So...I have the wood ducks in the flight pen, as I mentioned previously, and I’d gone in to freshen their food and water. Remember, wood ducks have app. 5 second long-term memories, so of course they didn’t remember that I’d just done this a few hours ago, nor that I’d been providing fresh food and water daily since their arrival in April.

Woodies go crazy, I ignore them, kneeling to freshen their water and dump out mealies in their scratch feed.

In the meantime, both woodies run shrieking to the other side of their pool, in the process knocking against the pen door...which I didn’t latch from the inside. See, standard procedure with flight pens is to have them latch from the inside AND the outside, so you can secure your birds even when you’re inside with them. I should have latched the door when I went inside, even though it was just a quick "in & out" food freshening trip. I didn’t latch the door...

I hear the door pop and look up to see one duck sitting outside the pen, looking - if possible - even more confused and frightened than usual.

Oh...duck. Duck, duck, DUCK. (Okay, that’s not exactly what I said, but it’s close enough. There may be children visiting this site.)

I rush to the door, the escaped duck goes screaming into the underbrush, and I tear off after him, using more language we won’t repeat here.

Did I mention that although these birds aren’t flighted yet, they can run pretty dadgummed fast??

I call my nephew - no answer. Try my parents. Mama picks up.

"Get down here NOW. Duck’s loose; I need help!"

Now, understand here, my mother has what we (mostly) affectionately call "the Mattie gene," named after her mother, my maternal grandmother. This means that her idea of speed is something akin to molasses in January. (No, really, my grandmother is the only person I know of who was actually late for her own funeral - but that’s a tale for another day.) She comes to my house with all deliberate haste - and I do mean "deliberate" - and announces, "I’m not wading through all that brush; I’ll just make sure he doesn’t get over here into the branch [that’s a small creek for you city types]."

So let the swearing commence in earnest as she loiters about the edges of the underbrush, blanket in hand to toss over Duckie, who had by this point acquired several less polite nicknames, should he come her way, and helpfully calling out to me, "He’s over there! No, there!"

I, meanwhile, am crashing through the underbrush, hoping I don’t step on any snakes while in hot pursuit of the errant duck. I did scare up a poor little rabbit, probably not too long on his own by the looks of him, and in one of those ludicrous moments of semi-clarity in the midst of total insanity, I paused long enough to say, "Hey, itta wabbit. Sorry I’m scaring you."

Then I take off again, slamming my head into a low-hanging branch (the tree type this time, not a creek). I nearly gave myself a concussion, so of course there was more colorful language, and the duck just kept running.

Let me mention here as an aside that it was one of those days when the temp was 90 in the shade and we had about 90 percent humidity, to boot. Just a lovely day to be crashing full-tilt through Snake Central, dodging fallen limbs, thorny vines, old fences and God-knows-what-kinds of poison. (Thankfully, I don’t normally break out from exposure to poison ivy or any of its kin.)

Duck runs under Mama’s flower shed, which is in my yard, too far from the flight pen, and he huddles there, panting like a dog. This is not good: wood ducks are stressy little birds and I don’t want him dying from stress or heat stroke, so I have a brilliant idea: grab the water hose and douse him while he’s under the shed, simultaneously cooling him down and maybe, just maybe, running him out, as well.

So now I’m kneeling in mud and muck, since the water is also spraying back on me and on the ground, while the $%&*# duck runs back into the underbrush!

Off I go in hot - quite literally - pursuit, and this time the duck tries to squeeze through an old fence section and gets stuck. Yeah! I have my duck!

Damage report: I’m soaked from sweat and muddy water; my mother is about to have a heat stroke; the still-penned duck is freaking out from all the commotion; the just-captured duck is sitting quietly in my arms, calm now that all the fuss has died down. I’m also now half an hour late feeding everybody else. Birds are screaming at me; deer are pacing impatiently in their pen.

Get Duckie safely back with his sibling, feed the birds and head for the deer pen, where I’m greeted with great enthusiasm. You see, deer adore the taste of human salt, and sweat contains lots of salt. I’m drenched in sweat, and by the time I get out of the deer pen, I’m also covered with deer spit.

And I still have the birds to feed...again...

Gawd, I love what I do!

Can you believe it? Another update in less than two weeks!

It’s not that things have slowed down any, not with 12 animals still under my care. I do, however, have 6 birds (not included in the previous figure of 12) in release phase, which means they’re self-feeding and have the option of flying in and out of the pen but not totally sure they’re ready for true independence, two nearing that point, and two already released.

Who’s been released? Well, the psycho starling has been given his freedom and almost immediately replaced with a concussed, hostile house sparrow who was also released - yesterday, in fact.

Who’s in release phase? The finch and wren are well on their way to independence. In fact, I don’t actually hand feed the wren any more at all. She flies in and out of the pen, snagging a few mealworms here and there as the mood strikes and playing hide and shriek in all the nooks and crannies I provided for her for just that purpose. Wrens are hellacious to rehab, but once they’re self-sufficient or nearly so, they’re a lot of fun to watch. They’re such cheeky, chipper little nutcases!

The finch is a tiny little fraud, flying down to me demanding food, wings waving and trilling at the top of her little lungs, as if she’s starving to death...all the while with berry juice staining her beak and/or seeds stuck to it.

All four older mockers are in and out, yelling at me hoarsely when they decide they just can’t do this insect hunting thing - it’s too hard! Of course, they continue to receive hand feedings as need dictates, so they’re not hurting for food, the silly birds.

I have two more mockers, one a pre-fledgling and one a nestling. The nestling is pictured getting a feeding.

Mockers tend to be the most common birds I receive. They’re loud babies - I usually know before I even see them that the persons bringing me a baby bird have mockers. I always think of some little freckle-faced, towheaded boy throwing a temper tantrum when I hear mocker babies begging for food.

And they grow up to be aggressive, territorial snots, too - the other day I saw a mocker chasing a full-grown hawk! But you can’t help loving the rascals.

The dovelies (lovely doves = "dovelies") are also nearly self-sufficient and their flying skills improve daily. They have such sweet voices - a welcome counterpoint to the mockers!

The wood ducks are in the flight pen now and pretty much freak out when I go in to freshen food and water. Another rehabber & I were talking about wood ducks over the weekend, and we agreed that they never seem to develop the bond of trust that other birds and mammals do with their rehabbers. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, although it can be exasperating when they run shrieking in fear as you freshen their food - an activity you’ve done several times daily for the past two months. Apparently they have really lousy long-term memories, "long-term" being defined for a wood duck as anything over five seconds!

The bluebird is still with us, but she’s looking like a truly lost cause. I took her in last week to have her euthanized, but she’d begun gaping for me the previous night, and she was so alert and her weight was normal, and I really, really adore bluebirds, so when Shelley Baumann of Smalley’s Animal Hospital suggested we give her a steroid injection to reduce any remaining inflammation that might be hindering her flight and balance abilities, I jumped at the chance to give this little sweetheart an extra week. Unfortunately, her balance hasn’t improved at all: in fact, her left leg is so weak she can’t stand on it without splaying her legs like some sort of feathered frog. Adding to that, Shelley & I had debated whether the bluebird was blind, and I’m beginning to think she’s at least severely vision impaired. Birds generally gape in the direction of the feeding syringe; she gapes and waits for the syringe to find her.

We gave her an extra week, but it’s not going to work. This beautiful, gentle bird is unreleasable. Her balance is so off that when she tries to preen, she falls backwards out of her nest. She can’t perch for more than 60 seconds without falling. She’ll never be able to eat on her own...We’ll ease her out of this life one day this week.

Euthanasia is never an easy decision, but it is the right decision when an animal’s quality of life would be compromised by allowing it to continue to live. This little darling wants to fly and cannot. She’ll never be able to experience the true freedom of the skies. The only freedom I can give her is an easy death. And while with most animals I can retain a somewhat detached, clinical distance, I know from previous experience with other unreleasable bluebirds that I’ll bawl like a baby when I have her euthanized.

On a less tear-jerking note, I also received another deer, a little doe this time, on Friday. She’d been caught in a fence and the folks who found her did the right thing by freeing her and leaving the area. A few hours later, they checked and she was hung again. Once again, they freed her and left. When they checked back again in a few hours, she was limping along the side of the road, crying for her mother. This was the right time to intervene, and they did, capturing her and bringing her to me.

Let me hop on my soapbox here for a moment and rant a little about kidnapping fawns - as I state elsewhere on this website, unless you see Mama dead nearby or unless the fawn’s life is in imminent danger, leave that baby alone! Mama Doe leaves her baby safely hidden while she grazes and returns frequently to feed him/her. When people kidnap these supposedly abandoned babies, that poor doe will return to the site where she left her baby for 4-5 days, calling that little one. How heartbreaking is that??

And if you’re absolutely sure that baby’s orphaned, when you take him/her home to call a rehabber, PUHLEEZ keep the fawn away from other people and pets. In fact, this is a good rule for any animal you’ve rescued and are taking to a rehabber.

Why??? Well, let me cite one example here. One of the bucks currently under my care was legitimately orphaned - pulled from the river as he was drowning, stuck under a log. Well done; gold star. Next, however, he was fitted with a belled cat collar and kept in the house with a chihuahua for FOUR days before DNR was contacted and gave the people my contact info. This poor buck has been with me for a couple of weeks now and still has issues with wanting to climb into my lap to take his bottle. I call him a "chihuadeer."

Remember, for ANY wild animals you’re rescued, the less contact these already stressed animals have with people and pets, the better off they’ll be. It’s additional stress they DO NOT need. Imagine how you’d feel if you’d lost your mother and siblings and were cold, weak, hungry and scared out of your gourd, and then some loud giant scooped you up and used you as "show & tell" to all the friends and neighbors while calling a rehabber - or worse yet, allowed their children to "love" you or their pets to drool into the box you’d been unceremoniously dumped into...C’mon, people, use a little common sense here! Put the animals in an escape-proof cardboard box (that never contained chemicals) with a dish cloth - NOT a terrycloth towel - on the bottom for them to grip, put the box in a quiet and dark or semi-dark area, and call a rehabber ASAP!

Sorry...off the soapbox now. Did anyone pass around a collection plate this time?? Didn’t think so...Work with me here, folks - when I preach, take up a collection: I can use the funds to pay for rehab supplies!

So much for regular updates, huh? In my defense, since May 1 I’ve taken in 23 animals, so I’ve been a bit busy!

The wood ducks continue to thrive and I’m aiming at having them in a flight pen sometime this week. They need more space and access to a wading pool whenever they want it, not the once-daily swim they’re currently getting. Their feathers are coming in beautifully and it’s time to move them into a more natural setting as they mature to releasable size.

The gnatcatcher has been released and I’ve seen her only once since her release. They’re more treetop birds than branch/ground birds, so I count myself lucky to’ve caught that glimpse of her a week after her release. I know it was her because she had a benign growth on the side of her face - made her pretty distinctive!

The wren and finch are ready for release, as are the two mockers. The one with the broken leg is doing just great. The splint came off May 12 and within three days he was gripping with those toes and hopping around on both feet as if he’d never had a broken bone. I love success stories like this!

Here you can see the mocker shortly after his splint was removed.

I’ve also received three more deer, so the original "only" has companions. They’re all bucks: two are very aggressive in demanding food; one is more patient; the fourth has to be captured before he’ll eagerly take his bottle. He’s still very shy.

I also received another two mockers who’d been fed an inappropriate diet for a week before I got them. Compare this shot of one of the new birds to those of the mockers I’ve had for a while. 

Folks, this is why we rehabbers can get strident about having animals under our care as soon as possible. Legal issues aside - and remember, it IS against state law to possess wildlife without a permit and against federal law to possess birds protected under the MBTA without a permit - we have the training and support networks to care for these little ones properly, so they don’t end up looking like this! These babies can be saved, of course, but they’ll probably remain a bit scruffy looking for at least the first year of their lives.

I also have a starling - no photo of this fledgling yet, as he’s still convinced that I’m going to kill him every time I offer food. It’s hard to snap a shot of a bird who’s bouncing off his pen walls when you even look in his general direction!

Starlings aren’t protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, as they’re not a native North American species. Because they compete with bluebirds for nesting cavities, I will not release starlings on my property. They do best in urban/suburban settings, anyway, so I usually take them to a park and release them - same for house sparrows.

I also have a bluebird who may end up having to be euthanized. She has severe balance problems that we originally thought were due to a concussion sustained when she fledged too early. Now we’re afraid it may be a neurological disorder that we can’t treat. She walks with great difficulty, refuses to gape for food, and wobbles like a drunk bird when she tries to perch.

This is one of the hardest parts of wildlife rehab: making the decision to euthanize an unreleasable animal. With her severe balance problems, however, this little love would be a sitting duck for predators - if she didn’t crash into a window and break her neck.

We all have those species we lose all logic over, and mine is bluebirds. This little girl really needed to’ve been put down last week, but she’s alert and will eat eagerly when I force-feed her - her balance issues apparently make it hard for her to focus properly on the feeding syringe and gape for it - and she’s been steadily gaining weight. But...the fact remains that unless we can dredge up a miracle somehow, she’s probably never going to be releasable. It’s not pleasant to consider, but a painless death by injection is better than a broken neck from hitting a window, tree or building head-on or slowly starving to death because she can’t focus and control her movements well enough to capture insects herself.

And quite frankly, I’ve already used up my monthly quota of miracles on two young doves - probably ground doves, looking at their color right now - who tried to crash on me last week. They were fine at their last feeding one night and cold and unresponsive the next morning. I began emergency measures to try and revive them and am happy to report that they’re doing great now. I’m also spoiling them rotten with pretty much whatever they seem to want. I figure miracle birds deserve a little spoiling!

There have also been those animals who didn’t make it, and a couple of transfers when I got in a pair of nestling hawks. I’m not licensed for raptors, so those babies went to Steve & Angie Hicks of Bubba & Friends. They’re a raptors-only facility. One of the babies died the day after transfer, but both had been without food and exposed to the elements for 3 days before I got them, so we’re happy that one of them made it. The latest report from Steve - today, in fact - is that the surviving hawk is "a pig," so he’s obviously eating quite well!

I think that might have me up to date for the moment, although I’m sure I’ve probably forgotten something or someone. It’s that hectic around here these days!

It’s been a hectic couple of weeks. Since April 13 I’ve received a nestling Carolina wren, a chipmunk, a fawn (a little buck), a nestling house finch and two nestling mockers!

The wren and finch are already attempting short flights; the chipmunk has been released; the fawn is eating well. I contacted another rehabber to see about transferring him, to avoid the possibility of imprinting because he’s so very young. Deer, especially really young ones, really need companions of their own species. Unfortunately, the next-closest rehabber has no deer at the moment, so I’m being VERY careful to avoid anything other than the contact needed to feed this baby. He needs to retain his innate distrust of humans.

Actually, this is the goal with all wildlife rehab: the animals should trust the person who feeds them but remain fearful of all other humans. This is difficult for some people to understand, as these little wildlings are sooo cute and cuddly and helpless...but you don’t cuddle them, and you don’t over-handle ‘em, and you do everything possible to make sure they have all the skills they need to survive in the wild. By the time they’re approaching release age, they should be at the point that they don’t even want their rehabber to handle them. Remember, the goal of wildlife rehab isn’t to make pets of these critters; it’s to raise them to be able to take their rightful places in nature.

After all, it’s human activity that lands most of these animals in a wildlife rehab facility, to begin with: overdevelopment, encroaching on their breeding grounds, pruning/cutting down trees during the height of breeding season, driving like maniacs and mowing down animals who have no defenses against automobiles - the list of human damage goes on and on. The very least we can do is give these animals a second chance at life, and trying to make pets of them is a death sentence, not a chance at the life they deserve.

Sermon over...did someone pass the collection plate??

The two mockers aren’t nestmates; they aren’t even the same age. But they’re close enough to be housed together. The older of the two came in with a broken right leg, just above the foot. Because it was so close to an open fracture, I asked Peggy Hobby of Smalley’s Animal Hospital to take a look at it. Even though I wasn’t able to get the bird to the clinic until after they’d closed, Peggy waited for me and not only examined but also splinted the leg. The vets at Smalley’s, as I may have mentioned once or twice, are amazing people!

The gray squirrels have all been released; the flyer was released but came back. I do soft releases, meaning that the animals have the option of returning until they’re totally comfortable in their new environment, so having them come back or hang around for supplemental feedings for a while is the norm.

The wood ducks are growing like weeds - they’re already getting tail feathers in! By the end of May, I’m guessing I should be able to move them into a flight pen with a wading pool.

Sadly, two of the three blue gray gnatcatchers died from unknown causes. All three were hale and hearty at their last feeding one night, and the next morning two were goners. This can be one of the frustrating aspects of wildlife rehab, when you know you’re doing everything right and the animals seem to be thriving and then die for no apparent reason.

The surviving gnatcatcher is doing well and about ready for release. I’ve been waiting until I knew she was eating on her own, and she’s been carefully hiding the fact that she’s doing so for several days now, the little sneak! She’s been flying beautifully for about a week, and now that I know for a fact that she can catch insects for herself, it’s time to offer her freedom. Mind you, she may refuse to leave the first several times or hang around for days or weeks for supplemental feedings from me, and that’s fine - goes back to the soft release concept.

Keep checking regularly for updates on the critters I’ve mentioned here. I can’t promise weekly updates, which was my original goal, but I’ll certainly try!