Photo: Fledgling Green Heron, Deidra Bryant
Deidra Bryant
On January 19th, ASNV is hosting a virtual event featuring Ed Clark of the Wildlife Center of Virginia. He will discuss the Center’s life-saving work and what plans the Center has for the future as it celebrates its 40th anniversary! Several years ago, I worked there as a wildlife rehabilitation extern. Notice of the class reminded me how much I enjoyed learning how to help different types of birds--including waterfowl, passerines, and raptors--grow or regain their strength so that they could be released back into the wild.
Fledgling Green Heron, Deidra Bryant
Flight school was probably my favorite feature of the facility. The staff had built long, tall, rectangular pens, and, with veterinarian approval, we would assess raptors for necessary survival skills like stamina (how many passes they could make flying back and forth in the pen), stealth (quietness in flight), landing, perching, flying upwards, and vision. The flight school sessions also help the birds build wing and grip strength. The sessions in the facility pen typically were reserved for owls, vultures, and eagles.
Flight school also included creancing, which was a lot of fun, but also a useful assessment tool and another way for a bird to build back strength. Creancing involves transporting a bird to a large, but secluded, area, attaching leather straps (jesses) to the bird’s lower legs, and then attaching these jesses to a very long line (up to 300 feet in length). The birds are then able to fly in the open for an additional test of their rehabilitation. The activity gives rehabbers a better idea of the bird’s flying ability, and it allows caregivers to see how the patient handles outdoor conditions like open space and wind. Because this activity can be more strenuous than pen exercise, veterinary clearance is essential.
The Center also included swimming pools for waterfowl like loons and ducks. The pools give the birds a chance to practice normal behavior (and do what they like to do), and helps the rehabbers determine if patients are able to swim properly. When the birds are in the water, we can also check them for buoyancy, preening behavior, and, when vegetation is added to the pool, effectiveness at feeding. When I was there, there was one giant pool exclusively for a loon, which it enjoyed zooming around in.
For gulls, geese, and ducks with bumblefoot (a common bacterial infection and inflammatory reaction that occurs on the feet of birds, rodents, and rabbits) we placed special padding on the ground to make walking easier and less painful. In addition to providing for comfort, we needed to create environments in small enclosures that mimicked our patients’ natural habitat. For gulls, geese, and ducks we included small pools in their enclosures so they could swim. There are more examples of enclosure “decorating” in this article, which I wrote for the Center at the end of my externship.
The author with a patient (crow)
We cared for younger birds and birds that required more observation in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). We usually housed songbirds like robins, bluebirds, mourning doves, and finches there, but the ICU also sometimes included a few larger birds such as crows, like the one I am holding in the photo. The birds’ charts listed their specialized diets and feeding schedules. Each bird’s diet reflected what it would eat in the wild, so our larder included earthworms and mealworms for the insectivores, as well as seeds and a variety of fresh fruit for the non-insectivores. When caring for a few ducklings, we put shredded leafy greens in a large water bowl so that they could feed naturally while splashing around. They were … very … messy.
To feed the baby birds we had to mimic mother birds, feeding the babies with small tweezers or syringes when the patient was too young to feed itself. We also kept records of how much and when the patients ate, and observations on overall condition: Were they lively? perching? playing with toys or enrichment items? Has their body mass increased?
The Center also has ambassadors that do outreach programs. An ambassador paying a visit to a school or other venue usually brings along an ambassador bird, that is, a bird that cannot ever be released in the wild due to medical conditions or imprinting. The ambassador can then talk about the natural history and biology of the ambassador bird while also discussing the Center’s work and what it is able to do thanks to generous donations!
If you have any questions, or are curious about more of the goings on at the Wildlife Center of Virginia, make sure you register for the virtual event on the 19th. Even though I spent time there, I plan to tune in!