07/12/2016
Last night about 930, Patti picked up a beautiful juvenile female red-tailed hawk.
She is chunky- meaning that she is successful and consistently able to catch quality food. She is going into her second summer, or just turning a year old, and is readying for her first full molt. Part of that will be that rite of passage when her striped, brown and grey tail will gradually fall and be replaced by her adult, species defining red tail.
Once her molt is complete, she will appear smaller than she was before the molt... Why?... Oh, this is so cool... Because the feathers in her first set are wider and longer than the ones she will grow out each year for the remainder of her life.
Think of it this way: as teenagers, our first car is usually not a sports car! We learn our driving skills on a practical vehicle that denies us high speed. Nature parallels that by giving youngsters a set of wide, broad feathers (that gives them a larger appearance- always helpful when facing down an opponent). Thus, they learn to soar of very big wings, pursue slow or injured (or dead) animals, and maneuver on starter tricks, much like a budding gymnast has a spotter, or the balance beam is only a foot high.
In that first year they can take all day to find dinner as they are never responsible for feeding someone else. Once the adult feathers are in, faster and more agile flight is afforded by narrower, shorter, and slightly stiffer feathers... A sports car! Now, going into adulthood, they can catch faster, larger prey to feed themselves, share with a mate, and soon provide for those all important babies.
They also have the power to make several fast trips a day while building a nest or looping out frequently to ward off intruders.
The photo is of the RTH that Patti rescued in Trafalgar. Initial exam showed an area on her back, right above her hip joint where fly strike (fly eggs) has entered her body through a bullet hole. I will neither post the photo nor describe the wound. We spent over an hour cleaning and preparing the wound for a dressing. We gave her medicines to treat parasites, infection, inflammation, pain, and anxiety. Through a feeding tube, we gave her fluids for dehydration, and a food slurry for nutrition.
She will see the vet today- is the bullet in her gut? Or did it fall or pass thru (found no exit- but sometimes the slug will not completely enter- they will make a hole and then, with movement, fall off, much like an M&M falling from a cookie). Has it affected her spine? Are there remaining maggots we could not flush out (they are neatly microscopic)? Are the toxins from the maggots going to affect her?
This morning she is positioned with her tail in the corner of her transit box. Her wings and feet are a bit askew because, I believe, pain can be slightly relieved by sitting just right. She makes no attempt to reposition when checked on but registers her displeasure with facial expression- leave me alone, human.
People and birds of prey and dogs and cats and almost anything that moves) and even stuff that doesn't move-- check any stop and most street signs-- are being shot. Every day- EVERY DAY of the week, we hear gunfire - I live just outside of a very small village).
We are not anti gun or anti hunting. We just want the shooting of innocent beings to stop.
Please add this hawk to your prayers for the injured, sick and orphaned- she was just out doing her job- hunting the rodents that damage our crops. Even with the current population of birds of prey, 20% of our agricultural production is taken by rodents. If we gave them hunting poles, a place to nest, and stopped shooting them, our food would be slightly cheaper, more plentiful, and contain less, if not zero rodenticides.
Thanks for listening, and please forgive typos- we are low on fuel!
