Wildcare week two

I volunteered for the second time at Wildcare today. Bob and I hosted a party for several of his colleagues and grad students last night, and it was a late night with plenty of booze, so it was not easy to get up this morning and motivate myself to get dressed and go clean cages, but I'm glad I did. 

As luck would have it, a little bluebird flew into my windshield just about half a mile from the Wildcare entrance. It swooped across the road right in front of me and hit a glancing blow that left it flapping on the road, so I turned around and picked it up, poor little thing.  Such a beautiful little bird!  I expect he will recover, he was doing much better by the time I left for the day.  I suppose if you've got to hit a bird with your car, doing so on the way to the wildlife rehabilitation center is the way to do it.

This stint was much a repeat of the last one.  I cleaned cages,washed bowls,  filled water dishes... but this time I got to help feed the baby birds.  I got a syringe full of bird chow, and went around poking it into the wide open mouths  of some 30 or 40 little birds.  It is surprisingly gratifying, just feeding something that is so very very hungry! 



Some of my charges.  Five hungry baby starlings.

 

We had several bird escapes.  I left a cage open once and three fledgling starlings escaped.  A pair of finches flew the coop, quite literally, and had to be rounded back up.  It's fairly easy to catch them, because they will come begging for food when you get the syringe out.  Some of the starlings that had gotten loose in the outdoor enclosure would fly over and land right on my hands, begging for food as I was making my rounds.  They would perch on the edge of the food dish and gape at me every time I refilled the syringe.  I called them the screamers because they make so much noise when you come around to feed them, it makes your head ring.

A troublesome pair of squirrels,
 just before their escape

The most excitement, however, was the squirrel escape.  There were two very lively little fellows who insisted on hanging on the doors of their cage as I was trying to clean it.  As soon as I cracked the door open a bit, they were trying to nose their way out, and while I was poking one back in, his partner escaped.  There was a fairly interesting 10 minutes or so in which my partner and I ran around with nets and gloves, trying to corral him back into the cage.  Then once he was netted, he managed to weasle his way out of the net and we had the whole thing to do over again. 

My favorites are still the little Opossums.  There's one in particular that comes to investigate me .  I while I'm cleaning his cage.  I brought my camera today so I could get some better pictures, (with mixed results) and he was mighty curious about that, and when I had to put my head  into the cage to scrub the far back corner, he nosed right up to my face, checking me out.

Curious baby opossum checks out my camera.

Finally, when all the cages were cleaned and wheeled outside for some fresh air and sunshine, I got to go look around a bit in the baby room:  this is where hundreds of tiny baby mammals are housed, many of them in incubators, and fed every 3 to 4 hours.  The girls working there told me that they have more than 90 Opossum babies alone. Just 'possums!  I peeked into one incubator and saw the world's most adorable, tiny baby skunks.  I like working with the birds, but I hope someday to be able to feed the little mammals, too.

They don't all make it, of course. Two little birds died in their cages this morning. But so many more survive than would otherwise because of Rondi and her amazing operation. It was well worth getting up and giving a few hours of my time -- even with a hangover -- to help out.

As I w as leaving, Rondi asked me if I would take a pair of gulls out to the lake and release them, so I had the pleasure of getting to see a couple of our charges return to the wild. I shot a little video of the release, and felt good all the way home.