Day 51- Rehabilitation

I actually was not scheduled for rehabilitation today but instead was supposed to go to a canoe raffle. However one of the rehab staff members and I had hopes of finishing the songbird protocol today so I asked one of the two interns scheduled if they could switch. One did and so I was back on rehab. Glad everything worked out and very thankful for the intern switching. We, however, did not finish the song bird protocol....but did make progress! I am actually still trying to work on it but remembered that I had a blog post to right for today for all my readers out there :)

Now normally the morning starts off with raccoons right away but now we have some new and more fragile patients that require 2 hour feedings. So instead of preparing formula for raccoons we prepared rehydration fluids for 6 little eastern gray squirrels. I posted pictures of them in my last post so look up or scroll down to Day 50 to check them out.

These guys were fed and then we had raccoons. The other intern managed to do all the raccoons in the Raccoon Room while I made up three bowls for our raccoons recently moved outside. We now have 6 inside which means we have 8 outside. 7 are in one enclosure and 1 is in the other since he's both new and bigger. This new guy is imprinted. He was raised like a family pet and now thinks humans = friends rather then being afraid like a wild animal should!

It is not good at all to take in any sort of wild animal (from turtle to bird to squirrel, etc) because you are ruining their odds of returning to the wild and thus decrese biodiversity in the wild. You may think it's cool or fun but some species are truly suffering because of this and this is how invasive species are born. Someone takes in a turtle, thinks they can take care of it, finds out they can't, and returns it into the wild. Turtles in particular have a specific home range so unless they are returned to the exact spot they were taken they will die of starvation. Birds are very susceptible to imprinting on humans and thus believe they are human rather than bird. There's that possibility of flying but overall they will struggle and could die of starvation if you are not meeting their feeding requirements and such. The overall population of bird species has declined over the last decade or so and continues to do so. One less bird = more decline because of that. Every animal you take in and then release because you can't take care of it will most likely die to due to starvation. Overall, taking in wild animals as pets = bad. If you want a pet bad enough go buy one at the pet store. They need love whereas wild animals do not. Call your wildlife rehabilitation center if you take in a wild animal THEY MINUTE you bring it in. Not 1 day late, not 2, 3, or more. The very second you bring it in. End of tangent.

Once raccoons were taken care of the real cleaning began. A list was made up and both of us interns started to attack it. I started off the list by disinfecting/mopping a room a goose was in before we transferred to to REGI in Antigo. After this was taken care of I moved into the nursery where I took out the bottom of three cages to disinfect them, the heating pad, the cage itself, the surfaces the cage sat on and against, and then reset everything back when finished. I cleaned three cage areas total and then cleaned off all surfaces in the nursery. The finishing touch was sweeping the room since I left a big mess from dumping out food that was left behind in the cages before disinfecting them. After this I then moved to the Raccoon Isolation Room. This is where I swept/mopped everything, put away dry dishes, organized the room a bit, and more or less tried to make it look super clean despite the fact raccoons habituate the room (they like to throw food and feces).

All trash was then taken out from all the rooms and this meant everything on my list was finished. All before 1pm too! Next up came another round of feeding for the baby squirrels and then turned into the lunch. While we were on lunch we waited for the door to ring because this meant someone from Illinois who takes care of raptors was bringing us our newest resident; a Snowy Owl. She arrived just after 1pm and was placed inside a cage in the cage room so she can get used to the sights and smells of her environment. She needs to calm down and also has an appointment with the vet next door to help us look her over. Here she is. I suggested the name Xeena and hope it sticks!!! :)

After lunch was over with and once the Snowy Owl was placed in her temporary home we prepared food for racoons. Since we ran out of eggs we had to make a Trigs run across the street for a case, a new can opener, and some jugs of distilled water for our incubators. This did not take too long and the moment we returned we finished up raccoon bowls and fed the guys outside, fed squirrels, and fed racoons in the raccoon room. I covered dishes and did a bit of cleaning to spiffy up the room since the racoons made it slightly messy again. After this I think we were honestly finished with the day. If we weren't I cannot remember what else we did besides me grabbing my laptop and starting to work on protocols with the staff member as I said before.

We made a lot of progress but as said we still have a lot of work so once I finish this up I intend on working on more bird stuff until 10pm due to another baby squirrel feeding. Afterwards I think I will keep going up until 3am or until I finish. I am off tomorrow and have stuff to do so I do not mind staying up. The gray squirrels need fed at 3am anyway and I realized last night that I super struggle waking up that early. Once I am asleep I am apparently asleep which means bad news bears for me when we start to get birds in. They need fed every hour to two hours it seems!!!!

Day 50 - Education

Forgot to mention that yesterday marked my seventh week here at NWC. I was very tired last night which is why not much was said and it was straight to the point without much thought too it. That's yesterday though, on to today. Education!

Which means I got to hang out with Woody the Wood Turtle for a little bit!

Due to there being only one rehabilitation intern in back, much like how I was solo in back yesterday, I tried to help out a bit more when I could plus needed to work on protocols. This gave me the chance to help feed the southern flying squirrels and a gray squirrel today. I thought the southern flying squirrel was my favorite but honestly I love the red squirrels more. The flyer decided to thrown a pine cone at me today when I was cleaning out its cage plus giving it more solids and water! I'm telling ya, you know a squirrel is ready to return to the wild when it no longer has any appreciation for anything you do for it haha. They do the funniest things.

Southern Flying Squirrel (was not escaping)

I did give some tours (maybe 2 or 3) and did answer some phone calls (honestly very few) but on the bright side I did mop....though forgot to dust and clean windows. I mainly worked on protocols all day except for helping rehab side feed. Due to this work the staff member that I have been helping out and I managed to get quite a bit done and have a very good start. We hoped to finish songbird protocols today but only briefly touched four out of at least 10+ families. Sounds like it's not much but it's quite a bit when you have 2-5+ species per family and have to research all the information to go with them. Luckily I remembered a very awesome website FULL of bird information that my ornithology professor (Bob Placier or Bob Scott!) gave me when I was working on my capstone Great Blue Heron project. I absolutely adore the Birds of North America website. Thank you Cornell and the American Ornithologists Union for making the website possible! So much information about every bird plus so many sources as well. It's like the greatest bird encyclopedia ever.

Not much else today besides feeding, protocols, and tours. Attempted to do more cleaning for the rehab side but every time I attempted to help something popped up so I feel bad in that department but at least stuff was taken care of. Did feed mice for rehab and did make more mice food + squirrel trays at 8am and 4pm feedings so that helped some. We did get in some new baby gray squirrels that need fed every 3 hours - including 10:30pm and 3am! It will be interesting to see who is willing to get up or not! Here's some pictures of the nuggets.

Day 49 - Rehabilitation

Given the situation today, I could easily be mad about various things. I could have thrown my hands and up, said I quit, and walked away. This is not my style though and overall, despite some minor circumstances, I simply embraced the day and did my best to work as fast as I can while getting as much done that I could. Why am I typing everything out as I? Well, because I was the only intern on the rehabilitation side with only two staff members. Education interns did seem to help quite a bit when they could but overall both sides were busy and very short staffed.

Overall it turned okay, very tiring, but there's also some good news in all of this that has not only benefited the center and staff but the interns as well.

The two rehabbers obtained their advanced license! What does this mean? We are not capable of taking in any animal as long as their is an approved protocol or guideline for its care. The Wisconsin DNR approves such things and I am so so happy that they granted the two rehabbers their advanced. They deserved it and it's absolutely great to see the center finally almost back in 100% full swing like it was years again. Bright future ahead for sure!

Now onto this morning. It started off with raccoon feedings of course. I had to weigh all 13 raccoons, feed them, clean their bedding, and do all the dishes associated with all this. On top of this had to make more mash and eggs since whomever was on rehab yesterday left everything practically down to the nitty gritty or almost not there. Thankfully the rehabbers did not leave me hanging because one came back to help clean all the raccoon cages then dish out solids for me. Weighing and dishes just took forever so I truly felt slow but sometimes the raccoons just do not want to sit still. Very thankful for all the help indeed.

After this was over with I had to feed/clean all the mice cages (at least 17 from small to large) and I think I put away and did some dishes but can't 100% remember. I think I made more eggs as well and maybe some mash but overall this is all hazy. Next thing you know it was time for 12pm raccoon feeding.

Just before I finished 12pm raccoon stuff I found out the best news ever! That the rehabbers go their advanced license, as said before. What this means is that we are not able to feed squirrels and other rodents and rabbits besides just raccoons. Of course we will now need more training but this means more experience and I am thrilled! Around 2pm today, which was after lunch, I got the chance to feed a squirrel for the first time. What makes me feel 10x more special is the fact that I can say I am the very first intern to feed anything besides the raccoons under the two rehabbers new license. First intern ever! Now that is truly exciting to me!

I also had the 2pm raccoon feeding as well. Another intern started to help me with it until a tour popped up then I was doing it solo again. Just helped me gain more experience is all. Once the feeding was over I went to Antigo with a gosling that was brought in the evening before today. We would have taken it last night but it was so late and everyone's just been very tired. We intended to work more on protocols too....which I found out that everyone is practically done except me. All this time I wanted to be the first one done and here I am the last. I feel bad for not working on them for a few days but I was just mentally exhausted, overaly frustrated, and I guess I just couldn't suck it up on top of everything else anymore. Sometimes I still wonder if I truly like rehabilitation or not. I am just not sure of what I want anymore I guess. Not every job is perfect, so far all of them swing back and forth between like and dislike but I guess the question is do the dislikes out weight the likes? Not entirely.

Once I dropped the bird off and returned from Antigo I went straight to a place with all you can eat fish fry. Everyone was there but one intern who has been sick and one of the three staff members our age due to family being in town. It was honestly a fun time but I think my tiredness was getting the best too me. I just felt really awkward around every one all of a sudden.... I guess all I wanted to do was relax but this never truly happened yet...even though it's 11:32pm now.

When the fish fry was over and we all returned I had to jump straight into the RISO in order to feed raccoons and try dishing out food. While inside I noticed the floors needed swept/mopped, some dishes needed done, trash would probably need taken out, and that I managed to forget about cleaning their cages earlier in the day. Thankfully one of the interns who was off showed up and helped me dish out food despite how slow I may have been moving. Too much to do at once is what it felt like. After food was dished he helped put some stuff away and I asked him if he could help restock some sheets. He and a previous intern helped do that so I started dishes, sweeping/mopping, and general cleaning. The RISO ended up not as spotless as the previous day but was much cleaner then what it looked before. I was in a good pair of clothes too and sweating like none other so I did not want to make my stay inside there forever but just long enough to do all that I could and get out before I grew too tired.

After RISO stuff was finished I then went back into the kitchen and made eggs for the rehab crew tomorrow plus made a little bit of mash to get them started. I then did almost all the kitchen dishes, cleaned up a little bit by finishing restocking sheets and putting away the sheet/blanket bin, and disinfected some surfaces. I was going to make more mash and formula for raccoons but I was honestly too scared to walk back to the walk-in freezer because I did not have a light and could barely see when taking the trash out. Plus I was not interested in being cold, especially after sweating, I would have froze more then I normally do when I walk in there.

Once cleaning was finished I climbed back up here around 11:10 or 20 and crawled into bed to type this up. Another tired day and I also have phone duty tonight... not too thrilled about that and kind of wish I was back on rehabilitation tomorrow. At the moment I have no interest in dealing with people whatsoever but maybe I am just in a mood because of being tired. Kept the best attitude I could though. If anything, this was a huge experience day and I hoped I maybe set the example for some others when it comes to restocking food stuff to help the day go faster for the interns the following day. Who knows, have some doubts, but we'll see.


Sorry this is somewhat short because a lot did happen to day. Was on the go non-stop from 8am to 11pm basically but I forget so much because I'm tired. Hopefully I will remember more tomorrow. Today marked the halfway point of my internship. Only 48 days left with 48 behind me....its so crazy, but so glad it can be spent with advanced license and gaining more experience. This whole internship = willy definitely pay off someday.

Day 48 - OFF

So it has occurred to me that tomorrow will mark the halfway point in my internship. Much like hump day on wednesdays it all goes down hill from here! I don't mean downhill in a bad way either but more like time just starts flying by and next thing you know its over. In other words, need to continue living every day to the fullest!!! Still hard to believe there's only 4 more days left of June and that this one may as well be half over already (almost 11am) so make that 3.5 days.

Today my plans to go out and do a Common Loon survey with the assistant education director and a volunteer turned into a bust. I was apparently really tired because I managed to sleep through both of my alarms! I did not wake up until 10 minutes too late of where I was supposed to be. Honestly this is rather upsetting but I won't let myself get too bummed. I take it as "another adventure awaits you today" so now I just need to get the ball rolling and figure out where the road is trying to lead me to said adventure. I'm not sure if I want to truly hike anywhere because a day of rest sounds pleasant but I also know I do not want to stay cooped up here all day. I'll figure out something that does not cost too much gas/money.

In the mean time I baked brownies, talked about some birding experience with my fellow Ohio birders, and basically have just chilled out while listening to music. I need to do laundry at some point today even though I want to avoid it but I intend on saving that until after my adventure. I also need to mail out a package today to my boyfriend's uncle. Keep forgetting to do that, shame on me. I also never had time until today too.


Later....
 So the read ended up leading me to take a shower, prepare to go do laundry, and end up being asked if I was interested in rescueing a bird with the two rehabbers. Of course I was interested! Therefore I went. Sadly it turned out to be a bust because it started to down pour, rained the whole way, and when we arrived...no bird. Roughly a few hours of time passed but hey it got me out of the center for a little while, allowed me chill out in the back seat of the vehicle, listen to some country music, and gave me time to play 4 pics 1 word. Needless to say I was content. The other good news, we rescued a turtle while on the way back!

 Upon returning to the center I then took leave to do my laundry but completely forgot to mail the package to my boyfriend's uncle. Maybe tomorrow!!! If only I could remember while the post office is still open, I always remember after its already closed. Since returning I worked on this blog a bit more but otherwise this day has been relaxing. Something I have needed for a good while!

Tonight we are having a protocol party and pot luck dinner with lasagna. I baked brownies for the occasion so looking forward to this! Not too interested in doing protocols tonight but gotta do what I gotta do if I want to finish mine up before the deadline on the 7th.

Day 47 - Rehabilitation

One more day of rehabilitation before I enjoy my day off tomorrow. Today has been pretty good. No one seems as stressed as they did yesterday so everything is a bit more laxed. Good thing too because the stress prevented me from truly getting any good sleep last night and so this relaxed phase is allowing me to ease my mind more.

This morning started off with typical Raccoon feeding at 8am. We added more of a food variety to their diets because they are in the process of being weaned off the formula. Next step is outside in the large mammal enclosures where they can grow up and learn how to be true raccoons. They will get to climb around the walls, logs, and more or less have an amazing time out there. Cannot wait to see them grow into their enclosure and one day be released. Hopefully we can release them before I leave but since it took a month to get them to where they are I am unsure. I have had the privilege to watch the 5 babies I rescued from Antigo, WI grow so I hope to see them get released before anyone.

After their bedding was changed, most were given their appropriate dosages of dewormer, all their food was taken care of, and of course all were fed formula the other intern did the dishes and I returned to the kitchen to fill out charts and begin working on cleaning/feeding mice. Wednesday means mice need their bedding changed so we had to do that. The other intern ended up cleaning/feeding more mice then me because I had to count out at least 50 mice that were about 1oz and euthanize them for our birds. Hey, the birds have to eat too. They truly appreciate it too. Once this was taken care of the rest of the feeding/cleaning was finished and we both went to the truck.

With a box and gloves in hand we drove to Woodruff to search for a turtle that had apparently been possibly hit or run over. This resulted in a cracked shell. When we arrived the turtle had crawled away though and no one was sure of where it went. It was in a coffee shops parking lot. So since we could not find the turtle we merely said to call us back if they saw it again and we went on a produce run. Save More and Trigs will usually give us their left over vegetables that are on the verge of going bad. This helps both us and the animals out tremendously. Today we collected 4 boxes of fruits/veges and returned to the center. After unloading we then grabbed a bucket and head out back. Since none of the volunteers were in today we had to give all the residents fresh water. One of the previous workers here who has been coming in to help us took care of feeding all the residents. We were very thankful for this extra help of course!!!

Once everyone was fed and watered we took lunch. A baby robin came in so the other intern will be going to REGI today to drop it off later. She ended up going after lunch and the 2pm feeding of raccoons. We gave everyone their solids and new water then combined two single raccoons into one cage. At first it was cute watching the two sniff each other and act like they were guarding their ground but within a half hour the two became practically siblings. They were snuggling together on the heating pad as if it were not big deal. Gotta love young raccoons despite their smell. We made jokes earlier today about how anyone who knows how to feed a raccoon baby can take care of a human baby. Too soon for such thoughts but valid point! Funny thing was "yeah, except humans don't throw poop at you." "Wellllll.....unless you have boys, then its questionable". "Oh lord!" haha. Best 1 minute convo and a somewhat horrible thought too! Considering... I wanted a boy or two in the future haha. Hopefully they won't fling poo like these raccoon babies do.

Feeding was taken care of and the other intern went to REGI which means I was left back to do other things. I ended up sitting down and sorting through all the produce. Good stuff went to the fridge/freezer for the animals to devour over time and bad stuff went to the compost. Most of it was good (lots of bananas!!!) so not much was wasted. You know how they always told us that all the food from groceries was wasted? Well sometimes it goes towards the animals if the stores are generous enough to donate! The animals will always approve :)!

After sorting it all through, putting some in the fridge/freezer, taking the rest to compost, and recycling the boxes it was about time for 4pm feeding and also the end of the day. The rehabber and I tag teamed and knocked out everything cleaning related. I feed two raccons and gave the Raccoon room a good scrub cleaning! It wasn't sparkling as much as yesterday but very close to it! Trash was all taken out, compost stuff was taken, floors were swept/mopped, and dishes were all done. All of this by 5pm! It seemed the rehabber did most of it while I was in the RISO but I at least did nursery/kitchen dishes!

After 5pm rolled around I loomed upstairs and chilled for a while before I decided to head to the store for groceries. I wanted to do laundry tonight too but when I looked outside all I saw was wind, rain, lightning, and heard thunder. In other words a severe thunderstorm + laundry = no go. however storm + groceries = go for it. I traveled across the street to Walmart and loaded up on enough food to hopefully last me 2-3 weeks. Not too much money spent either....well...ok....about half of my paycheck was spent on groceries. But I have been managing to save back some money back for future use (cough school cough). So not all is lost. At least I won't need to buy food for practically a month it seems. I have not been eating as much which helps big time too.

After the storm trip and guzzling down some new Orange Juice (Sunny D!) I relaxed in my room for a bit before one of the other interns invited me to Hoggie Doggies with the rest of the interns. Of course I could not say no so we went while an old worker here at the center said she would take phone. She was going to be around for a while anyway and I must say it was greatly appreciated! All of her help today was and I even managed to chat a bit later about the way things used to be here at Northwoods when we had advanced license and gained a little history on not only this place but her too. This happened after Hoggie Doggie's and a rescue that popped up as soon as we returned.

 I went on my first pick up rescue alone and what was the animal that I was retrieving. Well at the time I was not sure but after the woman showed me what was in the box my whole face lit up with joy. It was a Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel!!! This was the first time I have ever seen one personally!

Itty bitty guy! Put the heat on to hopefully help keep him warm in the vehicle despite the fact I was personally hot/sweating and headed back towards the center. He still arrived somewhat chilled and seemed lethargic but a heating pad did wonders rather quickly! The old staff member went through the initial exam while I took notes on both the critter's card and in it's patient folder. It weighed in at 13.6 grams and after given some re-hydrating fluids + heat he became alert and rather active. Good news for the little guy! He was orphaned which is why he was taken in and we were called so thankfully the fact he does not have injuries means he will probably have a speedy recovery. This is an assumption though. I know I keep saying he but am unsure of gender. Overall this was a rewarding experience tonight and I hope I am able to help with his release in the future when he has grown up more. I enjoyed watching the staff go through the initial exam progress and helping her by writing down all the notes. She signed everything off, we chatted a little as said, then I head back upstairs.

I intend to check on the guy tomorrow before I go anywhere but for now I am thinking bed. It's late and although I  have a day off tomorrow I have something planned with a staff member and volunteer tomorrow at 9am! Will talk about that more tomorrow (with pictures hopefully too!) so for now getting off.

Before I leave though, two of us interns finally got the chance to hold the Southern Flying Squirrel so here I am with the little guy!

PS. Feel like I have lost more weight but no scale to tell! If it's true then woohoo! 20ibs down so far, curious how much i'm down now after all that standing/walking all day :)

Day 46 - Rehabilitation

After today I am physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted.

The morning started off very slow for me. Could not build enough energy to get up until I forced myself to get ready. Ended up slightly late because my breakfast sandwich was too hot when it came out of the microwave. I already dragged out of bed late and overall it just felt like today was going to be "one of those days". Tried to remain positive but here's how things went.

8am meant raccoon feeding so three of us interns prepared solid food, formula, and did dishes. While waiting on the solids to heat up I figured why not start feeding/watering mice while the other two interns either did dishes (as said) or other things...that I am not sure about. Once the food and such was ready I quit the mice job temporarily and we carried the food back before I hopped into the Raccoon Isolation Room (RISO). We first had to weigh all the raccoons since they had not been weighed in a few days. We do this every few days in order to see if they are gaining weight and to see how much formula we should give them based on their weight and some math. Once we know the amount to feed them, we draw it up into some bottles and go to town.

This morning one of the interns that was with me wrote down all weights as I weighed the buggars then started to help me feed. However due to illness she had to take leave and ended up going to the doctor. Meanwhile the other rehabilitation intern was on a goose rescue with one of the education interns. This left one education intern and myself. I fed all the raccoons except for 2 1/2 (one was half fed), changed all of their bedding, gave them all fresh water and solids, and then did all the dishes. Jokingly I told the others no more complaining about raccoons though I am not sure if they took the joke...hope they did. Now don't get me wrong, I didn't mind this at all. I actually really like the raccoons and cannot wait for the day they can be released. Not because I am tired of taking care of them, this isn't the case at all, but because there's a special feeding you get when you release a wild animal back into the wild once it's been raised/healed up. You gave that animal another chance at life and whether the animal is big or small, they all matter. Just like people. Every organism is special in some way. They each have their own niche to fulfill and simply must find it.

 Now after this raccoon episode I exited the riso and just breathed a little. Every time I am inside the isolation room for a long duration of time I honestly feel miserable because of the humidity/heat but later on the in the way we discovered that the air purifier was set on low but should be set on high. It was turned back up to high but unsure how or why it was turned down. Hoping that maybe since its turned back up the air won't be so thick and I won't feel so miserable/sweaty after a long duration of time inside.

Once I was back out of the riso I started filling out the charts for all the raccoons and chatted with a volunteer for a bit. Not exactly by choice but I am not one to be rude and still managed to get stuff done anyway. I started feeding mice again until one of the rehabbers grabbed me and asked if another volunteer could take my spot so I could do other work. I showed the volunteer the ropes, where to get some food items for the mice, and then started to attack some items on the list. While the volunteer worked away I cleaned up the exam room some. Put some donation fish in our freezer and thoroughly cleaned the bucket so it could be returned to the front entrance (no more fishy smell, now its dawn soap smell!) and then had to thrown away some stuff due to bad freezer burn. Not that we didn't appreciate any of the food. After this I took out the trash in the exam room just because it was full and because I didn't really want the meat to make the place smell. Recycled a box too. More or less cleaned up the exam room.

After this I helped load some animals into the back of one of our trucks. The rehab intern that returned back from the doctor was going to drive two Eastern Wood Pewee, a Canada Goose, and a Snapping Turtle to Green Bay's rehabilitation center (Wisconsin). It's 6:30pm and the intern is honestly not back yet (6 hour drive) but maybe in a half hour or so. Once all animals were loaded I ran upstairs with a bunch of egg cartons full of eggshells and started the oven. These shells were crumbled up and baked for 20 minutes before removed. We went to lunch across the street at Hong Kong Buffet (Chinese) for lunch. Was honestly rather good to me though not the greatest. I miss my Chinese places at home.

After shoving two plates of food and an ice cream down I kind of felt rather crappy. I felt like everyone was in a hurry honestly so I was just eating away. Did not want to hold anyone back and knew a staff meeting (not for interns) was coming up at 2pm. It was already almost 1:30 at the time I think. Once we returned for lunch both of us rehab interns thought we had an extra half hour but this was not the case. Today we took only a half hour lunch and went straight back to work without much of a break. We fed raccoons at 2pm which meant giving them all new solids and water. Once this was taken care of and staff went to their meeting we started attacking everything we possibly could on the list. We mostly worked individually. Since I was still in the Raccoon Isolation Room I created two trash bags worth of trash and asked the other intern to take it out. He agreed and so I began to attack the RISO by giving the floors and sweeping, mopping, and scrubbing. This included disinfecting and double dosing with bleach and dawn soap. Once the floors were basically sparkling and all tools were disinfected I then disinfected all surfaces, gloves, and containers we typically touch. If anything bacteria or disease related was anywhere in that room it may as well have died twice because I was going cleaning crazy with the disinfectants. The floor looked almost brand new but maybe I'm over exaggerating.

Once the raccoon room was cleaned out I finally left and went back to the list for a bit of guidance. In other words, by now my brain was basically dead. The hamster stopped spinning and I was ready for sleep. I kept trucking though. I disinfected all the counters through out the whole rehabilitation area while the other intern disinfected, swept, and mopped the pond room (where we kept the snapping turtle for a few days while waiting for Green Bay to respond back to us). Once this was done I think I started to attack dishes in the kitchen. When the other intern was done was tag teamed fixing a part of the cabinet in the nursery that had fallen off. After a while my help really wasn't needed so he finished that off while I made solid for 8pm feeding tonight. I thought all the raccoons got more solids at 4pm but forgot. At least the eggs were made though. I then prepared the formula for 4pm feeding once the eggs were finished and passed it off to the other intern who said he would feed. In the mean time I think I finished off dishes in the kitchen and then started to prepare squirrel/chipmunk trays.

After the trays were loaded with fruits and vegetables the chipmunk and squirrels were fed, charts were filled, and the kitchen surfaces were disinfected again. The intern was finished with the raccoon stuff and put the formula back then we checked out the list. The staff finally finished their meeting around this time so while I began to sweep/vacuum one of our back rooms the other interns asked about some items on the list (whether or not we should do them). We were told we did not have to finish off some items on the list so once I finished cleaning up the back room I disinfected some dishes in the nursery (but forgot to was them.....) and then took out the compost. The other interns fetched some new branches and pine cones for our squirrels then we met back up in the exam room and called the day good. One rehabber that I have been helping with songbird protocols talked to me about some songbird protocol stuff that needs done then I ended up upstairs.

Forgot to wash the nursery dishes and forgot to take the egg shells that were baked today downstairs but will probably make an attempt to do them this evening after raccoon feeding. May end up doing dishes in the raccoon room again, not sure, but no matter what anything not done tonight can be done tomorrow since I am back on rehabilitation again. Glad the place got a good cleaning both on rehabilitation and a few days ago in education (dusting/disinfecting especially) but honestly still worn out and tired. Nausea throughout the day wasn't helping and now the sciatic hurts but I am still trying to truck through. Trying to relax for now but intend to work on protocols at least until 9:30 tonight. Have raccoon feeding at 8pm (it's 6:50pm now). Hoping that maybe the feeding will go fast between two to possibly three interns.

Overall the day was neutral. Not the greatest but not the worst either. I like to think of all potentially bad days as neutral because lets face it, it could always be worse.


Listed below are some pictures of the rehabilitation side of things. Forgot that I never posted these up. These pictures were taken at least 2-3 weeks ago. Just imagine the last picture without the signs in the background and clean counter top to the left.

Rehab Kitchen

Rehab Kitchen

Exam Room

Day 45 - Education

Good old switching back and forth between education and rehabilitation. Today started off like every education day of course. For those who still do not know what this means - sweeping, vacuuming, and mopping. I did the first two while the education intern did the other and cleaned the bathrooms. I also washed the front windows and window to the nursery before sitting down until 10am doing call backs. Every person that calls about an animal we add to the phone log and if a call back is necessary we state so for others or yourself at a later date to call the person back. These call backs are meant to either update the person on how the animal they brought in is doing or for them to update us in case they were monitoring an animal.

For example, a bird is hopping around in your back yard because its learning how to fly. Since you are not aware of it learning how to fly you call us in and we inform you based on the details you give us then ask you to monitor it. Chances are the bird will fly away in a few hours to days and if you're a witness to it you update us so we can then update the phone log. The public truly appreciates call backs for sure. Have not had a bad one yet (knock on wood) and typically hear "thank you for doing what you do" or in one case "you sound like a very nice person, good luck with your future endeavors and never stop helping wildlife". So far the later is my favorite. My least favorite is when someone asked for my personal number.....no.....just no.....I am taken and 100% content with that. Period.

In other news, gave the first tour to a group of high schoolers. They were entirely interested which made me happy. It feels weird being a college student teaching high schoolers about the animals because well...2-3 years ago that was me and I am STILL not used to the fact Im beyond high school. (and almost beyond associates degree in one more year too!)

Once tour was up this meant time for another protocol party! The other intern gave the next two tours while I worked on protocols. While I was away she was doing callbacks as well which makes me very pleased. Better then sitting around like a bump on a log. The fact she gave tours gave me plenty of time to work on the songbird protocol. When she returned we had some dry periods besides the occasional phone call. This period ended into lunch where we got a 30min break each. She took another tour I think but I ended up giving at least two today. I think she maybe gave three though so almost even. You could say answering a lot of phone calls until 5pm evened it out in a sense.

For the most part majority of the day went towards protocols though I did move around a bit. After lunch I did the rehabilitation side a favor while they were still on lunch and cleaned the exam room. This includes dishes and disinfecting surfaces/scales/exam table. Started to work on the kitchen until the education director pulled me to the front to show me how to clean our Florida Soft-shell turtles cage. I am taking care of her for this summer (we each received different animals - I have the eastern screech owls and the great horned owl too).

Hubertus - Florida Softshell Turtle

The director showed me how to take apart the filter, how to remove the water with some hoses, and pointed out that I needed to scrub the sides. I helped scrub at least but overall he honestly did the rest. Feeling guilty about it but he understood I was busy. I felt like I was jumping back and forth between rehab and education towards the end of the day. Was periodically going over how to clean the enclosure then jumped back to make squirrel trays then was grabbed again. He was busy as well so we were both in the same boat. I still soaked all that I could in by watching. The filter may not need changed again until the next internship season rolls around (Aug-Sept) but just in case, I have a decent understanding and can at least work on "cage cleaning" protocols. At least... I think that's what they asked us to do when we get the chance. Not sure. Need to ask but either way even more protocols. Good practice though for writing out documents and learning about all the species depending on which protocol. So far its been heron, egrets, bitterns, and songbirds (passerine and non-passerine) for me (minus warblers). One of the rehab staff members did 90% of the songbird protocol while I am just helping her fill in the basic information for each species. Not to hard, just formatting and filling stuff in. The formatting portion is done, just need to complete the filling in part.

After all this was over two staff members, two interns besides me, and one volunteer went to a Snowshoe baseball game. Never ever heard of it before but its where the play baseball in snowshoes! The field is mainly sawdust and the ball is more like a soft ball but everything else is the same. This was treat to us three interns for selling the most fishing tickets (we tied by selling 2 each). The volunteer said that if we did he would take us to the game and buy us food. We each got a brawt (best and only brawt i have ever loved) and a piece of pie (caramel apple cheesecake) with a water. I could not thank him enough for this huge treat!!!! Had a complete blast and wish I took pictures but was having so much fun that I kind of actually forgot to. Good break from protocols and loved hanging out with everyone. Managed to eat another piece of pie I think and also a cheeseburger too. Two other waters later.... I was full and feeling it too but so worth it.

We even hung out by Lake Tomahawk for a good while there too. Clearest lake I have even seen, it was gorgeous. One thing I did not like though was the fact that docks moved with the water. So they would shake or move when you walked too. Not an Ohioan thing, couldn't handle it! haha.

Overall, fun day and very productive too but also it has left me very tired. So I managed to catch up by cranking out this post, hopefully will stay caught up tomorrow, but otherwise good night everyone.

Day 43/44 - Rehabilitation/Off

Rehabilitation day! Cannot believe it is Saturday already. Where has the week gone? Lets be honest, I am still wondering where May went. Not sure what I am going to do with myself once June is gone too (which it will be in a week as hard as that is to believe). Remember to use your days wisely everyone because they fade fast! Even though you wake up early!!!

8am means first thing in the morning raccoon feeding. We had to make more mash, eggs, and formula. We managed to do all of this in about a half hour. In the mean time I check charts to see who gets what type of formula (since we now have 14 raccoons!!!) and managed to remind people about panacur dosage (dewormer). Made more formula for the one coon that was different while the other two rehab interns weighed the coons in order to figure out how much formula they each receive. Once I was able to jump into the mix and most of the raccoons were weighed we started to feed, change bedding, give them dishes of water and solids, and eventually another intern did dishes while us other two put food away. I then filled out raccoon charts while the other intern did something else (I think restocked blankets in the raccoon room?). He then started on feeding mice at some point while I managed to fit in "eat a donut" time. Donuts are provided almost every Saturday thanks to one of our wonderful volunteers. She always manages to bring in the best so we thanked her of course! I helped feed mice afterwards then filled out charts for them as well. Updated the white board as well, signed my name wherever necessary to testify that the raccoon received its dosage of dewormer, and then checked the to do list for more tasks. Protocols are still in mind of course but some things come first before we have another "protocol party".

While checking the to do list I somewhat helped the other two interns figure out tasks too. By that I mean I asked who wanted to pick bunny greens and one said he would. I threw out how we needed to restock and offered to do this but ended up going out and burying Snapping turtle eggs. Whoa, wait, Kelcie you just said WHAT?! Yes, buried Snapping turtle eggs. Now this does not mean they are not likely to survive. This is not a bad thing whatsoever.

Snapping turtles are not exactly the best parents in human perspective. They bury their eggs and then leave them to fend for themselves. Once the eggs hatch the babies are still on their own. More or less they dump and go without caring for the young whatsoever. So yes these babies may actually survive if the conditions are right. Never dig up turtle eggs. It is illegal to do so. If you feel that they are in a dangerous area (as in they could possibly be ran over or threatened by people) then feel free to call a rehablitation center first to discuss the situation with them.

After this shindig I helped make more solids for the 2pm feeding later today (Raccoons) and while the solids were cooking up I made formula for the 12pm feeding (still Raccoons). After 12pm feeding was covered I quickly did some dishes and made an attempt to do dishes in the kitchen. However I never got to this but at least the dry stuff was all put away. Helped with animal charts I believe and then did dishes. Went to lunch after!

Did more dishes after lunch and prepared for the 2pm feeding. Us three interns cut up some fruits for mash for raccoons while staff fed the squirrels. Once this was all made up we dished out mash and other solid foods to the raccoons and then had another protocol party until about 4pm. We had to make squirrel trays for the squirrels (which were too big so we had to condense some food and feed the rest to the mice, oops). After the squirrels were given their trays and new water I filled out charts and then we began to clean. I swept while another intern mopped and the other took care of sweep/mopping/dishes in the Raccoon Isolation Room (RISO). One staff took out trash, recycling, and compost while the other fed the squirrels their formula. Once cleaning was finished up some of us went home while others ate or worked on protocols.

Whatever we worked on it lasted until 8pm raccoon feeding. During this we had a call about a red fox kit. Five of the six interns loaded up into the truck or their personal vehicle to go look for this fox but no one saw it beside passerbys. By this time it was dark anyway and despite flashlights and carlights we did not see a thing. After this was over with and we returned empty handed; everyone went upstairs except for me. I think this resulted in bed for most but I ended up staying up until 6am the next morning working on protocols.

Good news is I finished the Long-legged Wader protocol (98% at least).
Bad news is I messed up my sleeping schedule because I ended up waking up at 2pm.

DAY 44 - DAY OFF

After waking up at two and eventually showering, we played a game of hacky sack for maybe 5 minutes. Everyone was copped up in the office all day working on their protocols so they needed a break and I needed to wake up. Once this small game was over it was back to work. I have been working on protcols all day with almost everyone else. The rehab staff on today had to continue working so they have had to feed as well. I am mainly working on songbirds now with one of the staff members; trying to help them out so we can finish this HUGE protocol (have you seen how many songbirds there are, just imagine the warblers).

Day 42 - Education

Apologize for this post being a day late. As stated in day 41 many of my upcoming posts may be late due to working on protocols with the other interns and staff. Once these protocols are finished we will be able to take care of the animal written about. For example I am covering Long-legged waders so once the protocol is finished we will be able to take care of Great Blue Heron, Cattle Egret, Back crowned Night Heron, American Bittern, Least Bittern, and other heron/egret species in Wisconsin. Next up is short-legged and other seabirds (loon, cormorant, grebes). So far I have the general information for the long-legged waders finished (or at least what appears to be finished) but am still in need of species specific information. Thankfully there are not many species of long-legged waders to cover so once I am able to find all the remaining information I need the rest should hopefully be breeze. Goal was to finished them yesterday (on day 42) but my goal is to now finish them by tonight (day 43).

Moving on.

Today was an education day so of course it started with the same routine as every morning. You guys can guess what that is by now but for those who still aren't sure: vacuuming, sweeping, mopping. After this I was asked to virkon or disinfect all the surfaces in the education room where the animals and kids corner are. I attacked practically every surface I could which required moving study skins by taking them off the shelves and putting them by. Also attacked the kids corner area. Rearranged some study skins so people could see all of them better while also giving a size difference amongst the skins if they were mammal. Moved around some brochures and stuff in one section of the room so these were more organized as well. I managed to spice up the corner with the brochures too by moving a Short-eared owl study skin near it all! If I saw the owl I would instantly want to walk over to look at the brochures! Maybe that's just me though.

Of course I did some gift shop work. Added some stuff from the gift shop and recalculated some inventory information. Overall both of us education interns were trying to work on protocols but once we opened we were slammed with phone calls and tours. Every half hour we were giving a tour with phone calls in between. It rained some but this never stops people. In fact we are busier on rainy days then sunny ones! Not many people realize our outdoor portion of the tour I suppose. It's carefully hidden from the public so they do not disturb the birds of prey when no one is around.

When we finally did close shop the two of us began to work on protocols again. Others were already working on them or joined in after wards. Overall we ended up having a "protocol party" until some of the interns started to go to bed one by one. Once one left there was basically a chain reaction up until about 12am. I was the last intern to go to sleep but the last staff member was not far behind. He left around 12:30am and that's all I remember before waking up the next day. One of those kind of sleeps, was OUT! Slept decently well too.

No pictures for the day. Sorry!
The good news though is since this is day 42 I have now been here 6 weeks! Survived so far lets hope it continues this way haha. 8 more weeks! Cannot believe time has flown by this fast and how it continues to fly by even faster!!!

Day 41 - Education

Today I was back on education, which is what I will be on tomorrow as well. Started off the day like every other education day - vacuuming, sweeping, and mopping. I did half the vacuuming and all the mopping while the other education intern did the other half and swept. While mopping I was doing miscellaneous other things as well. Such as letting out Hortense into her outdoor pen before letting her back in due to rain and talking to people who were interested in purchasing squirrel shirts.

Today I sold 5 Squirrel shirts to my friends/family. Thank you so much for supporting Northwoods Wildlife Center!!! They are $15 each so the center made $75 today from Squirrel shirts alone. We received more money from kind donors and other gift shop sales but the chunk along is awesome!! Just like you guys!

We have more shirts if anyone is interested. Visit my facebook page, check out the squirrel shirt picture, and then look at the comments below for the colors per size and such, and state what you want in the comments! Or message me, whatever works best for you.

Aside from selling squirrel shirts and messing around with the gift shop I gave at least 3 tours today to the public. I am definitely enjoying tours more because I can give them with a confident and clear voice. Feeling like an expert-in-training for sure! Talking to the public has become 100x easier. Aside from this helped answer some phone calls and updated the patient database as always. Kind of feel like I am the only one that ever does honestly....

Tempted to try updating the phone log database tomorrow, aside from the patient database again. Not sure what else to do with the gift shop honestly. Besides all this the assistant education director and a volunteer helped me with my resume by providing me tips on how to improve it. For the most part it seemed decent but of course there's always room for improvement so I hope to create a fresh new resume rather soon. First things first though, have a good list of protocols to help the rehabilitators work on.

Protocols are guidelines on how to raise animals of all sorts from the moment they arrive in the rehabilitation center to when they can be released. They include food, housing, dosage information, and more. Overall imagine a document jam packed with information on how to rehabilitate a species. I am personally working on long-legged waders (heron, egret, bitterns), short-legged waders (rail, plover, snipe, sandpiper, coot), and Other Waterbirds (loon, grebe, cormorant). Yes it sounds like a lot but ever since that Great Blue Heron research paper for Capstone I feel like nothing is impossible with hard work and dedication. Thank you Hocking College (Dave Swanson and Lynn Holtzman) for teaching me so well when it comes to important documentation when it comes to wildlife. Mainly what it takes to meet the requirements for these documents (a lot of research, a lot of time, and a lot of dedication). Once these protocols are finished, reviewed, and submitted to the Wisconsin Division of Natural Resouces (DNR) and they approve, we can start rehabbing said species! Other interns here are helping with the other species.

Reason why this post is so late is because of working on said protocols. Long-legged waders are started but so much work and research ahead! Except late blog posts because I will be trying to finish these protocols asap. Sooner the better because then that means we can take the species in!!! Who wouldn't want to rehabilitate herons and sandpipers?! I have a goal to eliminate these protocols asap and potentially steal from the others. Sounds bad but that's how much I want to get these done! Sorry guys, you all know I mean well.

Deadline for my protocols is July 7th so I have some time but not really. Hopefully once I figure out the jist of the provided template 100% then I can start hard core cranking out everything. Going to try working with rehabbers to see what exactly they want too. The moment I know what to do is when I can start typing like a mad man (and some of us know I am a super fast typer + grammer nazi).

Overall, I am honored to have been asked to help with protocols. Everyone eventually was but to help out an organization with something this important is something not everyone gets the chance to do every day. Hopefully through learning I can possibly consider becoming a rehabilitator myself....but we shall see where the road leads :)

Day 40 - Rehabilitation

Two more days and you could say I have officially worked at Wisconsin in 6 weeks! In the meantime lets take a moment to stop and think about the fact that 40 days have now passed since A) I started this blog B) Been here and C) For those of you who have been reading since day 1. 40 days! Now that is a lot of time that has passed by our life. This is your reminder that time flies so use every day wisely before time has slipped away completely! :)

This morning started off with good old raccoon feeding. While the other two rehab interns weighed them all in order to determine how much we should feed them via formula; I made squirrel trays. Changed out a cage with two eastern gray squirrels and gave them food, fresh water, and egg shells for calcium. Made a special combination of solid foods for the raccoons as well. Once this was all done I helped out by feeding the racoons formula, loaded up some trays with solid food, water, and changed out some bedding in a few.  Eventually some stuffed animals were thrown in for the raccoons once we restocked some bedding materials. During the feeding process we received a rescue call which involved a Bald Eagle!

Needless to say what happened once feeding was finished. Two of us rehab interns and one education intern loaded up with an eagle box, gloves, and some sheets then the three of us took off towards St. Germain. I must say the house where the eagle was located was absolutely amazing; gated home, huge log cabin style home, a boat, jet ski, and 100% Amazingness. I wish I could live in a home like this someday but sadly being in wildlife, maybe not. Now if I could just sell enough Advocare stuff....

Anyway, the two rehab interns eventually managed to capture the eagle and load it into the box. We brought everything back after having the lady who called us in fill out a recovery card. Once back at the center with the eagle we checked to see if he was a fledgling or an able flying juvenile. He was in fact a fledgling! So this guy/gal has just recently acquired his flight feathers and is still in the process of learning. We believe he has an injury in the wing since he was not holding it properly; this could have been from possibly tumbling during his practice flights. When we were originally trying to capture him we noticed he was carrying his wing rather funny which is what helped us think of this. Legally, due to not having advanced license yet and lacking permit, we could not give the eagle a complete examination but we at least wanted to check him out to see what stage of life he was in mainly.

After we finished this, I helped feed residents while others worked on restocking. Managed to feed/water all residents inside but still need to feed all of our outside residents. We took lunch shortly after the feeding and other tasks were finished.


When lunch was over and done we head back downstairs and started getting stuff ready for our 2pm raccoon feeding. We eliminated a lot of formula feeds down to 8am and 8pm so at 2pm they merely received solid foods and fresh water (which they chow down right away!) This is a good sign because it means they are almost weaned off from formula completely and after their last vaccinations they will be able to go outside into the outdoor mammal cages where they will become more in tune with nature. This, of course, also frees up the Raccoon isolation room cages to where we will start being able to receive more raccoons.

I believe once this was finished I offered to feed outdoor residents but was actually sent to REGI instead. I copied the two cards for the Bald Eagle and American Robin then loaded them both up into the tan truck. An education intern called REGI to let them know I was coming and I was on my way.

While at REGI I was able to see a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and Barn Owl in person for the very first time. I have always loved Barn Owls but seeing the one they brought out made my heart melt. They are by far my most favorite owls out there aside from the Great Horned. Always have loved this owl the most and probably always will. Also, the eagle was just fine - was only a fledgeling taking its first flight as previously thought.

After leaving REGI I cashed a check, got some taco johns for dinner, and head back to the center. Took an hour and a half of course but upon returning I had 10 minute down time before it was 8pm raccoon feeding. This went smooth and since one intern did most of the dishes I finished up the rest and turned off the light so the raccoons could sleep. This practically ended the day aside from me buying some addicting mints from the gift shop and of course typing up this blog. Tomorrow I am back on education.

First eagle rescue, managed to finish off the woodpecker list on my Ohio life list (now on the North American life list!), and saw my first Barn owl. Overall today was good. Have some pictures but they are not uploaded yet. Hopefully tomorrow :)


In the mean time, here's some pictures of our nursery patients taken by one of our rehabbers!

Eastern Chipmunk 

 *This had a broken leg and so he had a pin in it. He's adapted and is healing well!

Southern Flying Squirrel

Southern Flying Squirrel

Eastern Gray Squirrel

Day 39 - Education

Do you like bats?

 

Yes, no, maybe so? I know I do!

Why? Well because today I gave me first presentation to the public! Subject? Bat Ecology.

Okay...which one of you out there thought "you mean it's actually not about birds or invasive species this time?" Nope, bats it was and now I love these furry flying mammals too!
 
Anyway, it seems all those speech and presentation classes paid off because it was honestly the best presentation I think I have ever given. I discovered that after the last few days of feeling like I was dragging that I must have caught up on my sleep because I was back into the swing of things today!
 Every tour flowed great, every phone call made me feel like a professional, and every basic conversation seemed like it was not full of blubbering nonsense! I had a sense of confidence that I have missed and actually felt like I was 150% in my element. Not that I do not every day but everything finally felt like it has clicked together. I feel like I am ready to start knocking over obstacles head first.....maybe that's why I am Aries. *ba-dum-tshh (drums)*

Too much?

So going back to this morning, I woke up at a rehabbers house because I was asked to dogsitwhile he was with his girlfriend in Crandon, Wisconsin. Which was perfectly fine with me because he has a cabin in the woods beside a lake! Plus I have missed having animal companions around! Made me feel all sad and junk but I feel like the rest button was hit because my motto now is "life is good".
Slept great, took care of the cats/dogs, and did I mention the place is a cabin by the lake? Talk about mini vacation (though I could go without the mosquitoes!)

Once I arrived back at the center I unpacked some stuff but then jumped into the work day by vacuuming. The other intern swept/mopped so I let Hortense out into her outdoor area and then helped out one of the education staff members. Due to construction out front we weren't sure where to put our sign about our educational program going on today (Bat Ecology) so we had to check out the area and find the best spot. It ended up finding a good place out front and we drew in a crowd of about 6 people (3 of which were kids) which isn't too bad! Six people is better then no people!

After placing the sign outside I attacked the gift shop again by adding in more colorful Squirrel shirts from the back room (sizes Small - XL). If anyone out there is interested in ordering some squirrel shirts feel free to let me know what size and preferred colors. They are $15 each and are very adorable! Here's an example below.

Squirrels come in white too!

At the end of the day I attacked the gift shop again and moved things all around. I hope the other staff/interns like what I have done because the whole point was to separate adults vs child attention. I tried to make all of our books look better by displaying them a bit more by category; for example "bird shelf" vs "field ID" shelf. Not saying that what the gift shop looked like before was horrible because it looked great but I wanted to attempt to spice things up more!

Between the morning and the gift shop attack / program I took at least two groups out on tour today and answered at least three phone calls. We had a story teller come in and read to children. This guy isn't your average story teller! Why? He wrote his own book and painted any pictures he had brought in to present. I wish I got to watch him reading his book but I must say from what I saw in person and on his site he is awesome. Very kind gentlemen, highly recommend checking out his site if you get the chance! (and recommend buying a book as well of course)

Website: http://www.artisticimages2.com/

Otherwise I was working on gift shop, relaxing, reviewing my Bat ecology powerpoint, or talking to our volunteer about anything wildlife related. I love talking to the volunteers! I mean I love hearing any and everyone's story but how one finds a place and decides to volunteer there is always interesting. Plus, I think I mentioned this before, we should always make our volunteers feel important and welcomed. You could say volunteers are more important then the staff sometimes because of all the help they provide! It takes true dedication during these times where money is usually what drives the soul to work rather then helping out of dedication and such.

Aside from all of this I have to let out the dogs again tonight at 8 for my coworker so he can stick around with his girlfriend and afterwards the staff/interns will be watching a movie up here in our living room! Not sure what yet but hopefully something awesome! :)

Thank you again to all your readers our there. Every one that takes the time to read my blog is very special to me. Never forget that and I hope you all are enjoying this fine week. The beginning of summer is this friday so soak up those remaining "spring" days while you can!!!

Day 38 - Off

Nothing really to talk about at all besides reading more chapters of Wildlife Hospital and doing my laundry. Worked a tad bit on gift shop stuff; trying to have more adult sized shirts ordered in various colors if it's possible. Some good news, I just received new work shirts because ladies and gents I have lost roughly 20 pounds since working here and went down a size! :)!

Tonight at 6:30 we all intend on getting some sushi but not sure where. I LOOOOVEEEE sushi so needless to say I am excited. Have not really hung out with everyone in a good few days or so either; getting stir crazy staying here. Finally got 10 hours of sleep so feeling 110% again. Ready to give my first program tomorrow and dish out some awesome tours like I have in the past!

After sushi the only other thing going on is I am letting one of the rehabbers dogs out tonight and tomorrow morning so I am staying at a cabin by a lake since he and his girlfriend will be at her place. Get to hang out with the two dogs and couple cats (5?). Hope to hear some loons while I work on practicing for my presentation tomorrow and read up on education stuff to refresh my memory again.

Since I do not have much to say otherwise about anything else I want to stop for a moment and ask every one to do me a huge favor. Basically, all you have to do is follow the link below, scroll to the bottom, and click "vote". If you could do this every day that would be absolutely amazing but if you just do it once that is okay too. This vote will go towards Marge Gibson, the lead rehabilitator, at Raptor Education Group, Inc in REGI. Marge has helped Northwoods Wildlife Center plenty of times by taking in our birds while we try to regain our advanced license. Despite any issues associated between us and another rehabber, whom I won't mention, she has taken a stand and still helps out for the sake of the birds. This is what being a leader is all about in my perspective. REGI takes in birds every day and does their absolute best to rehab them before releasing them back into the wild. If you ever manage to come up here to visit me at NWC I recommend also visiting REGI as well (and Northwoods Zoo too!!!). Another note, REGI (like NWC) is a non-profit organization. This means they, like us, receive no funds from the government what so ever and have to rely on donations of all kinds to survive. You can imagine just how much of a help this award would be for REGI!

To me it felt like a bird haven and I feel Marge, the facility, and especially the birds! deserve this honor and prize of $40,000. So if you can, please vote by following this link and also spread the word as well! Keeping all rehabilitation facilities together for the sake of protecting wildlife and educating the public is what every organization should be all about :)!

Vote: http://eaglerarelife.com/content/marge-gibson

More information about REGI: http://www.raptoreducationgroup.org/
REGI's Blog: http://raptoreducationgroup.blogspot.com/

Day 37 - Rehabilitation

To start things off, Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there and especially my own. I am still rather sad that I was not able to see him when I went home. Intended on buying a gift and everything but as the days slipped by I kept forgetting. I still need to mail out two shirts to my boyfriends uncle that I keep forgetting about; oops. Intend to call him at some point today at least but overall really wish I had arrived earlier in the day or went over before we all head over to the family reunion. Everything seemed fast paced and of course I forgot to call when I was home like I always seem to do; irritates the living heck out of me when I forget these things.

Today was spent on the rehabilitation side. We fed our now 13 raccoons, the new addition we received yesterday, and changed all their bedding plus fed them solids. I did dishes while the other two interns prepared squirrel trays. When they fed squirrels and the chipmunk (whom had surgery yesterday since he broke his leg before we received him) and I fed the squirrel out back that was soft released. Some of you may remember me reffering to him as Satan squirrel because he would always mock charge everyone and make weezing sounds at you. Once he was fed, watered, and given more nuts I returned inside and fed/watered mice. Tried to check and see if the babies were an ounce yet but none seemed to be. They're halfway there though! Before I finished feeding mice I had to draw up 4 Sub Q's for the baby bunnies I had an intern pick up on their way back from Antigo (REGI) with some birds. They were orphaned because the family's dog killed the mother (and also one of the babies). We had 5 total but the rehabber drew up a Sub Q since I forgot how to do it at first.

Sub Q's are basically used as a means of rehydration. It's basically liquid that is drawn up from a bag, heated up under a heating pad, and then inserted directly into the muscles(?) between the shoulder blades. We do this if the rehydration liquid we orally give them does not seem to be rehydrating them quick enough. Sometimes they need that extra boost and usually they are all very peppy after receiving the Sub Q.

Once they were all Sub Q'ed (interns can only watch when it comes to the bunnies due to permits and such) I returned to the kitchen with the other two interns in order to make mash - a mixture of bananas and strawberries that is normally mashed into a mushy state. We just cut them up this time. Its all for our raccoons whom are now big enough to eat with out it all being mashed up. Since the racoons are mostly vaccinated and more on solids then formula we may be weening them off formula for good within the week or so and next step is outside into the big pens. Of course there's details I am missing with the process in between but we shall see what happens when we get there. For now they are all getting BIGGER and still on solids and formula. We only feed at 8am, 4pm, and 8pm though instead of 8, 12, 2, 4, and 8. So the less feeding times truly has helped us get more stuff down on the rehabilitation side. After the mash was mixed up we finished off any charts and took our hour lunch.

I contemplated napping during lunch because of how tired I have been but I have all night to do that. Since I have the day off tomorrow too I figured I would rest up for the most part, except for doing laundry. 6 days working in a row took its toll. Especially when I honestly haven't recuperated from the 5 days off. For the most part I went to bed late and woke up early on just about every day and did a lot of riding in a car or did a lot of driving (9 - 12 hrs depending). Yes I had 5 days off but was I lounging around on any of those days? Not entirely. I can say I successfully pulled through the last 6 days and feel very accomplished. Hopefully the day off tomorrow will truly help me.

After lunch was over with the three of us interns went back downstairs. I think we started to mostly clean. Not sure which order all of the following was done but we gave three of our resident birds exams, fed raccoons mash/dogfood/egg, did dishes in all the rooms, I restocked at some point, and at the very end of the day I took out the trash and compost while the the other two swept and mopped. I also helped prepare squirrel trays while the other two fed them as well. We checked off everything on the list except taking care of tub dishes outside and checking up on all the residents to see if they were all okay. We know the Bald Eagle, Kestrel, two Red-tails, and all of our small owls are but no one checked up on the large owls and Mya the Merlin. I may go out tonight to finally get back into the swing of things when it comes to talking to Errol. She still does not seem ticked off whenever I am around and appears more relaxed during educational tours which is still good in my perspective.

As for bird exams, when we are giving them we basically go out and captured the birds with a sheet and gloves on. We press their wings to their body and grab their talons so they cannot not grasp or bite us. Then we bring them inside to our exam room where we trim their talons and cope their beak. This means we "sand" it down so a tube does not form and they do not A) get their beak caught on anything and B) do not hurt themselves. Our two screech owls both seemed to have bean injuries today so we put wound flush on them to clean our the wound, some triple antibiotic, and then some vitamin E to aid the healing process. We also put Vitamin E on the feet of one screech owl because she was showing some signs of Bumble Foot; a bacteria that eats away at the flesh and all the way through the bone which results in having to amputate the foot. Since it was only the beginning sign we are able to monitor it and thus prevent it from happening before any drastic measures must be taken. Overall the three birds are very healthy and happy. DC the Screech owl did bite me a few times; she was the second bird I ever caught and I actually managed to get some pictures this time. The first bird I ever captured was Ethel our other Great Horned Owl, besides owl, whom is located on the rehabilitation side because she is used as a foster mom.

Eddie the Bald Eagle (Juvenile)

Holding DC the Eastern Screech Owl. Thought I was smiling but rather tired today.

We have to feed raccoons again tonight around 8pm but otherwise everything else is done and looking good. Clean, restocked, and all ready for tomorrows rehab crew. Hopefully the next time I'm on rehab the morning will start off the same as the end of today.

Day 36 - Education

Today I was back on education and honestly things just weren't running very smoothly for me. The last three days I have had nausea, woke up with a headache this morning, was having somewhat dizziness from what I believe was sugar related, and other symptoms that were making my morning kind of crappy. I fought through it of course but around 12pm I was told to go upstairs and rest some. Before all this though I helped clean by vacuuming and washing the windows like most mornings.

I spent most of my day at the front desk more then anything it seems because the other education intern wanted to give tours so in the mean time I answered phones, made call backs, and worked on gift shop inventory. The inventory process took up most of the day but was finally finished at the very end. I need to review the back room still but for the most part all the numbers between both areas are 95% accurate. I moved some things around and hoped to take some shirts out from the back room to spice the place up a bit.

Overall the day was very slow so besides gift shop stuff, making call backs and answering phones (one of the callers said I sounded like an awesome person which was kind of funny), and occasionally doing tours - not much else to really talk about. I kept myself busy 99 % of the day by constantly finding new things to do. If I sat still for too long I became too fidgety and honestly I still feel this way. I helped the rehabilitation side restock a little bit which I hope was more of a help then just pestering them.

Our fishing tournament was going on today and speaking of which, some good news, three of us won the "Who can sell the most fishing tickets" prize of a free dinner thanks to one of our awesome volunteers! It was a rock bass tournament with awesome prizes. The only pictures I have for everyone today are those of the winners and the prizes; which will be featured in the local newspaper once the article is written up and such. I do not intend to post anyone's personal pictures up but I can post up the pictures with the prizes once I upload them within the next few days. I would not but I am honestly rather tired and do not feel like moving much because of it.

Wish I had more interesting stories but overall the gift shop inventory is finally almost complete, a caller told me I was amazing, and I won a free dinner with two other people :)!