Roscoe Report

"Whoo! Whoo!"

'ello! Greetings from the night!
In this entry we'll be updating you on Roscoe, our Great Horned Owl. Remember him?

We thought Roscoe was well on his way to being released. We therefore put him into a flight pen. He was having some problems with strength and endurance, but that was to be expected after the condition he was in when we received him; severely underweight and parasitic. While in the flight pen we suspect he was attacked by a mating/nesting pair of Great Horned Owls that live nearby. Unfortunately he suffered severe trauma to the eye from impacting against the flight pen. His cere (the skin at the top of the beak, but before the feathers) was damaged, and there was a deep yet clean puncture wound under the right side of his beak as if from a talon.Thanks to Merlora, who watches the birds in the flight pen as if she has hawk vision herself, she noticed the eye injuries immediately. After the discovery we pulled Roscoe, and took him to UT.  His entire left eye was opaque. The craters that came from an impact were so deep that his eye filled with fluid giving it the opaqueness. Roscoe went to UT on February 20th, and according to Dr. Jones we should be getting him back some time the week of March 11th, 2013. We will start with him in a mew, then graduate to a larger enclosure, and then move our way to release. Anytime we have these birds in a kennel for treatment they are maintaining body weight, but they are losing muscle strength, and thus require more flight conditioning prior to release.

Even though Roscoe has had a set back, it doesn't seem to be getting him down. We will continue to diligently work with him to get him back into this natural habitat - the wild! 

Thanks to everyone who has been visiting our blog! Again, should questions or comments arise please feel free to drop us a comment here, or send us an email privately. 

In Need:
If anyone has access to live "dark" (wild mice are not pure white) mice, and would like to donate them for "mouse school" please email us your contact information to natalie@upstatebirdsofprey.org  Re: Live Mice. 
Thanks so very much in advance to anyone who can help! 

Diligent,
Upstate Birds of Prey