Baby it's hot out there..

Baby it is hot out there..

 Sent 7 birds to  CRC today.  6 red shoulder hawks and a screech owl.  We have a barred owl and 2 red shoulder hawks I did not send down for health  reasons.  Each day I get a call about a baby animal.  Normally the  birds are out of the nest by now, but this odd winter has messed up the birds timetable.  Instead of February thru May, the baby season started in late March, and is still going.

The calls coming to the refuge average 4-7 a day.  of those calls only about  2 a day are actually for us. We are averaging $800 per month in gas to go on rescues (since January)  We are definitely busy.

What is harder than a late baby season is a bad insect season.   Mosquitoes, gnats, ticks  ground bees.  All of them are bad this year since it did not get cold enough to kill off the bulk of them.  It needs to be below 20 degrees F for at least 2 weeks for it to be a regular summer.  We had less than 5 days that cold, and they were not consecutive.

So, as we rebuild things (as we do each yea,) we are dealing with a very rough season of insects.  Everything takes longer since we have to stop and clean up no only bird stuff, but insect damage.  All the while we have to dodge ground bees, and make sure nothing out there will affect the birds.  Anyone want to help?  just think, a beekeepers outfit in 95 degree weather.. fun.

New Webpage and Web Hosting

If you are reading this you have noticed that we have a blog on our website now.  Yay!  we finally got into the 21st century!  only 12 years after the changeover!

Our new webpage features a lot of things that we have been trying to accomplish.  The most significant is that we once again have a donation button on the website.  For the past few years we have not been able get it to work.  Now finally we have it working.  People can donate to us through paypal online.  We are hoping to get google wallet and possibly a regular credit card service set up here as well, so there will be more ways to help the refuge.

The second big feature is the blog.  Hopefully it will work right and you will all have this nice literate commentary  every week from the refuge  with updates and information.  If it all works correctly, you will be able to post comments and questions as well.   Be warned, this is a g rated  site, so not foul language etc, even if a subject we talk about is something truly bad for nature and animals.

We also hope to have more videos and bird sounds and even some educator downloads  in the near future.   So stay with us and keep watching as we get better and better!

Wild Child

This year baby season has come late.   Normally around February and March we are inundated with calls of babies out of the nest.   This year, we had a very light  february and march, but  the past few weeks have been  amazingly busy.

We only do the beginning parts of the baby  care.  since we have small flight cages and limited resources, we get teh babies stable and healthy and send them to the Carolina Raptor Center.  They are a huge organization, and can easily care for the babies.  They even have live prey cages.  that means the cages have live prey in them for the babies to learn to hunt.

This year we have already sent 1 bald eagle, 1 great horned owl and 3 barred owls and 1 red shoulder hawk to CRC.  We will soon be sending them another 5 or 6 Red shoulder hawks. the reason I am unsure, is I got a call just as I sat down to write this blog about a possible  baby.  The caller is going out to see if the baby is still there, and if it is I will go out and get the bird.

It is still a light season, but  then , it may be just getting started.  It would seem the odd weather is even confusing the birds...