An interesting opportunity

Yesterday I got a call from a co-worker saying that his wife's facebook friend's neighbor's cat caught a young kestrel and was looking for someone to take care of it (the neighbor, not the cat). I saw some cell phone pictures and it was rather raggedy looking but seemed to be in good health. I made a bunch of phone calls including the DWR and my sponsor and on approval from the wildlife officer, decided to go pick up the little guy. I met the lady in charge of the rescue (Elaine) and her friend (Jennifer) that handled the communication online and her beautiful group of girls. One wants to be a falconer and now meets the minimum age requirement so maybe they'll have some fun with kestrels in a year or so. :)

One side note here. In my excitement I may not have told the wildlife officer that I was an apprentice falconer so I called back and left him a message to that effect. We'll see if he still approves. If not, I'll take him to the raptor rehabilitation center nearby. EDIT: I just got off the phone with the officer. He said, let's call it a win-win for me and the bird and let it stand. Woot!

As far as injuries go, he doesn't have any obvious punctures or tears but he did get plucked about a quarter's worth on his chest and he seems to have two channels across his head where maybe the cat's claws pulled the feathers there but the skin doesn't look to be scratched. Otherwise he is acting "normal" from what I know and isn't favoring any limb. He's one lucky bird.

On getting him home I fed him a mouse. (Coincidentally the female mouse just had babies today. So it's baby day at our house.) I fed him this in little pieces with tweezers through a small hole in an apple box I had him in. This way he didn't associate the food with seeing me and hopefully won't become a begging screamer. My sponsor gave me instructions on how to build a baby box and how to feed him. It's basically a box with a window in it to see our family circus. He has a ledge perch to hang out on. On the top of the box is a covered hole that I can uncover to drop food in so he doesn't associate me with food. So far so good. I minced up two starlings and two mice last night and made 12 gram baggies to feed him. I'm starting on a 12g every 4 hour schedule and we'll see how much he eats. I'm guessing we'll probably reduce that to 6-8g. Actually, I gave him his first morning meal of 12g and he's only eaten half of it now in the last 20 minutes.