Meet José, an Eastern Grey Squirrel. I've mentioned him before. He was hit by a car back in November and was in very bad shape with a badly broken nose. Amazingly he survived but couldn't see. His eyes were fine, but the part of his brain in charge of vision had been injured. It can happen that once the swelling of the brain subsides the brain will function properly again. However, after 2 months José is still "brain-blind" and there is little hope that he will regain his vision.
Can you find him in this picture? He loves sleeping in a shoebox with blankets outside my bedroom all day (construction of the animal room is still going on, so my whole house has transformed a bit into the animal house!). I have just filled out an application to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to officially adopt him. He is very sweet but cannot be released into the wild. It is my hope that he can be a foster dad to the all the baby squirrels that come to WTS, especially when I get "singletons," lile Lil'Mo, who need to learn squirrelness!
And look who has come back to WTS this winter: the WTS female Yellow Bellied Sapsucker! Sapsuckers are a kind of woodpecker and are not supposed to be here in the winter, but this is her second winter here. Last spring a male joined her, but all winter long she was here all by herself. She loves the suet feeder and will park there for ages.
And there seems like a lot more to report about what has been going on at WTS, but its been super busy with the construction, which is slowly finishing up: exciting! I am so happy that I will now have a real animal treatment area that is clean and doesn't leak (!) (see below picture) for all the wild things (about 100 so far) that come through these doors. And it should be up and running for the spring baby season. I've spend my whole nest egg on this construction, and that kind of a leap-of-faith is a bit scary (don't forget all of WTS work is out-of-pocket, helped a long with some generous donations) but it is definitely something I believe in!
