pacificpikachu | *Puts on her wildlife rehabber hat* (Reply)

The Gurren Lagann marathon yesterday was so fun. :D We had all already seen it, so we had a good time making silly comments and cheering and laughing and...yeah. It was grand. I want my friends and I to get together for anime marathons more often.

In other news, today was my first official day back doing wildlife rehab. I friended a lot of you between last fall and this summer, so I suppose I should go over what a wildlife rehabber does so you're not all confused as to why I have a bunch of wild birds hanging out in my house.

So, wildlife rehabbers basically take in wild animals that have been injured or orphaned (generally as a result of human interference), take them into our homes, and nurse them back to health. It requires a state certification, training, and lots and LOTS of hard work and stress--and it's entirely unpaid. It is, however, very rewarding and great experience for someone who is pre-vet like I am. I rehab songbirds, and I specialize in corvids (crows, jays, magpies, etc.) and game birds (quail, pheasants, wild turkeys, etc.), though often I'll just take in whatever comes my way.

How it works is someone in the public (ie, anyone) calls our group's phone number, where an operator patches them through to whichever rehabber is on that phone shift. That rehabber then deals with the person who called about the problem, and if need be we take the animal in and take care of its injuries (which may range from minor to extreme emergencies), get it on a proper feeding schedule, and house it the best we can. If the animal survives and makes a full recovery, the animal will be able to be transferred to a large exercise pen or cage where it remains until release. It's actually a lot more complicated than this (as

ylmik_wisty, who came with me to the annual training this year, can probably testify), but that's the basic gist of it.

Baby songbirds need to be fed every fifteen to twenty minutes from sunrise to sunset, so it's quite a handful, and it gets stressful in the peak months of June and July because we'll sometimes be getting twenty or so calls a day.

She's an adult female cliff swallow who was peacefully sitting on her eggs at Bear River High School this morning when some teenage boys knocked her down (breaking her wing) and crushed her eggs. Needless to say, she's had a bad day. I essentially gave her an initial examination and left her alone today, as she was quite perky and unhappy about me being around. Her weight was good and she wasn't dehydrated, so it didn't hurt her to just hang out in the sun room until the proper people to care for her arrived.

I don't actually know much about dealing with swallows (much less adult ones!), so I sent her off to the Kirkpatricks down in Auburn, who said she'll likely make a full recovery and that she'd be with another swallow of her kind and general age range. :D

So there you have it! I don't think I'm getting any more calls today, but I may just ~~kidnap~~ try and bargain for someone elses' baby jays or something, so we'll see how everything goes. I'm going to try and post pictures of every bird I get in this summer, so you'll be seeing a wide variety and a lot of cuuuute babies. I can't wait to get a nest of healthy little guys in. :D

I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY NEED TO WORK ON COSPLAY, OMG