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!

Babies Everywhere

So I'm back! I missed 3 weeks at BTN, the first week because of Knights for Marine and Wildlife Conservation club's inaugural "Conservation Celebration", the second because I was sick and the third because I twisted my ankle. Joy of joys. And I'm going to miss 3 more weeks after this because of vacation time. So unfortunately you all will be getting very little of adorable wild animals for a bit, but then I'm back until August!

Apparently a lot of people thought I was permanently gone and had moved away. I am heartbroken. I would never leave without saying goodbye! BTN is my second family. <3

It was a Baby day. I started off by helping Nick take care of the baby birds. I swear there were at least 15 cages of baby birds in the back, oh my goodness. But, having been around for this last year, I was a veteran and got to work quickly changing bedding and feeding babies. Since I refuse to cut my gorgeous long nails for anything, I got a lot of wet dog food under my fingernails. And for those of you thinking "What? Dog food?" We at BTN soak dry dog food and use that, as well as liquid baby bird food from a powder, to feed our baby birds. It has proteins and oils that are good for them. Anyway, it's pretty annoying and I was constantly digging out food from under my nails. But those are sacrifices I make for the good of animals.

2 cages of just mockingbirds!

Baby cardinal

My next assignment was to tend to the 2 cages and 1 hutch of baby opossums. On the way I saw these little guys trying to tell anyone that passed by that they were hungry. D'awwwww.

"Please, miss, can I have some more?"

So. Many. Babies. Each cage had about 15-20 baby Virginia Opossums in it. But you wouldn't think so just looking into the enclosure: They were all bundled up together in the hammocks we hung up. All 15-20 of them. It was my job to clean out the old food, add new food, replace both water bowls and shake out their hammocks. Fortunately instead of being upset that I woke them up and shooed them out of bed the babies were more curious to know who I was and what all these strange smells on me were. Several times I had to gently remove a baby opossum as it tried to climb up my leg, hehehe!

Saying hello to the new lady

Little known fact: While all mammals can get rabies, it is very rare for opossums to get it because of their low body temperature. Still, please don't touch opossums or any wild animal for that matter. Even if you don't get rabies I have never seen anything scarier or fiercer than an angry mother opossum.

All nice and clean!

So yummy!

 So after the opossum cages were done I had one last task: clean and feed the flight cage in the back. That's simple enough. Fresh fruit, fresh water, some more bird seed. The tough part was making sure none of the birds got away while I was entering/exiting. They all got into a tiffy at the mere sight of me. But that's a good thing. The whole point of keeping the animals away from human sight in the back row is to wild them up. Everyone in the cage was flying around and had a healthy fear of me, so hopefully they'll be released soon.

Cardinal getting his adult feathers

After that I was finished! There wasn't much going on that day since we had a lot of people there to help. I'm so glad that BTN is becoming more and more popular! I myself promote it whenever I can and I'm happy to have convinced several friends to start volunteering/interning there! :D

See you in 3 weeks!

The Wild Dimes has Fainted!

P.S. John was checking out the empty cage in the back. And just after we were talking about the times we got locked into the lemur cage, he accidentally locked himself into the new cage. So OF COURSE I had to tease him and get a photo before I let him out.

Ain't I a stinker? ;)

Catch-Up

Sorry for not having updated in such a long time! Life has caught up to me and I've forgotten to post more adorable pictures. I've forgotten most of what happened, so this is just going to be a spamming of animal pictures with descriptions of what I can remember.

Honeybear

Honeybear

Spencer

Little Man

Jeannie created a hammock out of palms for the lemurs

Athena

Wheems

Cuban tree frog. Maybe he's a cousin? LOL!

 Dropped feathers I collected from Koko to be used for enrichment later

Mogua

Kenny

Tobias

Colombo gets all fluffed up for his shower

Gopher tortoise

Izzy hasn't been feeling so peppy lately

My baby Buzz!

Bird's nest!

Injured baby egret

Hercules

Spike

 Baby opossum. We call him "Snort" because of his short muzzle.

Whizzer

Koko

Training Again

Another training day! I'm getting a lot of those lately. I can't lie: I love it. I get to help and intern/volunteer with their first time in a pen. I remember how excited I was and how I wished I could have been taught, so I'm glad I get to train the new people.

I was assigned to train Jessica in how to do the enclosures of the fox squirrels and gray squirrels and then I had Russell on my own.

So we started in Nigel (Sherman's Fox Squirrel) cage. Poor baby still has his small cage but he didn't seem to care that day because it was chilly and he stayed bundled up in his nest of blankets the whole time. He didn't even come out for a grape! A GRAPE! Maybe I should have tried a walnut. The Squirrel enrichment for the day was a ropes course, so Jessica and I had fun stringing up Nigel's cage with rope.

Roc (Sherman's Fox Squirrel) didn't seem too excited to see us until we brought the food in. Then he went crazy for the grapes and apples. I looked for walnuts or peanuts but I couldn't find any. I offered him a pine nut but he turned up his nose at it and pouted in his nest. He's used to me bringing him walnuts. I'm so sorry I disappointed him! Hopefully I made up for it with his rope course. Jessica and I used an extra-long piece of rope and made his enclosure look like a spider web, hahaha! I feel sorry for whomever had to untangle that the next day.

"No walnuts?"

Awesome ropes course

Munching Roc

When we got to Little Man and Daisy's (Eastern Grey Squirrels) we were surprised as to how fat they were! We think the chubbiest one was Little Man, and Jessica began to joke around that he should be called Big Man. Hahaha!!! They seemed pretty excited to be getting their food. Though Daisy wasn't happy about us shooing her out of her nest so that we could change their dirty bedding. Still, I think the food offering was enough for them to forgive us.

Big Man

I was done with the training. Or so I thought. Jessica was assigned Wheems (Eastern Screech Owl) and it turns out she was never trained in the little owl's enclosure. So I helped her with that too. Wheems was not happy to see 2 people her in cage. Normally 2 people to the animals means they're going to be captured and taken to the vet or an event. So naturally little Wheems was chattering away at us. She was especially peeved when we had to shoo her out of her house to change her bedding. She had stowed away pieces of chicken in the t-shirt bedding. Ewwww.

She looks so peeved!

And then, since we were helping each other anyway and since she had never done Russell (Great Horned Owl), I had Jessica help me was I did his enclosure. He was especially nervous, with 2 people and all like I mentioned before. So Jessica stepped out while I finished raking. He's nervous around rakes, so I used a small one we normally use with a pooper-scooper. It took longer but it got the job done. Poor nervous guy.

Well... we were done for the day. Way ahead of schedule. So Jessica and I took a moment to go visit Spike (Iguana). He had chomped down on his food so fast that we thought he hadn't been fed that morning. And he was sunning himself like old times! I'm so glad he's feeling well again. He turned bright orange to show off to his lady friends when we came in and when a man walked by he started shaking his head around. Mr. Jealous! I'm flattered.

Jessica has the magic petting touch

I popped by Jagger's (Bobcat) cage to get keys from someone when I saw him in a good mood! He came right up to me along the cage and he stuck his butt out for me to scratch! I WAS SO HAPPY!!! Normally he's very temperamental. I'd say bipolar. But he looked very happy. I really can't tell you how happy I was that he let me interact with him. Normally he just growls and paces when someone gets near his enclosure. :D

Feeling good!

The Wild Dimes has Fainted!

P.S. The "Cupid Goes Wild" event was so much fun! Thank you to everyone that came out to support BTN! :)

Izzy looked adorable!