We know its a dove, because she has that dove 'look' - heavy bodies, smallish head, not a full upright position (like a robin), long tail. Now, what kind of dove? What are the distinguishing characteristics? Bird ID is not easy, but its fun. Generally, you look for several things. First, basic appearance...what does it look sorta like (a canary? a regular yard bird? a duck?). Then you look at color, size, head size, tail length, type of bill (length and color too), feet, markings on the feathers, where it is. After that, more detail is needed. Try to use a common bird, like the robin or mallard as your comparison to gauge size. How about the next bird? Yep, another dove. And, both are fledglings. What differences do you see? If you saw them side by side, you would see that the one below is about half the size of the other. In fact, you could say the one below is small, and the one above is medium sized. Also, they both are smaller than the adults, and look young. The Collared above does not have its black feathers around the neck that look like a collar. The dove below is a darker color than its parents; the dove above is lighter than its parents. Fledges can be hard to ID, but you can get a sense of if it sorta looks young. Also, fledges often cannot fly yet. They can leave the nest early (totally normal) and stay on the ground for up to a week unable to fly. Now, look at the bills. The top one has a heavy, light grey bill, it has bumps on it, and its longer. The one below has a shorter, smaller, brown bill, more pointed. Overall color is different too. Light cocoa below with black spots; color of a hamburger bun mixed with grey above. The bird below is darker, smaller, with spots, and a small, but pointed brown bill. The one above, is a roundish, heavy looking bird, with light almond (hamburger bun) with grey in it, and a heavyish, long, grey bill. Now, what are they? The one below is our native Mourning Dove. The one above is the Eurasion Collared Dove, they are not original to the US and in fact are having an ecological impact on the smaller mourning dove. They both eat food on the ground: insects, seeds, vegetation. Both nest in trees. The Collared Doves are bigger birds and aggressive to the mourning doves as they compete for valuable food and nesting sites. Help I Found a Fledgling! That's great! Now, before you pick her up, check the scene out. Is she injured, or just bebopping around eating or resting in the sun? Look for the parents. Are there others around? Did you see something capture it, a cat or dog? Is it safe more or less? Are their immediate dangers to the bird that nothing can be done about (like someone else's outdoor cat? Can you ask that person to put the cat inside for a few days? Is it near a window? Has it been in the same place for a long time (sitting still for an hour for example, stunned at the base of a house under a window?
Ground feeding birds are best left to learn how to eat and find food. The ground is their dinner table. As young birds, they need to learn to find food. The parents are teaching them by showing them where the food is and bringing them some. And the young are learning on their own. In general, we tend to leave the bigger, more robust Collared Doves alone. The Mourning Doves we can talk to you about to gauge whether there is a real need for 'rescuing'. We can never replace these birds' wild foods in rehab, so we are careful about rushing them in to care. Like all of our youth, they should be watched over some and their play/feeding grounds made as safe as possible for them. Make sure they have some water, and you are not bothering or scaring them if they are in your yard. Bring the dog or cat in till they can fly. If you are really concerned, the bird is just not flying off, there are no parents (and you have given them privacy to return), and they look injured. Call us. In the meantime, enjoy your doves. They are a neat and pretty bird. The Mourning Doves are a sweet, gentle, and fun little bird. The hunter that shot Hope and Fiona was charged in Lakeview. The Bend Bulletin printed an article that includes information about this today. You can find it here: Article on Hope (click on link).
It is with a very sad and heavy heart that I have to report that Hope, the beautiful Trumpeter swan, died February 10th. She had gone in for a second surgery for her wing. Hope was shot by a hunter late October and her mid wing bones were fractured by the pellets. Hope had gone in for a second surgery to remove this wing as it never was able to fully heal, the damage was just too bad. USFWS and ODFW had given us permission to do an amputation rather than euthanize her. She was to be mated up with one of ODFW's male swans in search of a mate and also flightless - part of their swan recovery program here in the state. We had high hopes for Hope.
Sadly, Hope was unable to wake up after surgery. Well December was the busiest we have ever experienced, with nearly 20 water birds being found and brought into the center. Kudos to all of you who helped these sweet little birds! We had eared, horned, and pied-billed grebes, western grebes, a loon, and new this year, and so exciting, ruddy ducks. Ruddy ducks, like all the others, are unable to fly once grounded...their wings are just too small for their heavy, little bodies. These birds are deep divers and most fishers, so they need that weight to get down into the water. The wings are small so they are streamlined....similar to a penguin. All but the ruddies have their feet positioned back behind them, rather than below like a duck. This makes it hard for them to run or stand up. The smallest grebes need at least 20 feet of water runway to get into the air. The ruddies even longer, they have to huff and puff and waddle on top of the water a good distance to finally get themselves launched into the air. Google some images of grebees running on water, it is quite cool. All but the ruddies and coots, should have been somewhere else. The little grebes - horned, eared, and pied-billed - migrate in December and even into January. The coots and ruddies are local but the cold froze up their water and they simply did not have enough to get launched. The western grebe and loon simply did not make it over the Cascades and got caught in the storms. All were taken to appropriate places. The western and loon went to Yaquina Bay, the horned went to Siletz Bay, the eareds went to Summer Lake, the pied-billed went to Fern Ridge in Eugene, and the ruddies and coots stayed in Bend at Hatfield Lake. All were happy to get out of the snow and onto water! To me, there is almost nothing more fascinating then water bird feet. I just love those cute little webbed feet, and how the birds use them to paddle around and fish. The western can get going fast enough, primarily with his feet that he can actually spear a fish! Very cool (not for the fish of course).
In the pictures below, you can see how the eared grebes feet are behind her, while the ruddies is underneath. Ruddies eat vegetation and some water bugs, eareds eat bugs and fish. You can see that the size of their wings, while helping them underwater, makes them less able to get out of the water and into the air. The coot, the one with the white nose, has his feet most like the usual duck, right beneath his belly. Looking closely at their feet, you will see that all 3 types of birds have different webbing. The coot and eareds have lobes in their webbing, while the duck has the usual ducklike paddle for a foot. Hope was shot near Summer Lake. She has a broken wing and had 4 hours of orthopedic surgery last Tues (25th). She now has 6 weeks of rehabilitation and recovery ahead of her. Care of Hope and her rehabilitation will involve physical therapy a couple times a week, bandage changes, medications twice a day, a diversity of food, and specialized housing that protects her keel, feet, and the waterproofing of her plumage.
Hope is a Trumpeter Swan, which were on the endangered species list for decades. Oregon Dept of Fish and Wildlife has worked for 20 years to get Trumpeters nesting and breeding again here in Oregon. Hope is the first bird born in Summer Lake to have been from a completely wild pair of birds. Her injury is particularly tragic for this reason. And ODFW, Native Bird Care, and her Drs are doing all they possibly can to save Hope. The little - specifically 10 gram! - yellow warbler was released yesterday. Above is a picture a day or two before in the aviary. There was some question on whether she was a yellow or orange-crowned. These pictures may resolve that, specially the rear one. She mooned me.
Its so difficult to take photos once they are in the aviary...just so high strung and no, they won't sit for me, not this sized bird. She is a good example of a window strike. Another I got in just after her was not so lucky. These little birds can get going amazingly fast, and when the hit a window if they don't hit their head, they take the strike with the shoulder or full body. Clavicle and coracoid injuries result. Its best to not handle a bird much with this kind of injury. Something has to be done to keep the bird's wing in correct placement for healing...best done by someone with skill and small hands. Its easy to make this injury worse and cause the bird to be unreleasable (a death sentence). A flight cage is so important. This bird once out of her wrap, had difficulty gaining loft and navigating. She went from a large indoor netted enclosure, to the 12' x 16' aviary - quite large for her tiny size. It took her 3 full days of full on flight to gain her strength, endurance, and stamina back. She would not have been releasable without this physical therapy. She spent a full week in the aviary. She was released yesterday, and we wish her well. Just in time to migrate to Mexico. Have a safe trip! A type of warbler, am not sure what kind. IF you know, please comment or share an email with me.
And yes, it was excruciatingly difficult to wrap this little girl's wing and body in tiny vet wrap (specially since my assistant's hands are not small, luckily mine are). Took me much practice over the years to be able to do this...geesh. Its not hard to put too much tension on this kind of wrap for this size bird and impact their breathing. Air sacs on birds are all over and just under the skin. Have to make sure the medical care we give doesn't cause more harm. This tiny one is doing just fine. Injury is to the coracoid from hitting a window. She has some neurological issues, but is working through those fast. In a couple days, the wrap will come off and we will test flight. After that, she will have some flight time (exercise and PT) in the aviary, to get her strength and flexibility back. Then its off to South America. Grebe Acres is NOW Native |
AboutNative Bird Care's is celebrating its 10th anniversary! Our main focus is song, shore, and waterbirds. We offer specialized care and facilities for these extraordinary birds.. Archives
January 2024
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