When I picked it up, it appeared to be reasonably healthy from what I could tell, but it did have a problem.  The bird had some poop that had formed this hard “thing” around its, well, “pooper.”  I’ve seen this happen in another bird (not a Purple Martin) before and it was not a good sign.  I had Leecy grab a wet paper towel so we could gradually loosen the hard poop.  It worked.  We then placed the bird back in the nest it came from.

Many of the adult Purple Martins have left.  We only see 2 of the adults consistently, and they seem pretty focused on the nest that has 4 babies.  I’m not sure if the parents of the single Purple Martin we rescued are still around.

My plan is to keep on eye on this fledgling tomorrow, and try to pay attention to how many adults are still around and if they are feeding this particular bird.  If necessary, I’ll get a neighbor to help me lower the Martin house if things don’t appear to be going well.

Anyway, here’s a couple of pictures Leecy took with her phone.  She has named him “Berry” because he had a “dingleberry” (her choice of words, not mine).

Purple Martin Rescue Bird Butt

Leecy Holding Purple Martin Rescue

I’m downloading my pictures for the day and the doorbell rings.  It’s my neighbors kids.  “Do you want this Turtle?”

“Sure, I guess.”

I don’t know Turtles.  Well I take that back.  I know what a Red Eared Slider is, and I know what a Snapping Turtle is.

When I look at one of my books (Field Guide To Reptiles And Amphibians, National Audubon Society) it kinda looks like a Gulf Coast Box Turtle, but then I don’t really know anything about Turtles.

So, can anyone help me out?  What type of Turtle is this?  What does it eat?

For tonight, I just placed it in my Butterfly Enclosure along with some water and a little thing that it can hide under.

Gulf Coast Box Turtle

Leecy was going to get our empty plastic potting buckets when she noticed something a little strange.  She yells at me like I did her yesterday regarding the injured Purple Martin.

She says, “LOOK” and I look at this bucket she is holding and there is a Toad butt hanging out.

Toad Butt Hanging Out Of Bucket

Now you can’t tell from the above picture, but this was a big fat toad, and he somehow got stuck in this bucket.  Personally I don’t see how he even stuck his head through the small hole.

Toad Stuck In Bucket

Look at the above picture, and the small hole in the left hand corner.  Now look at the size of this Toad.  Okay, now explain to me how the heck this Toad even got close to being stuck in this bucket.  That’s like me trying to get my big ol butt in a pair of Leecy’s pants.  It ain’t gonna happen.

So what we did is we misted him with some water at first, since we had no idea how long he had been stuck.  Then we slowly started cutting around the hole that the Toad was stuck in until he was free.

Toad Is Free After Being Stuck In Bucket

Then, of course Leecy had to hold the Toad for a quick picture before he was released back in the garden.

Doesn’t he look thrilled?

Update:  I’m classifying this as a Gulf Coast Toad, but apparently there’s some discrepancy between a Gulf Coast Toad (Bufo Valliceps) and a Coastal Plain Toad (Bufo Nebulifer).  I tried to research how to identify the difference between the two and I can’t figure it out.  If someone can educate me, I’d appreciate it.

So I’m out in the backyard with the dogs and notice both of the dogs start surrounding this jumping thing.  I yell at both of them “NO” and both dogs stop and look at me.  I look at what they are all excited about and notice it’s a Purple Martin.  Fortunately both dogs are used to our African Grey Parrot so they just wanted to sniff the bird.

I pick up the obviously injured Purple Martin, walk inside, and yell for Leecy to “come here, emergency”!  I’m standing there with this bird in my hand and I hear no sign of Leecy.  I yell again for Leecy.  Still no answer.  On the third time I yell for Leecy she yells back at me she was going potty (good thing I wasn’t injured otherwise I might have died while Leecy finished her business:-).

I ask her to put the dogs in their crates and tell her about the injured Purple Martin.  I also ask her to grab her camera.

Injured Purple Martin In Hand

I then start to examine the bird and determine why it couldn’t fly.  It had a somewhat obvious injury on its wing.

Injured Wing Purple Martin

Here’s a different view of the injury.

Injured Wing Purple Martin Different View

I’m not a vet but this looked a little strange for a bird injury.  From what I could tell its wing wasn’t broken but what do I know?

I ask Leecy to look up the number for a Wildlife Rehabilitator.  She talks to the Wildlife Rehabilitator and the lady she talks to gives us a number for someone close by our house.  Unfortunately, Leecy called that number and there was no answer.  Once again, Leecy then called the Wildlife Rehabilitator that’s located on the other side of town.  The lady said we were welcome to bring the bird in, but they close at 2 in the afternoon.

Good thing we have an African Grey as we have a travel carrier so that we can transport the injured bird in that.

Injured Purple Martin In Travel Carrier

I was quite surprised this bird was so calm.  Then again, it might have been scared out of its mind.  Either way, the bird seemed to know that being calm and not flapping all over the place was the best thing to do.

Leecy took the bird to the Texas Wildlife Rehabilitation Coalition (click on the name for their web page).  The intake specialist at the Rehabilitation center said they were happy that someone bothered to bring in a songbird like a Purple Martin.  She also said that the injury appeared to possibly be from a cat, but they couldn’t be sure until the vet examined the bird (so guess what my little rant is about?).

Another thing that I thought was nice about this place is that if you do bring in an injured animal you can send them an email and they will update you on the status of the animal.  Leecy did ask if we could pick up the bird and release it back around our home (since it was most likely already nesting in our Martin house), but the intake person they probably wouldn’t be able to do that, although they would try and release it as close as possible to the address where the bird was found.

Oh yea, we did make a $100.00 donation to help with the costs of rehabilitation of the bird or however else they see fit.

Because of the extreme cold, I didn’t feel it was warm enough to release the last 3 hatchlings.  The cold weather allowed us to master the art of hand feeding Butterflies.  The technique is as follows:

1. One small lid
2. Cottonballs
3. Grape Juicy-Juice
4. Toothpick

What we did to keep the Butterflies alive was to soak the cottonballs in the Juicy-Juice and place them on a small lid.  I would gently hold the Butterfly while Leecy would use the toothpick to extend their proboscis.  Once the proboscis was extended into the Juicy-Juice, the Butterflies would naturally start sucking up the nectar.  This method enabled us to keep these Butterflies alive for over a week indoors.

Back to the title of this post.

One particular Butterfly was very anxious to be released as he was constantly flying around his enclosure (the enclosure was indoors and positioned towards the sun).  In his over-excitement, he tore one of his wings and could no longer fly.  There was no way I was not going to make some attempt at helping this Butterfly since he had endured so much already.

What I did was grab some super glue and baby powder.  While I held the Butterfly, Leecy applied the super glue to the torn wing with a toothpick.  After she smeared a small amount of super glue to the torn wing, she dabbled on a little baby powder so that it wouldn’t stick to the opposite wing.

Surprisingly, this “Butterfly Wing Repair” actually worked and the Butterfly was able to fly with no problems!

While I still didn’t think it was warm enough to release the last remaining Butterflies, I decided to let them make the decision.  I brought them outdoors to get as warm as possible (the temperature was around the upper 40′s).  I also gave them some additional Juicy-Juice (they knew how to use it by now).  After about 10 minutes in the sun, the Butterfly with the torn wing flew high in the sky!  He didn’t just fly a short distance, he flew for as long as I could see him.

Fortunately, I did decide to dust off the camera (I haven’t been taking many pictures lately) and take a few photos of the repaired wing.  Looking down at the Butterfly, it’s the left wing that was repaired.

Monarch Butterfly With Repaired Wing