do your job. We are suppose to be getting more snow and colder weather in the next few days, just about the time I will be taking Crash in to have his pins removed in his leg...great timing.

The little Sharp-shinned hawk had her pins removed last week, so she is out in a large mew, moving around and getting up on high perches, which is wonderful. She is also outside full-time now. We will be working with that wing, making sure it has it's full capabilities and then hopefully, she can be released sometime in March maybe.

Miss Moon was released this past Monday. Pam Riddle with the BLM assisted us getting her down to Moab and then onto Bill Sloan with the Parks Department. He was heading towards the area she needed to be released so he found her a nice spot and did the honors. I hope she finds her mate and all will get back to normal. We took a picture of her before I headed out to meet Pam in Green River. What a sweetie!

We've been called out several times the last week or so for downed eagles, that weren't really down. Connie went out and checked on two of them along with another volunteer of ours, but all eagles in the vicinity flew away, so they obviously were OK. You never know so it's best to check. This time of year, eagles tend to eat at road kill, putting them in extreme danger for being hit as well. They don't move off of the road kill easily, like a Crow would, but it takes some effort and large semi-trucks going by at high speeds create a wind force that can actually pull them into the truck as it's going by. It's a scary situation.

We moved Teasdale out into a large mew now. His wing is healed as it's going to get. Here in a few more days, I may chose to put him out into the large flight with the other two Great Horned owls. I sure hope he can pass the flight test in time as his personality is that of a bird that really needs to be free and away from people. He was so bored in his enclosure that he started destroying his surroundings. This is a perch that he ripped the carpeting from. These are such intelligent birds and in captivity, although it's for their own recuperation, they resist and want desperately to leave.

Crash is still being his normal self. Still not wanting to eat on his own. We are going to try giving him some large food that he should recognize and hopefully, he will want to tear at it and then eat. His leg has healed enough that this shouldn't be a problem at this point.

Migration should be started shortly, so keep your eyes and binoculars to the skies.

Debbie

We need a new van with good gas mileage!

Well Catalyst magazine did a nice little blurb about us in their January 2011 issue. The author is part of a new move to include animal stories and the groups that spend their lives trying to help these angels. They call it "Animal Angels". I was honored to have Second Chance Wildlife Rehabilitation be their first "Angels" article. Go online and check it out. The author is Carol Koleman and I appreciate her searching us out and bestowing such an honor on us.

Well our Sharp-shinned hawk broke off her fixator device, so we had to get her back into the vet to repair it as she is not ready to have it removed. She believes she is, but the bone has only been held in place for 3 weeks, not quite enough time. The x-ray showed everything looks good, positioning wise, so we still have hope for her release sometime in the next several weeks.



Our little cat caught dove did so well, we released her. I'll include photo's of feather growth in this post so you can appreciate the loss she had. The shorter feathers, up next to longer feathers are all new. She really wanted out of here, so I released her in my yard as I have quite a population of Ring-neck doves that feed here throughout the day.






Also, here are Boo Boo's release pictures I promised, from Sanpete county. What a happy day that was for us and him. I hope he finds Sienna and mates with her and they make LOT's of Great Horned owl babies for many years! The gentleman releasing him is the finder, Morris Caldwell. Very nice man.

Moon, our little Screech owl was banded today, in anticipation for release. I'm hoping to do that in the next week or two. She will be going back to where she was found in San Juan county, quite a long way away. But she potentially has a mate waiting for her, so she really needs to be released there. If anyone wants to donate a gas card.....we sure could use a couple. I asked DWR if they would help us with gas once, a couple of years ago. What a joke.



After Crashes last appointment at the vets, we changed his antibiotic. He started doing so much better and is standing again. Tonight was his last dose (10 days) of it and the pain medication. So hopefully he will start eating on his own and we won't have to handle him much. We will ALL be happy about that! I may have to 'tough love' him for a day or two regarding the food. It's hard to get an animal with an attitude to eat when they're not hungry.


Teasdale is still doing well and his wound is still healing. His finders came and visited with us this past Sunday. Giles and Julie, thank-you again for your concern and support. I was able to purchase more mice today, so I can breath a sigh of relief thanks to the both of you!

The last pictures I'm posting here are of a semi that hit a Golden eagle. Now, this happens all too often around here and elsewhere in my territory, but I never see photo's. I always ask the officers involved, "Did you take pictures?" They never do, they just tell me this horrible story, so when this call came in last week, Connie and I headed out to look for the eagle involved as she didn't stick around once she regained her senses. We had to find out if she was injured or not. When an impact like this happens, the outcome can be minor as far as injuries to of course, death. This bird, once struck, didn't go through the windshield, but shattered it and was caught up in the mirror apparatus on the driver side and RODE with the driver for about a half mile. Amazing. He was able to take a picture with his cell phone with her by his side as he didn't want to slam on the brakes and cause her to fall to the ground. Notice the drivers side of the windshield. Connie got up into the cab and took a picture from inside as well. There was glass pieces inside the cab. How frightening for all involved. We found an eagle we believe was the one hit and she was flying low, but her wings moved perfectly. We followed her and once we found her, she flew up to a power pole and I looked at her through my binoculars and she looked good. She then took off and flew very high, spiraling the whole time, watching us. We soon realized she had a dead deer there on the size of the road where we found her, so we moved it way off the road to avoid further problems. What a day! Snow to our hips, and mud mixed with coal dust all over us, our clothes, my van, everywhere! Just LOVE our work! Just a regular day in the life of a wildlife rehabilitator, well, at least some of us.

Debbie