Twist of Fate

After a normal day of hopping around in the weathering yard, taking a bath, eating a sparrow and a quail, Moa had a "fit" of some sort and died around 11:00 at night. He went from acting perfectly normal to dead in about 15 minutes time. I took him to the vet for a necropsy the next day. After a very detailed inspection, there was no sign of trauma, air sacs were clear, all the organs looked normal, there was no punctures in the stomach or crop, mutes in the GI tract looked normal, in short everything looked pretty normal except for a small dark spot on the heart. The vet's best guess was that it was some sort of heart defect, but she did not sound too convinced of that either. So his very abrupt death is unsolved at this time, until we can talk to the avian pathologist on Monday. Maybe he'll be able to give some insight. Needless to say, I'm very dissappointed in this turn of events.....

Still Growin'

Two weekends ago. May 30, 2009

Last Weekend. 6-6-09

Today. 6-12-09

The little guy is growing fast and I expect within the next couple of weeks he'll be flying free learning how to be a hawk. I'm know that he is a male now by his weight, which has topped off around 290 grams. I expect him to get a little bit heavier but there is no chance that he'll get up above or even close to 400 grams (the weight of most felmale Eastern Cooper's Hawks). I think I'm gonna call him 'Moa.'

speedy growth

I thought I would give an example of just how fast this little bird is growing.



This picture was taken May 26




And here is today's pic just 5 days later.

Feathers are poking through, he's standing up more now, and he is tearing up his own food. He barely fits in his box nest. Soon he'll be out on hack...