Sunday we got our first baby squirrel of the season in!  He’s a healthy 52 grams with a small puncture wound on his abdomen–otherwise he’s doing great!

This young swallow was raised in our Avian Nursery this year.  Unfortunately, he/she became sick and needed a long course of treatment.  By the time the swallow recovered, the Minnesota swallows had already migrated and it was too cold outside to fly (in an airplane) to warmer weather.

Luckily, one of our volunteers happened to be driving down to Florida for the holidays!  So earlier this week, our almost full grown swallow began a 3-day road trip to Florida.  It’s not an ideal situation, having a wild bird in a car for 3 days with people; however, since this bird was raised in our nursery he didn’t become as stressed out by the sight of people as other wild birds are.  He’s not tame or habituated by any means, but he could tolerate the trip.

The volunteer commented that the swallow hadn’t vocalized during the trip–until they crossed the Florida state line–then he began chirping away like he knew he was supposed to be there.  Thanks much to the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary (a rehabilitation center in Florida) for finishing his rehabilitation!

Yes, we’re open today!  Caring for animals is a 365 day/year job.  We choose to be open for admission on holidays so we can be available for animals in need.

On this white Christmas day, we received a House Finch.  This male adult House Finch has a common ailment, conjunctivitis.  The conjunctivitis that House Finches get is a contagious eye infection that can spread through flocks of finches.  Prior to last year, we had no treatment for this disease and had to euthanize these guys on admit due to the risk that IF they survived, they would asymptomatic carriers and spread it to other house finches in the wild.

However, last year a study came out with a treatment that eliminates the risk of the carrier state.  We can now treat these birds, and most do very well!  This finch will likely be released in 3 weeks.

This year has been a great one and incredibly busy!  Last week, we broke our all time record for number of animals admitted in one year.  The record was 8,585 animals admitted in 2006.  Currently, we are at 8,607!!  If we broke that down evenly, that’s 23 animals each day!  However, during the winter we’re only getting 2-10 animals per day–which leaves us on some summer days admitting >100 animals! But we have 5 more days of 2010, so we’ll see how many animals we admit this year. Happy Holidays from WRC!

A male beaver was admitted today.  He is lethargic, has a piece of his tail missing and has some mild abrasions on his feet.  He could have been attacked by an animal, had his tail caught in a trap, or simply experienced some other kind of trauma.

The question is whether he has a disease that caused him to first be lethargic then, because he was lethargic, he was more easily attacked by an animal, caught in a trap, etc.  Or, is the trauma causing his lethargy?  It’s a very common “chicken or egg” question we ask on a daily basis.

We’re providing various treatments to him and hopefully we’ll see him perk up in the next few weeks.

What a great topic for Halloween! No, this isn’t going to be a violent post about demons and it even includes some cool video.  Read on!

We had a small murder of crows (a flock of crows is called a “murder”) who all had broken tail and wing feathers, such that they couldn’t fly.

It was getting cold out and we wanted to release them before winter hit.  Since it can take up to a year for crows to grow new feathers, we needed another option.

So we decided to imp them!  Imping is a technique borrowed from falconers, in which a similar feather is taken and a piece of wood (toothpick or bamboo skewer) is glued into its shaft, then that new feather is glued into the bird’s broken feather shaft.   (Falconers save feathers from the bird’s natural molt; we don’t have that option so we obtain feathers from similar sized crows who are deceased.  It’s important for us to keep a library of feathers since they must be closely matched to the existing bird’s feathers.)

Imping typically is done for only 1 or 2 broken feathers–not entire wings/tails like our birds needed!  Since this turned out to be a very long procedure, we used gas anesthesia to reduce the birds’ stress.

Here’s the video on the first stage of imping.

In the next stage we actually glue in the donor feathers. Watch the video of this process.

The results are visually stunning and it’s incredibly rewarding to watch these guys fly off.  They were released a few days after the feathers were imped.  During the next natural molt, the crow’s imped feather will simply fall out.

Note the missing feathers in the “before” photo. You can even watch the imping process on our You Tube Channel.

Here’s the final result:

Yesterday we admitted a Whip-poor-will, which we don’t get in very often.   

Whip-poor-wills are from the same family as Common Nighthawks which we frequently see.  They eat insects while flying, usually at dusk/dawn or on moonlit nights.  In the picture his beak appears small, but when he opens his mouth you can see how large it really is (check back later for video of this!) Since they eat insects they are currently migrating south, where the insect population will be abundant during the winter. 

This bird was lethargic and weak when he came in.  Luckily, after some anti-inflammatories and supportive care, he’s doing great today!  He likely became stunned after flying into a window.  He’ll be released later this evening.

Yesterday we admitted our 8000th patient for the year!  Fittingly, it was on the last day of summer.  This is the earliest we’ve hit 8000 patients; it could be a record-breaking year….

The 8000th patient is a Western Painted Turtle with a broken shell.  Turtle shells are made out of a specialized type of bone, and it can be difficult to get them to heal.  We have to fit the pieces together like a puzzle, align them and then stabilize them.  Any movement between the two pieces that need to heal can delay healing–and sometimes it can take quite a bit of force to get the pieces to line up.

Then, we wait–it takes at least 6 weeks for the shell to gain any strength.  Luckily, we were able to wire this shell back into place – you can see some of the wire in the top and middle areas of the “after” photo.

Before wiring:

After wiring:

This juvenile Chestnut-sided Warbler was found today in downtown Minneapolis.  These warblers spend the summer in central-northern Minnesota and migrate through southern Minnesota all the way to Central America where they winter.

It reminded me that that fall migration is underway and we’re beginning to see various species of songbirds.  Unfortunately it’s because, as they migrate through the city, they collide with tall buildings and large windows.  Keep your eyes open for stunned songbirds on the ground and give us a call if you find one!

Every year we get in several foxes with mange.

Mange is caused by a mite (Sarcoptes scabiei–see picture below ) that burrows in the skin causing sores, thickening of the skin (crusts), itching, hair loss and can cause secondary bacterial/yeast infections.

This red fox  (picture above) came in last week with severe mange.  Luckily, she is responding to medication, although it can be very difficult to treat sometimes.  Mange is also zoonotic (meaning humans can contract the mite and develop rashes) so we are adhering to strict sanitation and biosecurity measures.  Hopefully this fox will continue to recover and we’ll be able to release her!

Sadly, many of the animals we treat in the clinic are here because of human-induced injuries.  Glue traps are one of the most frustrating types of these hazards.  Glue traps are pieces of cardboard with a sticky gel on top that are marketed as rodent traps.  When the rodent runs across the “trap” it becomes stuck to the gel. They are then left there to die of starvation and many have been known to chew their legs off in desperation to get away.  The entire concept of the glue trap is inhumane and unfortunately the traps work on pretty much any small animal that comes in contact with the pad, such as songbirds.

We fairly commonly see songbirds stuck to these traps (like the sparrow shown above).  If they are alive when they arrive at the Center, they require several alternating baths in vegetable oil (to release them from the glue and break the glue down that is stuck to their feathers) and Dawn dishsoap (to then wash the oil off).  As you can imagine, this process is very stressful for the bird.

The other day, three bats (a big brown and two nothern (Keen’s) myotis) were brought in stuck to a glue trap.  As we examined the bats, we were very saddened to see the destruction that the trap had done to these animals.  All three bats had fractured bones and their wing-webbing was ripped off (an injury that does not heal).  The bones were even broken off in places.  We had to humanely euthanasia all three bats due to the severity of their injuries.

We can only hope that those of you who read this post will pass on information re. the dangers of using glue traps.  Maybe together we can educate people so they’ll stop using them.