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New spring babies!

5/13/2010

1 Comment

 
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The little gosling
Wild Things is in full swing with spring patients and it's been a busy month! Here are a few of the stories that have been going on at WTS...

A couple of weeks ago this little gosling arrived. An Ithaca couple had been watching a pair of
Canada Geese sitting on their nest. The babies hatched and within hours a crow had plaucked up one of the little goslings and planned to carry it away for a tasty treat. but oops! The crow dropped this little guy in the couple's yard as it flew away.

He was in really bad shape when he arrived. In fact, I thought he was dead as he was stone cold. But after several hours on being sandwiched between heating pads and being tube fed fluids and some food, he revived! (see pictures below)

But what do you do with a little gosling that needs parents?? You find it some! Frst of all, I had to make sure the little one didn't see me as within the first few days water fowl "imprint" on whoever they see and decide that is their species. So I always fed him in disguise and made sure he had plenty of mirrors around his cage. He spent many hours sitting in front of the mirrors chirping away!

Then I had to find him some parents. I was told there were some geese with babies at the Sapsucker Woods Lab of Ornithology. So when he was strong enough, off we went. After several hours of chasing geese families, wading through water and crawling around on my stomach, he went swimming off with a new family and was last seen sitting under his adopted parents' wings getting warm.


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Little duckling
A little Mallard Duckling also arrived at Wild Things this past week. It was rescued after a good Samaritan watched it swimming around for a while all on its own with no parents in sight. The little duckling was just as fluffy as the gosling, but about a third of the size. I wanted to find a buddy for this little one so I started calling around. A rehab friend of mine also has a little mallard. Hers was born with bent feet and has little corrective foot wear which should correct the problem soon. So the little Wild Things duckling went to stay with them until they are both ready for release. It makes such a big difference for baby animals to have a buddy of the same species!



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Private Ryan, a bit straggly!
And there's been lots of other new patients as well. Squirrels, groundhogs, bunnies, bats and opossums. 

The opossums are a strange case as they are about 4-5 months old, meaning that they were born in January/February...
and in this part of the world that just doesn't really happen!

To the left is "Private Ryan". He and his 3 brothers arrived and were in a terrible state. They were so starved that their digestive systems had more-or-less shut down. Sadly, 3 of them passed on, but this little guy hung in there and is doing great! He is a little behind developmentally and is a bit bald in places, but he is playing and enjoying his new big sister's company!

I've actually received lots of single squirrels and have tried to match them up with others of the same size, so everyone has a snuggle partner. Everyone seems quite happy with their buddy. I love catching all the funny baby wildlife sleeping positions, as seen below!



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This Little Brown Bat flew into someone's parked car's windscreen. His rescuer kept him warm until he found WTS. He appears to have bruised a wing, but he is getting plenty of rest and has been attempting short flights, so his recovery looks like it's on a good track!

Wild Things has also had lots of cool birds coming to visit this year. See below!
Purple finches, Gold finches, Rosebreasted Grosbeaks, Chipping Sparrows, Cowbirds, Redwing Blackbirds (these last two are unusual as Wild Things is deep in the woods and these species are found more in fields and marshes)! There has also been a family of 3 crows that visit all the time, below is a picture of a crow helping herself to an Easter egg! The picture of the Snapping turtle was taken at Sapsucker Woods. I moved it out of the road!

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Runty RIP
Wild Things also said goodbye to dear little Runty this past month. As reported in the last blog, he had his incisor teeth pulled out due to a bad jaw and tooth infection. The infection spread to his inner ear, and probably throughout his sinuses. But he was running around having fun until the very end, and that is some relief to know he didn't suffer too much. He was a dear little Rascal who was great at making nests and loved playing and saying hello. Go well dear Runty!

1 Comment

Wild Things love Birdz!

9/18/2009

4 Comments

 
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Wow! It's been a while since I posted anything! This season has been crazy busy; have had 175 patients up to today, in comparison I only had 93 for the WHOLE of 2008. So I am sorry not to have been here for a while, but I have lots of stories and lots to report and I will try to be updating this a bit more now that the season ins simmering down. Today's post will be all about birds. There have been quite a lot here are Wild Things. However, this first picture was not at WTS but with my friend Gabe, another rehabber about 2 hour north of here. It is a baby Great Horned Owl, and the picture below is of me trying to convince him to eat a mouse on his own. Great Horneds are some of the 1st birds born during the year and this little guy has long since been released and is doing well.

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WTS received quite a few baby Mourning Doves this year as well. Most arrived at between 10-20g. They are so adorable, and so quiet and mellow compared to other baby birds. They don't have a loud "feed me!" call like other babies, but just "peep" so sweetly and quietly. They also don't gape for food.

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Doves, and their cousins pigeons, suck up fluids by putting their whole beak in a liquid and using it like a straw. When they are babies they put their whole beak and part of their face into their parents' mouths and suck up "crop milk," produced by their parents. This means that instead of just dropping food into their mouths, which is how you feed most baby birds, you have to stick their whole head into a syringe of special baby food (you can also tube feed them if you don't have a lot of time- I had to do this quite a few times this summer!). From syringe you move onto a small cup and slowly they learn how to eat on their own. This can take quite a long time and sometimes you have to let them get hungry otherwise they won't try to eat on their own! Part of this process is chronicled in the pictures to the left.

And eventually they fly! Such a great moment! I will keep their cage open and let them fly around while I take care of all the other animals. When I released the 4 pictured below they would spend the day in the Wild Things woods and then come back at night. So amazing to see them flying back to WTS after their day exploring. These little guys took a lot of time and effort to raise, but definitely paid me back emotionally! :)

One of the mourning doves who arrived had a "sour crop." The crop is an area where food is stored and then it slowly passes into the next area of their digestive organs. Food can get stuck in the crop and then starts rotting. I had to flush out this poor little one's crop over the course of about 24 hours. This was done by filling up the crop with water, squishing it's contents around, and then using a tube to suck stuff out. It was gross and so traumatic for such a tiny little 14g patient. But the little one did great and was eating again in no time!

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A bit after I let these 4 go a baby Rock Dove (i.e., pigeon) turned up, and the next day another baby mourning dove arrived. Because the two species are closely related I put them together and they became fast friends. They had to sit side by side every minute and were eventually released together. It is important for animals to be together so they can recognize their own species and not bond with their human caretaker. I don't always put different species together as I don't want them to be confused as to what species they are and then end up not being able to mix with their own species once released, but I have no doubt that these two will be just fine as they are so closely related and other more experienced rehabilitators have done the same thing with great success. And most importantly neither ended up imprinted on me.

And below are pictures of a few more Wild Things patients. Clockwise from upper left, 2 little
European Starlings, a baby European Sparrow, a Snowy Owl, a tiny little House Wren, a young American crow, and an American Goldfinch fledgling. The top two are introduced species from Europe and do not belong in the US. They pose a problems for native birds- competing for nesting sites, but what are you oinf to do when a helpless little baby comes to you?! Its suffering and it needs help! The sparrow and goldfinch very sadly did not make it. They were both at a really difficult age, the fledgling age, when they don't trust humans but they aren't ready to be on their own yet. They were both SO adorable and  I was sorry to lose them.
The tiny wren didn't make it either. It was so small it really still neeeded its parents. However, its well meaning finders had fed it ants. Ants have formic acid in them and can kill most species, and it may well be that this was what caused it death.
The young crow (NB: the blue eyes and red mouth characteristic of young crows- the red mouth helps draw attention to the parents that their baby is hungry and begging for food!) was a hge success. It had broke both wings as a baby and no one thought it would fly again. Off it went to my friend Gabe's center. She is a miracle worker with birds, and it ended up flying just fine. It came back to me to be Xrayed at Cornell. The Xrays revealed that the wings had healed perfectly. There was worry that as this little one had been surrounded by humans for its whole life it would be irreversibly imprinted on humans, however after a couple of weeks at Wild Things it decided to go off and live in the Wild Things woods. There are lots of crows in the WTS woods and I hope that it found a great group to be with.
And the Snowy Owl was a bit of a mystery. Gabe got a few of them this year, which is strange as they are supposed to be up north hunting. It was found very underweight and had a smallish abscess on its wing, but ended up doing just fine and was released successfully. I was just a taxi driver for it, bringing it from the Cornell Wildlife Clinic back up to Gabe's center (about 2 hours away, we meet half way for lunch!) after a few Xrays and blood tests.

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Wow- I was going to keep going with a  few more stories of the Wild Things' winged characters, but I will leave a few for later. Time to go feed the patients! But look out for more blog posts soon-  won't let it go for another 2 1/2 months again!

4 Comments

Birds, birds, birds and the ups & downs of rehab...

4/1/2009

2 Comments

 

Spring is slowly coming to upstate NY, and with it the birds have started going bonkers, singing their hearts out for territories and mates! I even heard aBarred Owl yesterday in the WTS woods while the sun was still up!

March saw several different bird patients come to WTS. The first was this little female
American Goldfinch. She flew right up to someone, who was perplexed at why this little bird didn't fly AWAY from them.... it was because she couldn't see! Finches are very prone to a very contagious type of conjunctivitis, and this little girl's eyes were almost completely swollen shut. But here she is after over a month of treatment on the day of her release bright eyed and ready to go! She shot out of her carrier in about a second and was so happy to be free once more!

Because of this disease and others out there, it is a good idea to regularly rinse your bird feeders 1part bleach:10 parts water, especially if you notice any birds that may seem unwell at your feeders.




The next bird patient was this male Northern Cardinal. He was found in the middle of the road and had just been hit by a car! A good Samaritan stopped and re-directed traffic so that he could pick him up and bring him to WTS. The little fellow was in shock and there was a fair bit of blood. I was worried. But amazingly enough all his injuries appeared to be more superficial than feared and he was able to be released 2 days later. Like the goldfinch, he flew out of his carrier and never looked back!

Unless there are certain special circumstances, all birds are released back where they were found. Birds form close bonds with each other and many birds form pair-bonds that last years. At this time of year especially, when mating and territory claiming are in full-swing, birds are desperate to get back outside. They will re-find their mates if released back in the same place.

I actually would have liked to have kept my eye on this cardinal for another few days, but he was so hell-bent on getting out again (even calling for his mate) that I was worried he could harm himself in his cage...as is what happened with the next patient...


This is a very sad story. The lovely Mourning Dove in the picture to the right was almost all ready to be released. He had also been hit by a car (which nearly hit his mate as well) and had lost almost all of his body feathers and had a few lacerations that needed to heal. Luckily his flight feathers had stayed in; they can take a long time to grow back and must be in place before a bird is released. He was doing great and was more and more impatient to get back outside. Just a day or two before he was set to go, I opened the cage to feed him and shooed him to the back. Just before I closed it he came flying full force towards the door and flew right past my face...and straight into a window... and died. This kind of thing happens in rehabilitation when one works with wild animals, but it is very disheartening and makes one (i.e., me!) feel very incompetent and stupid and badly!!

I wanted to include this story so everyone knows that there are plenty of down and frustrating parts about rehabilitation. That is why everyone's great support of WTS means so much to all of us here!


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