I got a call from Lorraine this morning. She reported that she saw a saw-whet owl in Mr. Neil's yard flying around the bird feeding station--perhaps it is the same saw-whet we found a couple of weeks ago. I wish I could have gone out to look for it, but I have to pack for my trip to Cape May, NJ--SO excited about the birding and meetin' up with all the bird bloggers and Birds and Beers on Friday night. AND! I have a bonus trip to New York on Monday and Tuesday. Maybe I'll get to see Pale Male?

I have some optimistic news about peregrine 568 at The Raptor Center. They were going to do an X-Ray on Tuesday morning, but remember how she likes to rip the duct tape off of her foot? She was at it again big time this weekend, so they did her check a day early. I didn't get to observe, but Tuesday morning, Alana gave me the down lo on what happened.

The X-Ray looked good! You can see where the bone break had healed up in the above photo and that's very good news in her recovery!

Here is the X-Ray from right after her first surgery. You can see that there is one big rod lining up the broken leg bone and two smaller roads helping to stabilize the bone. Alana said that they removed the large rod that was inside the bone, but left in the two smaller rods. They remove the rod gradually, to make sure the injury is stable as the bird gains more movement. I got a video of Alana explaining the X-Ray below--again, she's a great teacher and very good at explaining things:

Things looks promising.