Interview!

Sweet on Sarvey is this Saturday! I signed up to work several parts of it, but haven't heard from anyone yet. At this point I think I'll just show up on Saturday and tell them to put me to work. I have the time to devote to it, and I want to help. I'm also curious to see how the feather I drew (paired with an awesome photo taken by Kestrel) will do in the auction. 

No pictures this week, but with good reason. This was the week that I interviewed for the Bird room internship. It's a six month internship where I would have the unique opportunity to learn how to take care of wild birds, and keep them healthy and happy so they can go out into the wild. I've known about the interview for a while now, but I didn't want to mention it until it actually happened. 

I went in this morning at my usual time, not really knowing what to expect. 

Because of the interview it was a much shorter day for me than usual. I believe I left around 4 as opposed to 6 or 7. It's odd being there for such a short amount of time. 

When I walked into the clinic everything was bustling. It turns out there were no volunteers for a few days, which understandably can make things difficult on the staff. I regret not being able to stay longer to make sure everything could get done that I'd normally do. Even so Thursdays right now seem to be doing pretty well as far as volunteers go. Now it seems other days are suffering. I'm happy to go in during the week if there's no one to help out. I just never know there's been a shortage of help until I come in on Thursdays. 

Essentially what ended up consuming my morning was babies. It begins. We've ballooned from one baby squirrel to nine, all at different stages, and with different needs. We also have several baby Cottontails. I spent the first hour pottying, feeding and cleaning baby squirrels. They're wonderfully uncoordinated. I think that's my favorite things about baby animals. They're just not very good at things yet. Things like eating, and moving about, and going potty. Baby squirrels also have a tendency to fall asleep in just about any position. I startled myself earlier when I glanced in one of the greens and saw a baby sleeping on it's back in a very unnatural position. I had to ask my lead if that it was normal. It turns out that they're kind of akin to cats in the fact that they can sleep in just about any position, even those that seem like they should be incredibly uncomfortable.

After the babies, I continued to help out around the clinic. A couple of birds came in, and I jumped at the opportunity to help with intake. For whatever reason I was under the impression I'd be doing an intake as part of my working interview, so I've been participating just about every chance I get (Not that it wasn't something I really wanted to do anyway). I was excited to get some practice in. Of the two birds that arrived, the one I did the intake for was a young Band-tailed pigeon. The bird seemed to be perfectly fine, if not a bit thin, but my guess is that someone noticed a young bird on the ground and panicked. Generally if a young bird is on the ground and uninjured, assuming it is fully feathered, it is probably still being cared for by it's parents as it learns how to be a bird. Let the bird be for a day. If it's still there the next day, then it's okay to assume it needs help. I don't know if that was the case with this bird, but over all she seemed to be in decent health. We did encounter some trouble when we tried to hydrate her though. The LRS did not stay down, and I had to tip her upside down, with her belly toward the ceiling so that she didn't aspirate as it came back up. 

The second bird, a Pine Siskin, wasn't in very good shape. We hydrated him, and set him up in a comfy incubator, but he died soon after he arrived. Pine Siskins are high stress birds, and have a difficult time coping with the difficult process of rehabilitation. Sadly, many of them do not survive the trauma of what brings them to our Center. They remind me of fish in that way. They are such delicate little creatures. 

Shortly after the intake, my lead arrived and it was time for me to go into interview mode. I went through my mental checklist, to make sure I had everything on me that I needed, and while my lead set up the bird room for my working interview, I headed in to my regular interview with the clinic director. Up until I got talking, I was nervous enough to tremble. It was doubtless a mixture of excitement too though, because doing well today could open an entirely new chapter in my life. I'd already taken the first step toward a career by volunteering, even if I didn't realize it when I started. An internship would be the perfect building block to help bolster my grasp on wildlife rehabilitation, biology, and birds in general. Getting to be an integral part of their development would mean I'd have the chance to really observe them, and get to know their individual quirks as a species. Reading books can only provide me so much understanding. Hands on experience will make everything I've read come to life. 

I have no illusion that an internship will be easy. It's going to be exhausting, emotional, and physically demanding, but this is what I want. If I don't have to put my heart into it, it isn't worth devoting my life to. I want to spend my time doing something I love, or at least working toward it. Volunteer work has been a great first step, and it will continue to be a staple for me if the internship doesn't work out. I've gotten efficient at what I've been taught to do so far. 

An internship will mean less pictures, as a lot of my time will be devoted to what I'm doing. Any of what I do take will probably be due to time I put into visiting the educational birds after my shift has technically ended. It will all depend on how tired I am after a shift that day though. I know I'd at least like to visit Iya, as she seems to like the attention. The others, I'm sure, would be perfectly happy without it, but I digress.

I think the spoken interview went well. I don't think I've ever had a bad interview to be honest. Being personable, and enthusiastic has always come easy for me, and I was taught early on to go into an interview overly-prepared, and full of questions. So, while I was a bit nervous (aren't we all), once I started into it I began to feel more comfortable. I realized that I knew exactly what I wanted to say in response to each question. Maybe it can be attributed to passion, I can't say for certain, but I knew what I wanted to get across. We finished the interview early enough for me to ask a few follow-up questions before my lead had the bird room ready.

It was finally time to start the working interview. I won't go into too much detail about the specifics of what I did. Essentially my job was to go in, be given a general run down of what needed to happen (I made a list), and then I was let loose. My goal was essentially to take the room from a state of unorganized chaos, and get it running smoothly. In the beginning I took a moment to read over my list, acquaint myself with what I needed to do, and then off I went. I think it's safe to say I did well. According to my lead I missed two things. One of which was because I didn't realize pigeons/doves aren't generally given nests. Looking back on it, based on the fact that the birds (we used colored marshmallow peeps) were on typical pigeon diet, it should have occurred to me even if my lead had forgotten to state it. I set up incubators for juvenile pigeons before. I'm kicking myself for that one now. The other thing I missed, was writing a date in the wrong place. I think that was a misunderstanding on my part. I must have missed it during the overview. Otherwise I think I did pretty well, and regardless of whether or not I get an internship I'm really pleased with how I performed today. I would definitely say the volunteer experience set me up best for the interview. I would recommend that anyone wanting to go into a bird or mammal internship try volunteering, at least to acquaint themselves with everything beforehand. I can say for certain that if I had gone into it without the knowledge I've gleaned from volunteering, I would not have done nearly as well. Still though, I'm ecstatic that I was able to achieve what I was.

After the interview I had a teeny bit of time before I had to head out. You may remember me mentioning a raptor with a case of Trich (Trichomonus gallinae), an infectious disease also known as Frounce. Well today it was present in a Bald eagle I was asked to capture. So on went the gloves, and off I went to capture an eagle. It's important that we take steps to prevent the spread of Trich to any of our other birds. Therefore, when handling the animal involved, we wear gloves, and wash thoroughly afterward. Immediately, I could definitely tell this eagle was not feeling good. The last eagle I caught was alert, and growling, and boy did she fight back. This bird caught me off guard with how little resistance he put up. I can definitely say that all of that practice on the dog at home paid off. My technique was better this time, even though it wasn't truly tested. This eagle only squirmed a little, and not very hard. His face was even uncovered at one point while I was holding him, and instead of biting me, he just craned his head to look up at me, as if asking me a very pitiful why? Poor boy. I hope he is able to recover fully. There was something very endearing about that look. The effect of it was honestly heartbreaking. I'm happy to know that I've had a hand in his recovery, and I really do hope to see him released. 

My last act of the day was to tackle the baby squirrels again. Though this time I had some help. A couple of the other volunteers hadn't had the chance to do it before. I was happy to walk them through the process, and show them where their resources were. I couldn't stay for entire thing, but I got them far enough to show them what to do with the older squirrels who had just moved to the green before I left. They did a great job, and made sure their babies were happy and full. I was told I'd make a great mom some day. I blame my mom. Thanks mom, I know you're reading this. I apparently inherited your skill with babies.

Since I have no photos of my own to share this week, take a stroll through Kestrel Skyhawk's gallery. She's a fantastic photographer and artist, and deserves lots of love, and support for her work (And everything else she does for Sarvey.) I'm working on a project with her that I hope I'll have the opportunity to talk about soon. I want to wait until things are more into the final stages first before I mention it though. 

I also want to thank Leslie and Melissa for conducting my interviews today, and being such amazing support throughout my time as a volunteer so far.