Day 54 - Education

Wow, had a very rough start this morning. Woke up RIGHT AT 8am because I apparently slept through my alarms again. I have apparently been super tired lately because I keep sleeping through alarms; first time EVER! Started off mainly sitting and trying to wake up. Looked over some education stuff and later began working on the kids corner. Cleaned it up some and restocked on crafts when I could.

I went over the turtle program with our assistant education director because I wasn't sure on what to do. We were given a presentation before but I have never given a program before without a powerpoint! It would have been easier if it was about birds because I truthfully could not recall much information about turtles. Thankfully there was another intern to help out so not all was lost. We bounced back and forth but lets be honest, he did most of it. Professionally even! I on the other hand have been stressed about anything public-education related because I feel like my tours, programs, situation handling, etc are not top notch (as in most of them feel lousy) so I am trying to remember what I can to spice up my programs. Everyone says its just me being hard on myself and maybe its true but I am still rather flustered. I wish I could handle at least 95% of the situations I am given without having to ask but I struggle quite a bit. I mean my biggest thing is providing the correct information which is why I try to be a perfectionist about the whole ordeal. If I want to work with the Ohio Division of Wildlife someday (ODNR) I have to make sure I absorb any experience I can get! Especially when it comes to animal/human situations.

Speaking of which, I hope to acquire the appropriate license involved in bird banding so that I may actually do it myself someday. I hope to acquire enough experience to one day owl/raptor band if I can. We all know I absolutely love birds so how could I not try to seize the bird banding opportunity. I am every so lucky to have an advanced/expert bird bander who teaches at my college. I am 100x more luckier that he said he would help me learn by taking me in as an apprentice! I must say this is a HUGGEEE honor!!! I cannot express my gratitude enough and hopefully when school starts back up I am able to show my deepest appreciation and thankfulness for helping me attempt to accomplish this. In the meantime I hope to continue working on my identification skills. I will need to be able to correctly identify all common birds in Ohio by their seasonal plumage, age, and sex. I have previous experience by birding and taking an ornithology class, have been working on it here in Wisconsin too, but still there's always more room for improvement and I definitely do NOT know all there is to know about bird ID.

In fact it took a while to identify a sparrow today that had come in. I believe it's a Juvenile Song Sparrow but not 100% positive. I am about 95% positive though if that makes a difference but there's still that slight doubt and uncertainty. I was able to identify a  Female Yellow-bellied Sapsucker right off the bat though without ever actually seeing one up close in person. Now that makes me happy. Here's what the Sapsucker looks like! (this was not the actual bird)

Copyright - Lind and Robert Scarth

 Big plans for the future! I hope to attend a Raptor Workshop in the future to gain more experience with raptors besides just handling, feeding, and trimming beak/claws. The experience I have gained so far has been very useful to me and I truly hope it pays off in the future as well. I am dying to one day get the opportunity to band owls and raptors as well for research; just like songbirds!

In other news, I gave out a few tours today and answered some phone calls. My best phone calls were anything involving birds. Main phone call of the day was birds striking windows which leads me into discussing how to fix such problems and such like I always do.

Birds vs Windows
Birds cannot see windows and thus believe there is an open space where your window is. The best way to prevent bird strikes is to make the window obvious to them. This includes using a variety of techniques such as: putting up window clings, using dark tape as bars across your window, and rubbing ivory soap on the outside of your window. The ivory soap creates a film that allows the birds to see the barrier and also makes your windows super clean when it rains!! Get creative with the tape -  create cool designs with the family! Anything that involves putting something up in front of the window to break the "invisible force field" helps! Reflective windows that allow the birds to see themselves may also increase territorial related attacks as well; especially during breeding season. Other things you can do is purchase a window alert decal that emits ultraviolet light. If you want more information on this please check out this link ---> Here!

Other then what I said above I tried occasionally working on protocols and tried mentally preparing myself for the turtle program at 4:30pm. Super nervous, I will admit. I hope to learn more turtle information between now and the end of my internship in case I give this program again. For now I must focus on learning anything and everything about Birds of Prey (besides what I have learned already) because that is my next program until the Bat Ecology program in August!!!!

The day, overall, went very well and I am still super excited about today and tomorrow (as always).

Hubertus (Florida Softshell Turtle)

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Also, if anyone ever has any wildlife related questions feel free to comment on any of these posts or via facebook. Feel free to contact me via cellphone as well (some of you already do, thank you for that and glad I can help when I can!)