Handicap

Box 312 - All eggs have hatched. We thus need to capture (by sight or physically in the box) the parents for banding and identification. The female was easy. But the male... I couldn't see his legs. He was always perched sitting on his butt. I started calling him Mr. No-Leg. But, May 4, we finally trap him and we discover that this guy is actually not Mr. No-Leg. He wears a yellow band on his right leg, sign I banded him as a chick last year. But... his left leg is broken at knee level. The USGS band is gone. We cannot identify him. I don't know when or how it happened... This one-legged bird seems to be doing well in spite of his handicap and reminded me of a truly one-legged female (one leg was completely missing from the hip) in 2014 who raised 2 clutches successfully. Handicap does not equal Failure!!!

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