Every day I handle many telephone calls from people who have come across a critter they believe is in distress. On a light day I have twenty-some calls. An average day I handle thirty to forty, and during baby season last summer I had a high of sixty-three. In these calls I lead the caller […]
I frequently am asked how I learned about animals. My best and favorite way is to observe them. A relaxing break in my day is to sit and watch their movements, antics, and habits. Each one is an individual, just like us. Their personalities are distinctive. After getting to know them, I sum them up […]
A couple weeks ago about 7:00 one evening, Alice, Elizabeth’s neighbor, called and urged her to come over. “One of the great-horned owls Patti released is here,” she shared. “Hurry.” Elizabeth immediately drove over, but when she arrived, the owl had moved. Several crows had been making quite a disturbance around the owl, and it […]
Yesterday we released a merlin that we have been rehabbing for several weeks. Watching her fly off was pure joy. Shortly after, we let a ring-billed gull go. He had come in with a bad wing. The last couple of days he was telling me off each time I fed him. The last time he […]
A few weeks ago I wrote you about the sandhill crane I have been raising. She’s almost 20” tall now. Her wings are forming. She still loves worms, eating over 100 a day. When she tosses them into her water dish before downing them, sometimes she misses the dish. I move her water dish at […]
One of my biggest rewards with rehabilitating animals is enjoying their antics. I love to watch the young sandhill crane get excited when I give her worms to eat. Yesterday she tossed one into her water dish, just to observe it moving and thrust her beak in the water to retrieve it. Worms are absolutely […]
Despite giving every critter that I receive the best care and feeding I have available, sometimes my efforts do not result in the animal returning to the wild. Part of me has accepted that reality. Every once in a while when I lose one I cannot apply acceptance, and it hurts. That was the case […]
This year has been a crazy newborn season. I have been answering forty or more calls every day. A couple days ago I hit a new high; I responded to sixty-three calls in one day. Needless to say, these calls take an enormous amount of my time and energy. Most of them concern one subject; […]
About a week and a half ago, I received a call that a family had discovered a baby owl under a trampoline when they were mowing lawn. All fuzz, the little guy was the size of tennis ball. He has now grown to be the size of a baseball. The feathers are coming in on […]
I could have taken in twenty baby raccoons today, and that doesn’t include yesterday and the day before that, etc., etc. In one sad situation, mom fell out of the tree and died, leaving five little ones peeking out of the hole where they lived. The ones I have are so cute and doing very […]
