At the end of June I made a transport for Raptor Center of Tampa Bay. Injured or lost baby birds were still coming in and needed to get to a rehabber in St. Pete.  This one was a small load. A baby mockingbird, a sick kestrel and 2 loud baby crows made the trip. Those crows were cawing the entire ride to St. Pete.

The 4th of July was going to be a stay at home and relax kind of day but the call came out for a much needed transport. I left Brett watching sports on the couch and headed to Brandon. Those baby opossums were so cute! She was holding the smallest “runt” of the litter, checking to make sure it was warm enough to make the trip.

Nancy from Raptor Center posted this on the Facebook page with the stories of what happened to these babies.

A week later I was at Moccasin Lake Nature Park waiting to take a baby kestrel to Apopka. The Avian Reconditioning Center in Apopka is a great place for lost baby raptors to grow up and get released. They had just received another young one so the one I was taking would get a “sibling” to grow up with. While I was waiting on the kestrel I walked around for a few minutes and checked out some of the permanently injured birds that live there. The eagle was found with a bad wing injury and is not able to be fully flighted. I was surprised to see the swallow tail kite there sitting on the perch at the front of the cage. There were 2 in the exhibit as well as a Mississippi kite (which is a rare bird around here).

The baby kestrel was ready to go and I stepped in the kitchen for a minute and got to see the meals going out to all of the injured birds. Doesn’t that look yummy (don’t look closely at the bowls if you are squeamish)? I looked away from the cart and noticed an adult kestrel sitting on the desk. I’m assuming he got his breakfast first.

This tiny baby kestrel was making the 2 hour trip to Apopka. This was my first trip to the Avian Reconditioning Center. It’s a huge place with big barn size flight cages on the property. I wish I had taken some pictures but it was so hot and they were busy so I dropped of the little one and left.