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From: dragon@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Sam Conway)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: A sick osprey
Message-ID: <24632@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 21 Sep 90 23:21:42 GMT
Sender: news@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU
Distribution: na
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Lines: 31

What frustration!  We retrieved a downed Osprey in Northfield, VT this
afternoon.  Immature female, by the looks of it:  spots, and a necklace.
She was, as the man said, "Walking down the middle of the street" and was
easily picked up.  The first thing I noticed when she was placed into a
cage was the disturbing tendency to flop down on her tummy and close her
eyes -- quite surprising to see her spring suddenly to life from that
position when touched.  The bird is neither lean nor dehydrated, and an
exam turned up no apparent physical damage.  The bird, then, is likely
one of the following:

1)  completely shagged out after a prolonged squawk.

2)  shot (pellet-holes are almost impossible to spot w/o an X-ray).

3)  poisoned.

The third one bothers me.  I can't help thinking of the lamprey problem in
Lake Champlain, and the biocides that have recently been dumped into the
water in order to control them.

Just my thoughts after an afternoon of trying to figure out why this
apparently uninjured, well-muscled bird wants to keep playing dead.
She's gone for an X-ray; we'll know tomorrow if there's something amiss
on the inside.


-- 
Sam Conway                             * What shape do you usually have?
dragon@eleazar.dartmouth.edu           * Mickey Mouse shape?  Smarties
Chemistry Dept., Dartmouth College, NH * shape?  Amphibious landing craft
Vermont Raptor Center (VINS)           * shape?  Poke in the eye shape?