{"id":19983,"date":"2013-11-15T06:37:53","date_gmt":"2013-11-15T13:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=19983"},"modified":"2013-11-15T06:37:53","modified_gmt":"2013-11-15T13:37:53","slug":"eye-defects-in-raptors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/15\/eye-defects-in-raptors\/","title":{"rendered":"Eye Defects In Raptors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the years I’ve seen a number of birds with eye problems.\u00a0 Some of them appeared to be infections and others injuries but I’m beginning to notice a pattern of symptoms that looks similar from bird to bird, particularly in raptors.\u00a0 I’ve included two examples here.<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/a><\/p>\n

At first I thought this male American Kestrel was simply sleeping but it soon became apparent that it wasn’t opening its left eye at all.\u00a0 It took off after I got off a\u00a0few quick shots.<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/a><\/p>\n

A tight crop to show more detail.<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/a><\/p>\n

This Northern Harrier had a similar problem, this time with the right eye.<\/p>\n

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\"northern<\/a><\/p>\n

Another tight crop for more detail.<\/p>\n

The other eye of both birds appeared normal, as did their behavior as far as I could tell.\u00a0\u00a0 To my untrained eye\u00a0it looks like the eyelids of each bird are open and the problem may have to do with either the nictitating membrane or the cornea.\u00a0\u00a0 I’m struck by the similarity of the physical appearance of the abnormal eye in both birds and I’ve seen similar conditions in at least one other raptor (a female kestrel).<\/p>\n

I’m always interested and curious about what I see in the field when it involves birds (good or bad) so I wonder if any of my readers have any insight as to what may be going on here.\u00a0 I’ve posted other images of this harrier previously and asked about the eye but I’ve just recently noticed the apparent\u00a0similarities between the eye of this harrier and kestrel.\u00a0\u00a0Am I correct in believing that the\u00a0symptoms that we can see in both birds are\u00a0similar?\u00a0 From the physical\u00a0appearance of the eyes can it be determined if these “anomalies” are likely caused by injury or infection (or perhaps injury followed by infection) or something else?<\/p>\n

Thanks in advance for any feedback or insight.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the years I’ve seen a number of birds with eye problems. Some of them appeared to be infections and others injuries but I’m beginning to notice a pattern of symptoms that looks similar from bird to bird – particularly in raptors. I’ve included two examples here.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[340,5,334,341],"tags":[28,86,1749,1108,1716,131,515,234],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/northern-harrier-closeup-0669-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-5cj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19983"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}