Wildcare

For Mother's Day, I gifted myself with something I've been meaning to do for several years:  I volunteered at Wildcare. 

I've mentioned it here before:  Wildcare is a wildlife rehabilitation center out near Noble, run by an amazing husband and wife team.  They take in injured and orphaned wild animals of all kinds (well, not exotics or pets), nurse them back to health, and release them into the wild again.  I have a huge amount of respect for what they do, and the focus and hard work it takes to keep on doing it.  Because the animals need care around the clock, and every day of the year, no matter what the weather is like, or how you're feeling or what you might rather be doing.  In baby season they  might have 100 baby squirrels, rabbits, racoons, 'possums and birds to feed, so it takes a lot of hands to get all that work done.

Hungry "baby" crow

And now my hands are helping.  I spent three hours on Sunday morning in the Bird Room, cleaning cages.  It's not glamorous by any stretch.  There's a lot of bird poop involved, some of which can just be wadded up with the old newspaper and thrown out, but some of which has to be scraped off the towels lining the bottom of the cages so it doesn't nasty up the washing machine.  Some birds make a lot of poop.  And some birds, like the crows, eat icky stuff like fish heads and mouse parts. 

Still, I enjoyed interacting with the animals.  There was a trio of juvenile crows who looked like full-grown crows but still begged for food every time I got near the cage.  There were tiny little woodpeckers that hang upside down from the roof of their cage, or cling to the sides, which are draped in towels to give them a nubby surface to climb on.  There were baby jays and mockingbirds and finches. There was a grackle that had lost both his eyes to an infection. There was a fluffy baby barred owl and a baby hawk, both of which looked like they'd been pulled backwards through a hedge.  That's just the way baby raptors look – an unlovely beginning for birds that will be so regal and beautiful as adults.

Curious, adorable baby possum

Every 30 minutes, all the bird babies have to be fed.  The woman running the bird room would stop whatever she was doing and go from cage to cage, feeding each gaping baby bird with whatever specialized bird chow they required.  She used a syringe topped with a short length of rubber tubing to get the food down into their little gullets.  There was a whole nest of tiny, ratty-looking baby starlings in an incubator and every time she opened the door  all the babies would start screaming and begging.  She poked bits of fish or fruit into the crows' mouths, too.  And after she had fed all the little mouths, she set the timer and went back to cleaning cages until DING!  Time to feed the babies again.

Unhappy adult possum!

I also cleaned cages for a pair of young squirrels, an adult opossum, and several baby 'possums.  The baby 'possums are the cutest things in the world.  They are curious and fearless and would pad over to me to investigate when I opened their cages.  With their little black hands, bright eyes and sharp noses they're just adorable.  But the adult was a different story altogether.  She remained covered in her box, hissing and growling furiously at me the whole time I was working in her cage, and when I lifted the box to take a peek at her, she was drooling and wild-eyed, hating me.  They are wild animals, after all.  And even the cute little baby 'possums need to grow up with a healthy fear of humans, so we're not supposed to handle them unnecessarily.  

When I got home I was utterly exhausted.  The work isn't hard, but there's a lot of bending and stooping, and it was three hours of non-stop physical work, which I don't honestly do very often.  Also, sad to say, I'm not as young as I was, and all that bending is rough on my back. 

Nevertheless, I found it very rewarding, and promised to be back again this coming Sunday for another round of cage cleaning and dish washing.  If I'm a good volunteer, and prove to be reliable, I may get a chance to feed the baby squirrels and raccoons someday.