November 19, 2008

The waterfowl

Just an FYI for you peeps in the San Juan area... The Trumpeter swans are back!!! Keep your eyes peeled for them. Today I saw 8 adults and 4 juveniles on Blazing Tree pond.

Other than that today was a gorgeous day.. One of those days I wanted to blow off work and go out and play! I thought about it during feeds, but truly realized it when I went to Limestone point to pick up a dead river otter (a research interest to Dr. Joe Gaydos).
So I spent the morning doing some outside stuff, like pressure washing the wet pen. But this afternoon held another task for me. See, a few weeks ago we got a "soiled" Dusky Canada Goose from Lopez that had some wounds that needed to heal. Now that they have, we needed to give her a bath. Shona and I got to give little miss a bath this afternoon. I learned a few things: first the recommended temperature for washing a bird is 107 degrees F, that is was too warm for a her. She got warm quite quickly. Second, gooses don't really mind getting bathed during the bath. And third, she was pissed with us after we were done. We were spraying her off and bam, she decided to give me a "goose hickey" on my arm; she then got me again later when I was checking to see if she is drying properly.
Here are a few picks of her in the bath. We didn't have someone to take pics as we went, so mid-bath Shona grabbed the camera and took a few photos. P.S. she is quite a small goose, so yeah.
Rubba-dub-bud a goose in the tub.
Don't I look just just soo attractive!!

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