Birds, Ducklings and Camels, Oh My!

Hey all! As the end of my first week winds up, I thought I'd provide an update on the rest of my first crazy week at CWC! (I thought I'd also introduce the abbreviations I will probably be dropping frequently in my posts, so now you readers will have this post to refer back to).

Wednesday: when I arrived at the center at 7AM for my first official day, it was to find that there was no one around. I dropped my stuff in the staff lounge/office area and then attempted to get into the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) and BCU (Baby Care Unit) buildings. The ICU was where I was working my first day, and is where all new intake patients (that are not baby birds) are brought to be checked out and evaluated.

After wandering around like a lost puppy for about fifteen minutes, another intern popped her head out of the BCU and invited me inside. She introduced me to the world of Baby Care, a room filled with small boxes and mesh cages, containing about 30 baby birds of varying species. (see the pic below) At different times of the year the BCU is also home to baby squirrels, but apparently baby squirrel season ended just before I got there. The people with the morning shift are responsible for the BCU (and I guess the rest of the center) until the rest of the staff arrive. All of the baby birds are divided up based on how frequently they need to be fed. There are some (usually the youngest) that have to be fed every 30 mins, some every 45, others every hour and then 1 1/2 hours and 2 hours. The first task in the morning once we arrive is to feed the 30 minute birds and then work our way up the schedule. Feeding technique varies depending on the species - some are fed a special formula, while others are fed small meal worms and other bugs and sometimes cut up fruit. We use small curved forceps and tweezers to feed the baby birds, mimicking how the mother bird would feed them in the wild.

Baby Care Unit! (BCU) The covers are meant to keep the birds from seeing the people moving around. Even if they aren't imprinting, we want them to have some privacy and not get too stressed out. 

When we take the covers off the cages, the baby birds immediately open their mouths and "gape," begging to be fed. (Unlike many of the animals we treat, baby birds don't imprint as easily on humans and so it's not as big of a deal if they see our faces when we feed them. For those who don't know what "imprinting" is, it's when a baby animal starts to believe that a human surrogate is it's parent and grows up thinking humans are friendly and will feed it. This can be beneficial for domestic pets like puppies, but can be problematic for organizations like ours where our goal is to keep the animals as wild as possible). We use timers to keep track of when each group of birds needs to be fed, and things get kinda chaotic if we happen to fall behind schedule and suddenly three different timers are all going off simultaneously! Some of the birds, like the doves, have to be "tube fed," which literally consists of sticking a narrow, plastic tubing down their throat and then attaching the tube to a syringe of formula which we squirt directly into their stomaches. Sounds gross, but apparently it's how their fed by their parents in the wild (obviously sin plastic tubing :P) I spent the entire day walking circles around Baby Care, feeding birds, cleaning cages and helping the staff with other small tasks. I don't think i managed to sit down once and my legs definitely felt the result of that later.

Thursday: Finally got to meet my supervisor Jo - awesomely chill and really helpful (and really smart! She can recognize birds just from texted photos and knows basically everything a vet knows (at least from my humble, uneducated perspective)). In reality there are four staff members (Jo, Jenn, Bruna and Dennis - just in case I refer to someone by name, you now have this post to reference back to), who we interns work under, and one employed veterinarian (who has his own externs working with him). I spent Thursday in BCU again (the interns are supposed to move back and forth between ICU and BCU every day, but depending on how many staff/volunteers are in and how crazy it is with new patients, sometimes we have to do multiple days in one department. Thursday we had a huge number of volunteers show up, so many that it actually caused a bit of a back up in the ICU, since people were trying to work over one another). One of my favorite tasks is definitely feeding the baby hummingbirds. We had three in the BCU that day, and one was so small that he couldn't feed himself from the syringes of sugar water we had placed in their cage. He gaped like the other baby birds and we had to stick a very narrow syringe of hummingbird formula into his throat and squirt about 2 drops into it. They were all so tiny - smaller than ping pong balls!

Friday: Spent all day in the ICU this time. It was a bit more relaxed than the very first day - we didn't have a huge influx of new patients so Jo was able to devote a lot of time to teaching me a lot of important jobs, step by step. This included drawing up formula (called EMS - no idea what it stands for, but it's the usual liquid food that we give to birds that can't feed themselves), preparing medication and documenting it, recording new patient intakes and procedures, and delivering sub Q's, which means rehydrating birds by injecting them with high electrolyte concentrated fluids. I didn't realize how much vet stuff I would be getting a chance to observe, let alone actually assist with, so I'm thrilled - I've been thinking recently that I may want to go into school to become a veterinary technician, although with little to no experience thus far, I'm hoping this summer's experiences will help me at least narrow down my future career orientation. Got to help do intake on a baby Cooper's Hawk, that I also got to hand feed bits of meat (using forceps).

Gross part of the day: never did I anticipate that I would one day be cutting up dead chicks (yes, sadly I'm talking about the fluffy yellow things you see in a barnyard) into bloody chunks to feed to hungry birds of prey. Thankfully the chicks are already dead and have been frozen for a while, which makes it a bit easier to handle, although not much. My approach is to not stop to think about what I'm doing because if i do, i'll never actually be able to finish. I also learned how to skin dead mice (also frozen). I can't decide if it's better or worse that I'm a vegetarian, but i definitely can say that these tasks would put you off meat for a while.

Tube feeding (Jo on the left)

Wonderful surprise when I was handed a big cardboard box and told to prepare a cage for dees wittle guys :)

This weekend I also got the chance to meet up with some fellow camels! Katie Morgan who lives in Pasadena picked me up and I spend two days with her at her beautiful home, along with Graham Nelson and Jeff Carmichael who road tripped to CA to drop Jeff off at grad school in Santa Barbara. We spent Saturday seeing the sights around L.A, including the Griffith Observatory, Rodeo Drive and the Hollywood Hills, plus the excitement of the Pasadena freeways :) It was wonderful to have a taste of home, and I can't wait to see everyone once I'm back!

I was hoping to upload more pictures, but the wifi appears to be dying, so I guess you'll all just have to wait till the next post!

Until then.... peace, love and sunshine!