Sarvey - 2/9/12

I'd like to start off this week's installment by congratulating Sarvey's newest member of the education team, on finally receiving his name.

This is Atka, (Inuit for Guardian spirit.) Atka came to us with head trauma that led to her being unreleasable. While Atka still see's fairly well, she doesn't see well enough to hunt, and as a result cannot return to the wild. It's unfortunate that she will not be able to live in the wild, but at the very least she will spend the rest of her life in a safe place, with regular meals, and medical care. Her sweet disposition makes her a great candidate for the education team, and hopefully she'll adjust well to life at the wildlife center. 

I often see Northern Saw-whet owls being mistaken for baby owls, because of their small size. Adult Saw-whets typically range from 6 to 8 inches high, and weigh under 4 ounces. They are permanent residents of Washington state, and we see quite a few pass through the center on a regular basis. Don't be fooled by their sweet faces, and diminutive appearance; these little guys have still got a good set of talons on them, and are more then willing to defend themselves. In fact these little guys are even known to take out larger birds, such as Rock Doves. 

Northern Saw-Whet owls are fairly similar in appearance and size to Boreal owls, which we also have the pleasure of seeing in Washington state. Boreal owls can run just a bit bigger than Saw-whet owls. Here's a good picture of a Boreal owl for comparison.

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I arrived at the wildlife center a few minutes later then usual, bot feeling particularly good. Some days I have a tendency to wake up feeling weak and nauseous. It happens fairly often, and has kept me from going to the Wildlife center in the past, but I really hate to let it get in the way of the things I want to do. If I can work through it I will. (Taking it easy of course.) 

I was cleaning right off the bat again. I breezed through birch and FPL's flights as usual. They're both fairly easy birds to clean up after even with FPL eating his fair share of quail (and therefore scattering quail feathers everywhere.) He actually does a pretty good job of eating out the parts he likes and leaving the rest of the body in tact. I do find the occasional severed quail limb during my cleaning though.  

Athena wasn't staff only, so I assumed she hasn't laid any eggs yet. Though she was definitely reluctant to leave her prime nesting site. She watch me carefully, and hissed a bit, but let me go about my cleaning. At one point I took a picture for one of the staff, before proceeding on. I have to say, I'm still a bit nervous to go in there while she is nesting, because I've heard she can get pretty aggressive, but she hasn't given me any problems just yet. 

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There are no pictures of Nanjiska this week, as he is currently a staff only bird. I can't really go into details as to why, save to say that he is still a perfectly happy, healthy bird. 

Tadita the barred owl was illusive today. She did a bit of her offended beak snapping while I cleaned, but nothing too exciting otherwise.

After I finished with her I moved on to Iya the barn owl (pictured left). I suspect I must have interrupted her in the middle of eating. She was in the perch I generally see her in when she eats, and there was half eaten rat on the ground below her. At about the point I slipped inside she actually got in mantelling posture (A posture that owls use when they are threatened or guarding food. ) One thing I've noticed about barn owls is that when they assume this posture they will move their head side to side. I mostly see it in the wild barn owls we take in as patients. I was surprised to see Iya doing it. She calmed down fairly quickly as I talked to her, and let do what I had to. Iya's usually a pretty mellow bird, so I figured I wouldn't linger in the flight for too long today.

I breezed through a few more flights before stopping by Chezmu. I haven't taken pictures of him in awhile, and he's always willing to get up and curious in the camera. Opossums seem to have such a fierce reputation, but I've never thought they were all that bad. Chezmu himself, is a very friendly, and curious little guy. Whenever I enter his flight and start shuffling around he will poke his head our of his little nest and investigate what I'm doing. He's never shown me any sign of aggression. Keep in mind though, that Chezmu is an education animal that is fairly used to human contact. A wild Opossum will probably not be as friendly, and should maintain a healthy fear of humans for its own safety. If you see a wild Opossum, and it is not in need of help, you should not approach it.

Here he is, peeking out at me.

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I visited Cetan next, and was surprised to find her extremely interested in everything I was doing, even if she was still cautious. Usually she likes to keep a healthy distance while I'm cleaning, but today she essentially followed me around her flight. At one point I was standing toward the back of it nearly one of her perches. She would hop over to me, and get close enough to smack me with her wing when she decided she wasn't as comfortable with being close as she thought she was. She must have done this three or four times before I moved on. Regardless, it did mean I was able to take several pictures of her. 

She's always holding her head up high it seems. There are a ton more, but these were the two in particular that I like most, and edited. 

Cano and the corvids were actually the last of the Ed animals I dropped by that day (not include Atka, whom I Posted about already.) I stopped with with Cano first, and as I was cleaning I was excited to find a gorgeous tail feather on the ground under his favorite perch. Any feathers that we, as volunteers, find are taken inside and put into a bucket full of other collected feathers. The collected feathers from the enclosures are sorted and sent to the Repository in Colorado along with any Eagle carcasses. From there First Nations (Native Americans) can apply for feathers, parts and bodies to use in ceremonial clothing, equipment and the like. We do not give out feathers here, as it is illegal and we could lose permitting. 

Canowicakte was his usual photogenic self.  Here are a few of my favorites. I've found I have a tendency to catch birds mid-blink. It actually looks kind of comical when you see it afterward.

 

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I moved on afterward to Heckle and Jeckle, but got distracted before I really got through the door. I was hearing a repeated squeaking, that I was convinced was a squirrel until it started to move rapidly through the trees. Moments later I was surprised to see a small bird emerge from the branches only to land on a tree not to far away. it's moments like this that I wish I had an excellent zoom lens. It was either a woodpecker or a sapsucker. It was hard to tell at first glance for me, as I'm not particularly well versed in birds that aren't raptors.

 He's pretty difficult to see in this picture, but this was honestly the best I got.

The crows were their usual excited selves to have company. They hopped about, and made noises. I was actually surprised this time around. Heckle is usually the more outgoing of the two, but it was Jeckle that went out of her way to visit me today. She flitted between the perch closest to myself, the ground, and the food dish behind me. 

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Our Visiting Wild Ones...

In addition to the Educational animals, I also cleaned the flights of several of our visiting birds. I started out with a Sapsucker that had made it's way through our clinic recently, and is now out in one of the outdoor flights. He was looking pretty good and lively when I was inside, taking care of things. He was flitting all around the flight, and keeping a good healthy distance from me while I worked.

I actually have an old video (From 2004) of a sapsucker that would visit a tree outside my window frequently. It used to mew like a kitten, and for a long time before I finally saw the bird make the noise, I was convinced there was a kitten wandering around outside. Here's the video of that bird.

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I also worked my way through the flights of Two red-tails, A Cooper's Hawk, and the Osprey that has been staying with us. By the looks of things a few of them were being hunted, pending released. When I refer to a bird being hunted in a rehabilitation setting, what I mean is that we are offering the bird live prey to assess whether or not it is ready to go back out into the wild. If the bird hunts the prey, than things are looking pretty good for that bird's release. If not, then the bird will likely stay for a little longer. Both the Cooper's hawk, and one of the Red-tailed hawks had A large metal tub, filled with a small amount of bedding, that the live prey would be placed into, in order for the bird to hunt it without it being able to escape.   

Here's the Coopers Hawk enjoying a bit of a rain bath.                                        ....

Once my work outside was done for the day, I retired into the kitchen for the night. Once again I helped keep the newer volunteers busy, and we prepared foods for the next day, and stocked everything up. There were several of us there today, so things were going pretty quick, and we found ourselves able to start preparing the bird and mammal rooms for baby season. The rest of my night was pretty much consumed with getting things all cleaned, and ready.