Birdsbirdsbirdsbirdsbirds-type of day

As an example of how busy I was with birds today, I did not do the following things:

1. Shower.
2. Eat a proper meal.
3. Watch the new Haruhi episode which I'm so psyched about (though I did download it).

My day started with caring for the chickadees as usual. They attempted to wake me up at 6:30 AM, but I resisted their chirping and continued to sleep for another half-hour or so. I don't remember a lot about the morning, actually...

At 10 AM, Kari dropped my five jays (who had been in the flight cage) off in a dog carrier for release. The sixth jay (one of the scrub jays) self-released out of her flight cage. ^^;; Oh well--he'll be fine. So, I retrieved Mom, set up a cage by the chicken coop to put food for the jays on top of, and opened the door. Immediately one of the jays (Stellar's Jay #3, actually) flew out and perched on a tree by the chicken coop, shortly followed by one of the scrub jays and the other two stellar's jays. The last scrub jay took forever to leave the carrier (at least an hour), but I sat out with him and waited. Even after all five of them left the carrier and were free, I watched them for quite a while. This was very enjoyable, as I got to observe their reactions to freedom and watch them hopping about and looking happy. A red-winged blackbird joined us on a nearby tree and started singing beautifully, and an acorn woodpecker showed up on the same tree. Once both the scrub jays were out, an adult scrub jay showed up, but instead of running the little guys off, he joined them.

It was SO SO cool to release the birds I spent so long raising on my own property. ♥ It made me really happy to see them go so nicely. I'm sure they'll do fine in the wild.

Not too long after this, a little girl called me with a bird. She was...er...rather unhelpful, to put it mildly, so I had her put on an adult in the household (which happened to be her grandma). Her grandma enlightened me a little on the situation and volunteered to drive the bird over. About twenty minutes later, they showed up with the bird.

When I saw it, I thought it was maybe a blackbird (which it is), about five days old. At first I thought he seemed fairly okay (albeit a bit weak), but after a while his stomach got really huge when I fed him, so it became obvious to me that he wasn't digesting his food. Well, I had no idea why, so I started calling around. To cut a long story short, I finally got ahold of Cheryl from Tahoe (I took my first rehabbing class from her), who informed me the bird is dehydrated and wouldn't digest its food until it was property hydrated.

Thus began seven hours of sitting with the bird in my hand, dripping drops of water into its beak every five to ten seconds. Yes, seven hours. It was worth it when he started to perk up a little, though, and pass his food and even gape and make some little sounds. I started feeding him small amounts and continued with the drip therapy.

While I was doing this, I was on the computer looking at Haruhi pictures and such. I discovered something very veeery amusing while surfing. That being: You know Koizumi? The pretty boy from Haruhi who I always thought was very pretty but decided not to obsess on him too much for lack of any reason other than "He's pretty"? Yeah, he just got some more points.

He's gay. Canonically, as far as I can tell. He apparently is massively infatuated with Kyon. I have no idea how I missed the subtexts, because they're there, but I found out about this in a real Haruhi magazine article which I may post at some point. It's deeply amusing and exciting to me. Pretty canon boy-love (even if it's definitely one-sided) makes me smile. XD;;

Anyway, that along with bird things made my day, even if I didn't get a chance to watch episode 12.

I got another call at 7:30 PM from someone who had a baby goldfinch. In distinct contrast with the little girl, this guy was extremely helpful and willing to do whatever he could. He couldn't drive because his collarbone is broken, but I waited around for Mom to give me a ride to pick up the bird. We ended up going at about 8:50 PM, but oh well. ^^; The guy was really really nice and apparently like goldfinches a lot. The goldfinch is about the same age (though about half the size) as the blackbird, so they're buddies now and cuddle together. It's terribly cute.

We went by Jacqui's to get a .5 cc syringe on our way back home (the 1 cc syringes are too small for the goldfinch's tiny mouth) and Mom and I ended up getting in a great, fun conversation with Jacqui and Chip for about a half-hour or forty-five minutes. Jacqui confirmed the bigger guy is a blackbird and also supplied me with a heating pad that won't turn off every twenty minutes. ._.;

We stopped by the store, walked the dogs, etc., etc. but I'm not going to write about that because I seriously need to get to bed.

Good night! I hope both of the little birds make it through the night (I'm not worried about the chickadees--they're fine).

Birdsbirdsbirdsbirdsbirds-type of day

As an example of how busy I was with birds today, I did not do the following things:

1. Shower.
2. Eat a proper meal.
3. Watch the new Haruhi episode which I'm so psyched about (though I did download it).

My day started with caring for the chickadees as usual. They attempted to wake me up at 6:30 AM, but I resisted their chirping and continued to sleep for another half-hour or so. I don't remember a lot about the morning, actually...

At 10 AM, Kari dropped my five jays (who had been in the flight cage) off in a dog carrier for release. The sixth jay (one of the scrub jays) self-released out of her flight cage. ^^;; Oh well--he'll be fine. So, I retrieved Mom, set up a cage by the chicken coop to put food for the jays on top of, and opened the door. Immediately one of the jays (Stellar's Jay #3, actually) flew out and perched on a tree by the chicken coop, shortly followed by one of the scrub jays and the other two stellar's jays. The last scrub jay took forever to leave the carrier (at least an hour), but I sat out with him and waited. Even after all five of them left the carrier and were free, I watched them for quite a while. This was very enjoyable, as I got to observe their reactions to freedom and watch them hopping about and looking happy. A red-winged blackbird joined us on a nearby tree and started singing beautifully, and an acorn woodpecker showed up on the same tree. Once both the scrub jays were out, an adult scrub jay showed up, but instead of running the little guys off, he joined them.

It was SO SO cool to release the birds I spent so long raising on my own property. ♥ It made me really happy to see them go so nicely. I'm sure they'll do fine in the wild.

Not too long after this, a little girl called me with a bird. She was...er...rather unhelpful, to put it mildly, so I had her put on an adult in the household (which happened to be her grandma). Her grandma enlightened me a little on the situation and volunteered to drive the bird over. About twenty minutes later, they showed up with the bird.

When I saw it, I thought it was maybe a blackbird (which it is), about five days old. At first I thought he seemed fairly okay (albeit a bit weak), but after a while his stomach got really huge when I fed him, so it became obvious to me that he wasn't digesting his food. Well, I had no idea why, so I started calling around. To cut a long story short, I finally got ahold of Cheryl from Tahoe (I took my first rehabbing class from her), who informed me the bird is dehydrated and wouldn't digest its food until it was property hydrated.

Thus began seven hours of sitting with the bird in my hand, dripping drops of water into its beak every five to ten seconds. Yes, seven hours. It was worth it when he started to perk up a little, though, and pass his food and even gape and make some little sounds. I started feeding him small amounts and continued with the drip therapy.

While I was doing this, I was on the computer looking at Haruhi pictures and such. I discovered something very veeery amusing while surfing. That being: You know Koizumi? The pretty boy from Haruhi who I always thought was very pretty but decided not to obsess on him too much for lack of any reason other than "He's pretty"? Yeah, he just got some more points.

He's gay. Canonically, as far as I can tell. He apparently is massively infatuated with Kyon. I have no idea how I missed the subtexts, because they're there, but I found out about this in a real Haruhi magazine article which I may post at some point. It's deeply amusing and exciting to me. Pretty canon boy-love (even if it's definitely one-sided) makes me smile. XD;;

Anyway, that along with bird things made my day, even if I didn't get a chance to watch episode 12.

I got another call at 7:30 PM from someone who had a baby goldfinch. In distinct contrast with the little girl, this guy was extremely helpful and willing to do whatever he could. He couldn't drive because his collarbone is broken, but I waited around for Mom to give me a ride to pick up the bird. We ended up going at about 8:50 PM, but oh well. ^^; The guy was really really nice and apparently like goldfinches a lot. The goldfinch is about the same age (though about half the size) as the blackbird, so they're buddies now and cuddle together. It's terribly cute.

We went by Jacqui's to get a .5 cc syringe on our way back home (the 1 cc syringes are too small for the goldfinch's tiny mouth) and Mom and I ended up getting in a great, fun conversation with Jacqui and Chip for about a half-hour or forty-five minutes. Jacqui confirmed the bigger guy is a blackbird and also supplied me with a heating pad that won't turn off every twenty minutes. ._.;

We stopped by the store, walked the dogs, etc., etc. but I'm not going to write about that because I seriously need to get to bed.

Good night! I hope both of the little birds make it through the night (I'm not worried about the chickadees--they're fine).