animal updates

Wow I completely forgot to throw out there the fun new animal intakes we have had.

Over the weekend one of our volunteers took in a Dusky Canada Goose. She is quite small and is covered in some kind of oily/greasy film. She also has some muscular damage to her left wing, as well as, a nasty bite wound on her neck. We will see how she does as her wounds are contaminated & infected.

We also got, for the the third time this fall season got a Pygmy Owl! I am absolutely amazed. This little girl/guy spent the weekend at Care Vet and got fed pinkie mice and mealworms. We tried to do a release on mainland before having to send her/him over. But alas, no good flight. So today we got the Pygmy Owl. Very BAR (Bright, Alert, Responsive)- but a tad underweight. I took a whole adult mouse and went to put it in the crate with the owl and s/he snatched it out of my hand. Wow.. must be hungry. Anyway, later in the day the head and all the inners of the mouse were gone, so I have another one. And the same thing happened, right out of my hand the mouse went. I hope that we have a success story with this little one, as the previous 2 did not fair well. I think when we move her/him outside we will use Willow's old mew (Willow was an Education Saw-whet out that was at the center a few years ago who had passed away) to avoid putting the owl too close to the eagle flight construction.

Other good news, the Saw-whet decided a month after being at the center that s/he would accept being hand fed and even take pieces off the perch. Only a small improvement, but actually a huge step for him/her.