So today marks my three week anniversary at Northwoods Wildlife Center! Woohoo, survived three weeks haha. To mark this special day I actually woke up 30 minutes late.....thank you very much phone for this ever so pleasant surprise. Dang thing decided to die in the middle of the night even then it said 60% when I went to sleep. Although I felt horrible everything seemed fine. Hopefully this never happens again though. I was still allowed to go back upstairs to eat breakfast after sweeping up the education portion. The other intern up front vacuumed and mopped. I finished the mopping after helping the education staff take down chairs left over from a birding event the previous night. I wanted to attend it but was in Antigo. After chairs were moved outside into the garage and mopping was done, I began to work on updating the patient database while answering any phone calls. The other intern went with the education staff member to go over the educational binder we all received at the beginning of our internship.
My main call was about a Bald Eagle while the other call was checking up on a Common Loon that was shot last night. For one, who does this? You are a very disrespectful individual for shooting a bird that is protected. It's like shooting a Bald Eagle (which has happened before as well). Apparently the female Loon was crying out all morning for the male brought it. Unsure of its status now but I am sure REGI in Antigo is doing their best to heal it up and quick. Other calls were for the staff or about a bird hitting a window.
I did not finish the patient list update so after the intern finished going over the binder and I assume tour, she left to take lunch. Once she returned I left to take lunch and she took over for me and finished the list. Very grateful for that :)! After lunch I folded up some fliers and placed them in the back room as requested by the educational director and then I went and got the leash, swivel, and jesses for TJ. She is our American Kestrel. I worked with her, hooked her up, and took her outside to enjoy the fresh air a little bit. We did this until she seemed to get very nervous about all the commotion around so I took her back inside. I then got out Rory, the Broad-winged Hawk, and held him outside for a good 30 minutes I think. He sun bathed, preened his feathers, and even drew in some attention from the public. A couple wondered over from the vet and asked about Rory and the center; they may come back for a tour someday! After a while I brought Rory back in and placed him back into his indoor cage. Both birds still need to get used to my voice and presence without the other interns and education staff they are used to being around. I could tell Rory was getting nervous because the others weren't around which kind of made me sad but still I gained some experience and feel good about the fact I am picking up on their personalities more.
After bringing Rory inside I honestly forget what exactly happened next. I believe I watched the front desk for a while in order to relieve the other intern from phone duty since she was on it the whole time. I updated the reptile/amphibian portion of the patient list and resent it to one of the rehab staff member. I remember suddenly being dragged outside for a good while to play some hacky sack with everyone. We did not achieve a single hack but got pretty close and had a great time for sure!
Once hack was over we went back inside and I honestly do not remember if anything honestly happened. Last thing I do recall is attempting to bringing in Hortense, had to get help from a staff since this was the first time Hortense didn't listen, then swatted all the flies in her area. After that I inventoried the shirts we are taking to the June Bloom event tomorrow. Have to be up at least by 6:30am for this since it starts at 7:30! Then after this was covered I went in back and fed squirrels and filled charts for them. Went out with the crew regarding an animal and then returned back. Now I am typing away on here. No tours today but did manage to get some calls in and some stuff down. Overall had a very fun day :)
UPDATE: Spent time with Errol tonight. Roughly 10-15min before it started to really get dark and thunderstorm started to move in. Every time I approached he flew off which is typically. However he gave me some hope when he was sitting on a lower ledge and I managed to get somewhere between 5-8 ft away. I was standing behind a banister so it may not 100% count but it was some progress. He would sometimes turn to look at the corner of his cage like he was trying to block me out but overall he seemed to watch me more. Would not expect anything less from a scared bird but the fact he let me hang around in his cage without him flying around in fear (he did maybe twice) is better then nothing. I hope to continue to go out and eventually I will attempt to read to him more. This way he gets some socializing and learns the sound of my voice. I feel like he knows I am not a threat to him but he is still too nervous. He was raised as a wild owl so it will be tricky compared to an imprinted owl like Rhea. We will see though...
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