Baby Birds Everywhere!

Another day at BTN! We had a lot of people helping out last Saturday which was awesome. That means we can all focus on really cleaning the enclosures. My assignment that day was the backrow birds and to train an intern in the flight cages. Again. Unfortunately that girl called out, so I was only in charge of the backrow birds.

I had 4 cages to do, which isn't much. I prepared their diets: Fruit and wet dog food for the crows, fish for the crane, and fruit, wet dog food, and seeds for the songbirds. 

Have I mentioned that I love crows? Because I do love crows. They're so affection and cuddly. The first cage had about 5 fledgling crows. They were loud and hungry, like crows always are. They couldn't wait for me to finish scrubbing down their enclosure and replacing the dirty bedding so that I would feed them. They weren't so interested in the fruit; wet dog food is much more appealing to crows. They happily ate it up while I hand-fed them a little bit. They're so cute!!! Though the adult crow by himself in a hutch wasn't nearly as friendly.

"What to eat first?"

"Can't you just hand-feed me?"

The songbirds were starving too. Or maybe they only act like that. I did a lot of hand-feeding because they still need to learn how to primarily feed themselves. I scrubbed down their enclosure and replaced their water. In the flight cage were blue jays, mockingbirds, mourning doves, and brown thrashers. The doves as adults are very skittish, but most of the other birds were up in my face crying for me to feed them. Silly babies, you have to learn to eat by yourselves!

"Feed me Seymour!"

We had a sandhill crane in the back too. I'm not sure what injury brought it here, but it looked really good when I went to look at it. It was very friendly too! It had no problem coming right up to the door as I approached it. I even had to call Emily over to help me shoo the crane away from the door while I carried in a clean box of water. The day before it was fed birdseed and fruit, which is not what a crane would eat. Their long necks, legs, and beaks are indicative of fishing birds. They move like spears into the water to catch fish. Carissa had run out and bought some fish for the crane, so I threw in some frozen finger mullet and live fish (I forget what kind). The crane was SO HAPPY. It went straight for the live fish. It makes me happy to see animals eating well, especially actively hunting.

Beautiful bird

Yummy!

Afterwards I was done! My side-job was: Produce, so I cleaned out the 4 fridges and threw out bad food. Jason, another veteran volunteer/intern helped me out by loading fresh produce into the fridges. So in turn I helped him with the big cats, Jagger (Bobcat) and Zema (Western Cougar). I prepared their diets and Zema's medicine and shared in cleaning their enclosures. Because of our teamwork we got finished quickly so we socialized and spent some time with Zema. He was in a very friendly mood and began to "meow" and purr when he saw us. He was especially focused on Jason. It was adorable!

What an adorable and dangerous big kitty!

Hopefully BTN will keep getting so much help from lots of people! It's great to see the huge increase in volunteers and interns since I started there over a year ago. And I keep thinking how I'm going to miss the people and animals so much once it's time for me to move away.

Until next week!

The Wild Dimes has Fainted!

A nestling. SO ADORABLE!!!

New Interns! (Old news...)

Hello again!  Long time no see. I took some time off to relax after finals. But I'm back and we will continue our regularly scheduled programming.

While I was gone the new interns started. So I got to see a lot of new faces. Debbie says they're a good group and I believe her. I even got to train one of them, Emily, in the birds of prey. All of them. All 8 cages. Which wasn't bad, especially with the two of us.

We always start with Cookie, the Turkey Vulture. Poor Cookie was very nervous with 2 people in the cage. For most of the animals, 2 people in their enclosure signal that they're about to get caught for some medicine, vet care, or to go out to an off-site event. Here was where most of the training explanation happened and Emily did a good job of listening and remembering.

Mogua was not nervous to see 2 people. He is a tough old bird and nothing can startle him. Kenny, though, kept flying from perch to perch. At this point I've gotten used to large birds of prey flying around inches from my head. Sometimes their wings even clip me. Emily seemed to take it all in stride. Respect.

Mogua, the seasoned veteran

Kenny was a little nervous

The Screechies (Eastern Screech Owls) Tobias, Squinty, and Pirate were all upset at having been woken up by our cleaning. Especially one little guy (Pirate, I think) who we had to shoo out of the nesting box so we could clean inside of it.

"We need a 'Do Not Disturb' sign!"

We finished the rest of the cages quickly. Colombo (Great Horned Owl) enjoyed his shower; as usual he got all puffed up and drank the falling water. Tarot (Red-Tailed Hawk) was only a little jumpy with Emily and I both there. He's used to people coming in to grab him every other day so that we can treat his bumblefoot. Whizzer (Red-Tailed Hawk) is a sweet ol' man, and he was calm about the two of us in there too. He watched us closely while we cleaned to make sure that we did a good job. Heheh!!

Russell was nicer to Emily than he usually is to me, which kind of hurt my feelings. But it's probably because I'm kinda scared of him and I carry that negative energy into his enclosure with me. I told Emily exactly what to expect and she seemed to handle Russell's behavior with a cool head. I like this girl!

Wheems (Eastern Screech Owl) is always a favorite with our guests and volunteers/interns, Emily was no exception. I even taught her how to pet Wheems. Or rather, how to approach Wheems so she will allow us to rub her belly. Wheems nipped me a little, which didn't hurt because of her cross-beak, but I would never attempt that with any other bird of prey. Wheems is a special case.

After Emily and I were done we still had lots of time left on our shifts. I had a whole hour and a half! TEAMWORK!!! So, like good little workers we asked if there was anything left to be done that we could help with. I was given the lemurs. YAY! I missed them!

Their enrichment was "Shiny Day". I was supposed to find something shiny, obviously, to entertain them with. Unfortunately I couldn't find any old jewelry or sparky dangly things, so instead I used a steel bowl. That's shiny, right? And it was on the list of approved enrichment items. But to make it more interesting I turned the bowl upside-down and filled it with their food that way. I even added some shelled pistachios which they LOVED!!!

Deliciousness!!!

While I was cleaning the lemur enclosure some guests walked by and we started talking about lemur behavior. I explained that while they were friendly for the most part, lemurs definitely need their space and have to be respected. They told me that a pet store nearby was selling a baby lemur. I explained to them about how lemurs are a lot of work. All wild animals are a lot of work. No matter if it was born in captivity, or if its parents' parents' parents were born in captivity, wild animals do not lose their instinct. They do not lose their wildness and we humans are only lulled into a false sense of security. Now, after I've scared you, the moral of the story is: DO NOT TAKE WILD ANIMALS AS PETS!!!

While I post these pictures of me petting wild animals, right after I told you that wild animals don't make good pets, PLEASE don't think that I would EVER take them as my pets. Not only do you need a special permit to own wild/exotic animals, they are also expensive to maintain and take a lot of work and knowledge to keep happy and healthy. (Dayma's PSA end)

I didn't realize just how much I missed BTN until I was gone for practically 2 months! Despite the sweating and the heat and the poop and the back pain, I love it. All of that nasty stuff is trumped by the amazing and dedicated people that work there, as well as the wonderful animals. Please come by and see me on Saturdays, 9am-1pm, and you'll see what I mean! :)

The Wild Dimes has Fainted!

P.S. Little Buzz is growing up so fast!