Monday, August 30, 2010

This Week at Liberty 08/30/2010

The intake total for the year is now at 2831.
See, I was out of town all week (I'm going to go fly A320's again...) so some of the pics are a bit out of sequence in temporal terms, but I'm trying hard. We still had a lot of mammalian traffic, some cool little birds in for care, and some one-off events that were fun.
Please read on...!
A young lesser night-hawk is getting care.
This tiny young bob-white quail came in today.
An older bob-white from last week.
I love when we get calls from people who find birds on the ground - and then we have to tell them that these particular birds are just fine as they belong on the ground. A gorgeous young lesser night-hawk was found and brought in, as were two pretty little bob-white quail. Both species spend a lot of time on the ground and can be easily mistaken for birds in jeopardy. Luckily, they are camouflaged well so they are often missed by the public!
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A delicate wing is examined.
Even bats need hydrating fluids.
A little pipistrelle was found by the dog.
A mother and her youngster.
It was like being in a cave the last few weeks with lots of bats coming in for treatment. Big browns, little browns, and pipistrelles are all fairly common and when found by humans, they can be frightening as they are No.1 on the Arizona rabies vector species list. There are three rules to remember when finding a bat. Rule 1: Don't touch the bat. Rule 2: Don't EVER touch the bat. Rule 3: Don't NEVER, EVER touch the bat. (Poor grammar, but it gets the point across.) If anyone comes in contact with the bat, it must be put to sleep and tested for rabies, no exceptions. To save it's life, call Liberty for help.
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Four rabbit's feet didn't help.
This little bunny was brought in after a close encounter of the worst kind with a car. The people had already wrapped a broken leg so he was stabilized and transferred to the clinic for surgery.
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Denise feeds an inbound RTH.
Not to leave the impression that the raptors haven't been getting into trouble as well, we still get in our share of red-tails, great-horneds, and kestrels. This is the time of year we begin to see more collisions and electrocutions - the kids are growing up!
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Rosy and Rex.
I just happened to get this shot of our two education gila monsters. They seemed to be getting along exceptionally well and were sharing the opening to one of the "caves" in their enclosure.
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Megan accepts the award.
A few of the Liberty attendees.
On Saturday night, Liberty was inducted into the "Wildlife Hall of Fame" by the Wildlife for Tomorrow group within Arizona Game and Fish Department. This puts us in some pretty lofty company with former inductees including Ben Avery, The Nature Conservancy, Steve Bodinet, and Barry Goldwater. Liberty had two tables full of well-wishers as Megan accepted the award on behalf of Dr. Orr and the volunteers.
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Libby and Joe get "shot!"
AGFD sent out their ace photographer today to get some footage (and stills) of Lady Liberty. The video and stills will be used in the Bald Eagle Management program, and probably other projects that require some photogenic eagle visages.

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If you would please take a moment and go to: http://www.livepositively.com/#/americasparks/vote
and vote for Kartchner Caverns. The park could win a $100,000 grant!
(You can vote as often as you want! - REALLY!)

4 comments:

Unknown said...

The Red Tail Jan is feeding is getting his last meal before he was to be released in Cave Creek. I took him to a beautiful private property canyon with plenty of mice and a creek that runs all year long. He came into the facility in April after surviving the blast of a shot gun. He took to the air gracefully and disappeared into the canyon while I delighted in my first release.

- Amanda Beard

Liberty Wildlife Blog said...

Love to hear "the rest of the story"...! Thanks Amanda! (Although it's Denise doing the feeding in the picture.)

Unknown said...

Denise, so sorry! :)

Bethany F said...

What a great experience, Amanda! It makes everything we do so worth it! Also, the ladies of Liberty looked beautiful at the induction! XO