Attention Facebookers.

Chase is donating money to small local non-profits. So of course I am going to do a shameless plug for my little non-profit I work for. These kind of donations can really help us to start new projects. This year we have been very lucky with some huge donations so we were able to rebuild our eagle flight, redo our septic system (it may sound like a luxury item, but when you use as much water in the summer as we do on laundry and cleaning, our system was failing miserably), and a new maintenance building. These were brought to you by applied for grants, private donations, as well as a few bequests (sadly this means someone died, but they were gracious enough to include us in their legacy).

So in a nutshell. Chase is giving away $5 million to various charities and needs you to help pick which ones. Simply vote for your favorite nonprofit (they are generous and give you 20 votes) and then get friends and others on Facebook to do the same. Give your charity the recognition it deserves and needs with Chase Community Giving. Right now we are in the voting stage which ends Dec. 11th. on the 15th of Dec they will announce the top 100 who will get 25k each. Jan 15 to the 22nd there will be final voting and on Feb 1st they 1mm grants and 100k for 5 charities is announced.

There you have it: come find Wolf Hollow Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre on the list! Plus vote for a few more of your favorite non-profits.

Thanks!!!!

slowing down

So we have definitely slowed down at work. Which is nice, but it also means a lot of meetings to go over how the summer was and things we need to do, fix, and prep for next year. It is hard to believe that we have to already start prepping for March now, but it will creep up on us. Especially with staff members taking their vacations, holidays, conferences all coming up quickly.

Because of that I only have a few pictures to add from work. Here is what we currently have in house. Birds 5 Mammals 7 Total 12

Birds

Bald Eagle Juvenile, weak and thin (Anacortes),

Great Horned Owl *Adult, wing injury, tangled in soccer net (Whidbey)

Saw Whet Owl Adult, wing injury, cause unknown (Sedro Woolley)

Turkey Vulture Adult, weak, thin, missing feathers (Orcas)

Dark Eyed Junco *Adult, wing injury, HBC (San Juan)

Mammals

Black Tailed Deer x5 5 fawns, O/S, 1 was HBC, 1 was attacked by animal (Orcas, Anacortes, San Juan, Port Townsend)

Douglas Squirrel 1 juvenile, weak, broken leg, fell from nest (Burlington)

Harbor Seal 1 pup, O/S (San Juan)

That is right, only a few things left like I said. The coons were released earlier this week when we had a short break in the weather. The Douglas squirrel and harbor seal are just about ready to be sent on their happy way, once our weather finally breaks. The Great horned owl will be leaving at the end of the month when the volunteer who sent it to us is back for the release. And the fawns as well will hopefully be going at the end of the month once the modern firearm hunting season is over.

We are getting into winter raptor season, so that means the adults are coming in. The other big thing, the Swans have returned! That is right Trumpeter swans are back in the area and we have already received many calls already. Especially with the weather, which I will explain in a few minutes after the pictures. We don't have any in house yet, but I feel it will only be a matter of time. Okay onto pictures.

Wedgemussel on the latest release on 11/13/09.

Our brave little soldier, okay Douglas squirrel. he came to us with a broken femur after falling 20 feet out the nest as a little guy. All healed and hanging out until the weather clears.

I don't think I have shared a photo yet. This is the turkey vulture, came to us from Orcas Island. Poor thing is missing a lot of wing flight feathers and feathers on his/her back. We don't know what caused this, but it meant that s/he couldn't make the migration when the rest left. So we will be wintering this critter.

Our little Saw-whet, is actually getting quite close to release as well. Today s/he got live prey to see how well s/he hunts. We put the the motion sensor video camera in facing towards the container with the mouse in it so hopefully we get some good footage. If so, then off to the wild it will be!

The next great horned owl ready to go. This one like the last was caught in some netting (this one, a soccer goal) Goaaaaalll!!!

Okay that is it for critters and I don't have any personal photos to share this time. I went home to Seattle last weekend to hang out with friends and my brother. I got to see some cool things in the back yard. A late season juvi grey squirrel picking up berries, a Douglas squirrel doing the same, many Stellar Jays, a black capped chickadee, and of course many juncos (the only one of those I get to see in the wild on the island is the juncos)! It was great to see the kind of critters I care for in the "wild."

The weather has been atrocious so I have hunkered down in my apartment for a couple of weeks. The wind has been very strong gusts up to 60 mph on many days. Causing horizontal rains! Cold, pounding, painful rain :( So now you can see why the releases haven't been happening. It isn't fair to throw them out in the adverse weather.

giving credit where credit is due.

I completely spaced off giving credit yesterday for one of the photos. I mentioned that I was not at the release of the otters yet I still showed a picture. Well, that photo was brought to you by the letter H. Heather, one of our board members/volunteers/ blog writers went on the release and I stoled the photo off of her facebook photos (don't worry she does it to me too, but we always try to acknowledge who gets the credit). So thank you Heather and thanks to Chad Foley who boated the critters and the 3 passengers to Shaw island for the release.

been a long time, sorry!

I am very sorry about the length between posts. I have really thought about it on many of evenings, but just have felt too pooped to do one. This time of year sends me into hibernation mode. /sigh.

The time change this week has seemed to have given me a bit more of a boost. Work wise we have released a far number animals recently which is good because we are down to just staff being on site now. In the past few weeks we have released 7 seals, 4 river otters, 5 raccoons, 9 grey squirrels, 3 flying squirrels, 1 douglas squirrel, 1 euro rabbit, and a few raptors as well (barred owl, red-tailed hawk, great horned owl).. my list could go on with this. What we have left on site is 4 raccoons, 5 fawns, a baby douglas squirrel (just about ready for release), 4 harbor seals- 2 being released next week, and an subadult opossum (can't figure out what is causing her ailments), a saw-whet owl, turkey vulture, and the juvi bald eagle that we are waiting to release once the eagles return to the Skagit for salmon hunting.

Construction continues around the hollow. The septic has been done for quite awhile, but they have moved onto the maintenance building. Here are some pictures of how that is going.

The leveling of the ground.

after concrete was poured they worked on getting the walls set up.

Sorry they are out of order, I didn't mean to do that. walls up.

Wrapped.

Framing nearly done.

yes, it looks like a building.

Scott and Shane raise the roof!

Here are the animal shots.

Pre-release.. chilling out on the platform.

The first seal release. That is Segundo.

Second release: Chitenango hung around longer than the other 2

The rough skinned newts are in their spawning migration: we brought one in to take a look at it and get some photos.

very beautiful girl (the boys don't have rough skin at this time).

did not know that we had them.

And the flying squirrel babies grew up!

last picture before being moved outside and then released.

and way back when.....with the otters

The otters waiting for fish.

wrestling while I was cleaning.

And at release! I wish I could have been there but someone had to man the center.

Remember this little girl.

Well here she is now!
The coonlies all cuddled in sleep.

nom nom nom

Great Horned owl before release.

Our Turkey Vulture.

And the Red-tailed hawk who have a very short stay with us. Most likely got tagged by a car but on was in a sore stunned state.

Life outside of work has been busy. We had a fun weekend in Seattle for a bachelorette party at the beginning of October.

The car we took.

Janelle rode the bull in Seattle.

A day of shopping.

View from our hotel room.

Plus there was Halloween of course!

Boo from Mario party was the pumpkin I carved.

Night out on the town.

Dancing at Herb's

Gabby had a handmade dress for Marie Antoinette.

Dave got his eyes full.

The crowd.

How fun was it!

There are also pictures here that John Sinclair took at his photo gallery.

Okay that is about it... Hope you enjoyed.