Busy Bird Time

December 30, 2011

What is it about the holidays that brings so many birds in to us? Owls, ducklings, kereru, tuis, etc, all pouring in. Partly it’s because vets are closed for a number of days, and people have no-where else to bring injured birds. Partly it’s because of the large number of visitors to our area who are outdoors enjoying nature, and discovering these injured or orphaned birds. One family brought us a beautiful Harrier Hawk. His wing was damaged, but because of the holidays we couldn’t get an x-ray. I thought the injury was older, and that the hawk may have been grounded for up to a week, living on roadkill. We made him comfortable, administered pain medications, and supplied plenty of food which he gobbled down. He was so magnificent, we really hoped he’d recover. Unfortunately, when we were eventually able to get an x-ray done it showed that his elbow joint was very badly fractured, and would never be able to heal enough to allow him to fly and hunt. We had to have him euthanised. This is the hardest part of what we do, and I hate it every time – but I do believe that a quick humane death is far preferable to a long slow death by starvation, so I’m grateful to the people that take the time to bring these birds in. Even as I write, someone has just phoned about bringing in a nearly drowned wild baby parrot. Here we go again…!!