Late night rescue

[KayLynn]

Thought I'd share, because he's beautiful and I love working to save these guys. They're tough patients, but the most rewarding if they make a full recovery. Not to mention birds of prey are my absolute favorite.



Juvenile red tailed hawk, who flew into the side of a building chasing dinner. While they still have juvenile plumage, red tailed hawks don't have a red tail. You can also determine a younger red tailed hawk from an older adult by the color of their eyes, as younger hawks have lighter coloring.

Judging by his size and weight, I'm assuming he's a male as females tend to be noticeably larger and he's about 600g too light to weigh in as a girl. His weight (he's pretty fat, actually... his keel was hard to find), wings, and eyes are all ok, but he has no response in his left leg and is unable to stand. There was also a bit of blood in the mouth, but no other signs of trauma. He's aware, but not as aware as I'd like him to be. He was also mildly dehydrated, so I dosed and tubed a bit of pedialyte.

I'll do a much more in depth examination in the morning, and probably take him to my vet friend for X-rays tomorrow if he's still with us, but he's incredibly stressed and messing with him any further will do more harm than good.

Here's hoping.