CWBR Updates & A Special Release
December 11, 2016
By Lauren Adams,
Lead Wildlife Keeper
Ah, winter. The “quiet” season in wildlife rehabilitation. Around here, we call it Barred Owl season. When the cold air creeps in, the mornings are frosty, and nighttime descends in mid-afternoon, this is when New England is up against its toughest test. Barred Owls, unlike many birds that populate our skies in spring and summer, do not migrate south, but rather prefer to stick it out during t
he dreary months. These hearty birds are adapted for cold nights, snow-covered landscapes, wintry storms and scarce food supply. Like true New Englanders, they are tough cookies.
This is why Barred Owls are one of my absolute favorite birds to rehabilitate. And lucky for me, this is our most common patient that we see this time of year. Since the beginning of October, we have seen 28 Barred Owls come through our doors, making up more than half of our total patients in that time. Despite their adaptations to survive under harsh winter conditions, they have not adapted to the greatest challenge of all, the ever-expanding presence of humans. Barred Owls are no match for slick roadways, fast cars and blinding headlights. Most of these birds have been victims of vehicle strikes and suffer a variety of injuries from head trauma to fractured wing bones.
But toughness prevails, and there’s no quit in these birds. They bounce back remarkably from severe injuries and poor condition. We have been able to release many of these owls back into the wild, lively and healthy. As the weather gets colder, the snow falls, and the deep freeze sets in, we expect to see many more Barred Owls come in. Good thing we are ready for them.
Current patients in care:
5 Barred Owls:
Actually a low number for us right now. 2 are in the flight cage as a pre-release stage. The other 3 are in various stages of rehab, on medications, fluid therapy, and lots of TLC.
1 Northern Goshawk
This gorgeous male came in weak and emaciated, but very feisty. He had lots of feather damage and parasites, but no significant injuries. He is doing very well, and has ended his course of meds and is now self-feeding.
1 Coopers Hawk
This large female arrived with signs of significant spinal trauma. After being stabilized for a few days at another rehab center, she was transferred here for continued care. She has shown some incremental improvement on treatment, and will hopefully continue in that direction.
1 Rock Dove
This little guy came in with a wing injury, and could not fly. He has since regained almost full use of his wings, and is starting to fly out in one of our rehab aviaries.
We have had lots of successful releases lately, mostly Barred Owls, but one great triumph was the release of a very handsome adult male Long-tailed Duck.

Well, that’s about it for updates. We are currently at patient #531 and counting…