I'm Not Sure Where To Begin.....

It seems like YEARS since I last did a post, so let me try and catch you all up on all the happenin's at the Hollow.

First, let me start off by having you look at this little cutie! Its' a Small Brown Bat!!!

I am sure I have expounded before about how much I just LOVE bats. And while I never think it's a good thing that ANY animal has to pass through our doors, there are some that get my blood racing a bit more than others and bats are one of those creatures!

From what I was led to understand, some locals came home from a long weekend away to find that the curtains in front of a window in their home had been shredded by their cat. They then found out that was because this little guy had somehow gotten himself in between the window and screen and couldn't get out. He came in dehydrated and hungry. Now, we have only had one other bat in that I have gotten to see and the situation was a "hurry up and take the pic because we are releasing him" situation. I actually got to help FEED this one!!

He's a good little eater, isn't he?! Now, what, you may ask, do you feed the likes of him? Well, we feed them bloodworms and meal worms. And with the meal worms you have to.....hold on to your stomachs....tear off the heads and squeeze the body from the tail up, just like a toothpaste tube, to get the insides out onto the tweezers. It is NOT a fun process. And it was a bit of a moral dilemma that I have been trying not to think about too much, as it means I am valuing one animal's life over another's. Needless to say I apologized to each meal worm and killed it as quickly and as painlessly as possible.

Did I ever show you this guy? It's a Green Heron.

Now, believe it or not, this guy freaked me out WAY more than any large Great Blue Heron. I mean, look at him after we put him in an outdoor aviary!

He just stares at you down his beak with those yellow eyes...freaked me out so much I started calling him "sir", as in "Please, Sir, don't fly at me and peck my eyes out." VERY unnerving!!

I can't begin to tell you how much I adored this little one when he came in!

This is the VERY FIRST cormorant I have gotten to work with and this one is a youngster. He was so cute and very docile.....too docile. If you have read this from the beginning you know by now that my theory is that if an animal comes in and isn't throwing a fit about being messed with, then something is wrong. And something was. He didn't make it but a few days and then died. They did a necropsy on him and he had all sorts of internal weirdness going on.

Meet Tucker the Turkey!

Bet you didn't know we had a wild turkey population on our island....did ya? Well, that's okay, as I didn't either until I spotted this guy in the middle of the road by my place. We think the nearby logging ruined his habitat so he was just hanging out in the street. I know that I personally got out of my car more than once to shoo him off the road. And WH staff kept getting calls from a lady nearby saying people were DELIBERATELY trying to hit him!?! Once you get to that point people, it's time to leave the island!! But get hit he did, deliberately or not we don't know. He came out of it with a broken wing/wrist bone, hence the green figure eight wrap on his wing, and a big patch of skin missing under his other wing. But he is doing just great and will be released with another group of turkeys well away from any roads and stir crazy motorists.

The fawns have lost their spots and with that their rights to formula. It's always a bit weird weaning them as they are bottle fed for so long. Aren't they just gorgeous?!

We got this red-tailed hawk in after a girl ran over it with her car, drove I don't know how many blocks with it trapped under her car, got to her place of employment, ran over it again when backing into her parking space, and then just walked away to her job. This was witnessed by a former WH volunteer who immediately called for help for this poor thing. On the outside, he only had a scratch on the foot. On the other hand, after we tubed him to give him fluids, there was fresh blood on the tube, so we have no idea what may be happening to him on the inside.

I mean, WHAT THE HELL PEOPLE?! If you hit an animal, stop and see if it is still alive. If it is, call someone for help or take it to a vet office. If it's dead, show the animal some respect and move it off the road!!! GODS, this is SUCH a pet peeve of mine!!! Sigh. Okay, I'm done ranting now and am most likely just preaching to the choir on that subject.

Well let's end this posting on a brighter note. And that means a Sedna update!!!! This picture was taken of her hanging out amongst other sea lions at the end of August!

Picture courtesy of Matt Tennis. Thanks Matt!!

She's the one in the center that looks like she is wearing a pillbox hat, which is her tracking device. It has since stopped working and will fall off the next time she molts. According to Matt, she looks great and is healthy and hopefully happy being amongst her own kind once again. What a great success story for Wolf Hollow and all the other folks at the Dept. of Fish and Wildlife who helped her.

That's it for now. I won't be at Wolf Hollow this upcoming weekend but will try, for any of you interested, and get a personal blog going to post pics of my sister's wedding and of Riley, who has been turning my household upside down and backwards for a week now! Til next time...

How to Release a Seal........

in 7 NOT so easy steps! That's right, our babies are finally big enough that we have started releasing the heavier ones! We have a release weight of around 55lbs. and once they hit that weight, it's time to think about saying "Goodbye and good luck!" This is done in steps as follows:

Step 1. Take one last blood draw to make sure they are healthy and also put a flipper tag in. I have never been there for this pre-release step, but have been there for intake blood draws and even with the babies it isn't easy!

Step 2. On release day, catch one of the tagged seals......

and drag it to the scale to be weighed one last time.

Step 3. Have one individual brave enough to wrangle the seal out of the net, as they can be VERY snappy,.......

and hopefully that SAME someone is willing to sit on the seal to immobilize it.

In this case, it was our wonderful Educational Director, Shona!

Step 4. Take fecal samples for a research project being done, I'll spare you that image, and measure the seal to the best of your abilities.

Obviously, this is not an exact measurement, but rather a close guesstimate.

Step 5. Get the ever so reluctant seal into its travel crate.......

and loaded into the truck.

Step 6. Upon arrival at the release site, carry the crates down to the beach....

and line them all up.

Step 7. Open the crates, stand back, and WATCH!

Some go barreling out of their carriers and never look back.

And others...well....it's a big ol' scary world out there.

Care to take a guess at who this reluctant girl is? No? No guesses? It's Humuhumu!!! Yes, the most reluctant one to get INTO the crate was, as it happens sometimes, the most reluctant to get OUT of the crate. Thankfully, some of the other seals came back over and coaxed her out.

Weighing in at a VERY hefty 65 lbs., Humuhumu was the largest seal we released and it showed when she tried to move on the beach, TRIED being the operative word here! But once she got out into the water, she was just fine.

That's it for now. I will TRY and do one more posting this week, we got in one of my VERY favorite animals and I got to help feed it on Saturday, as I won't be at Wolf Hollow this weekend due to being at my sister's wedding. Til next time!

Let's NOT Talk About Seals!

I wouldn't want you all getting burnt out on seals as that's all we may have at Wolf Hollow very shortly. I can't believe how few animals we have in right now compared to last year at this time. Don't get me wrong, it's a good thing, just very interesting in comparison. So let's get down and dirty with the other temporary WH residents from the last couple of weeks!

A pheasant arrived at our establishment. I am not sure why exactly, but don't believe it can fly.

We haven't had one of these in before. She's pretty...isn't she?!

Our Virginia opossum is doing well and getting bigger by the day!

I guess this little guy decided he needed a break from his cage one night a few weeks back, as the morning shift found him curled up asleep under the sink(he's in a small closed off room which we call the Quiet Room), WITH the pillowcase from his cage! Needless to say, his cage was secured more thoroughly. He has now graduated to our outdoor Opossum Cage, which has branches for him to climb on and a hammock for him to hang out in...no pun intended!

These are it! The last of the Swallows that we have at Wolf Hollow.

These guys were still being hand fed as of last week. Hopefully they will be past that stage this week. It's time for them to fly the coop...um...I mean, leave the nest...oh, you know what I mean!

The eagle is loving being in the flight cage. They were initially having to capture him on a pretty regular basis to give him Viatamin B, which can NOT be an easy task considering the size of that cage, so he tends to be a bit...flighty...for a day or so after that!

But usually he is stting on that perch, which is RIGHT above the door. So when you walk in and look up, you see this!

It can be pretty intimidating to say the least!

This beautiful Cooper's Hawk was found on the ground right by the front window of someone's house.

He can't use his legs and, as you can see, his pupils are dilated to differing degrees, which usually means head trauma of some kind. I hope he will still be there this weekend but I am not holding my breath, as I have seen few if any cases like this recover. Another good reason to put some kind of deterrent on or hanging in front of the windows of your abode!

The otters are still doing well. We have put a HUGE kibosh on people going in their pen every day, as they really need to start disassociating themselves from humans.

Otters that walk up to people in the wild usually don't live too long, as they can be seen as a nuisance! And we don't want that for our guys!

And lastly, we have seen some grey squirrel babies coming in from the mainland.

Squirrels, at least grey squirrels, have 2 batches of babies a year, so it's not uncommon for us to have some around this time. We readied the Squirrel Cage for the older group last week. And they should all be out there in about 2 weeks. This cage has a double door to ensure that we don't accidentally release any, which wouldn't be good, since they aren't native to the island.

Til next time...

Goodbye and thanks for EVERYTHING Serena!

Yes, I am sad to report that Serena, head rehabber and queen of the seals at Wolf Hollow, has left after giving over 7 years of her life to helping ALL the animals of Wolf Hollow.

I wanted to take this time to say, publicly, how thankful I am that I got to volunteer with her every week. She was always encouraging me to try new things and never once throttled me, even though, seeing as how I was an OVERLY enthusiastic volunteer initially, I am sure she wanted to. She made volunteering at Wolf Hollow a fun and educational experience and I can't thank her enough for that.

All the best in your future endeavors, Serena. We'll miss you!

Meet the Newest Love in My Life!

Yes, I know this is mainly a Wolf Hollow blog, but I just am WAY too excited about this new being that will be creating utter and wonderful havoc in my home in about 5 weeks.

Meet Riley! He is not even one day old in this picture!

Here he is at 1 week old.

I lost my wonderful cat, Edward Albert, almost exactly a year ago and I have wanted to get another male kitten, more specifically an orange or orange/white male kitten. All of the orange or orange/white cats we have had in my family have been the most amazing of pets and I have been on the prowl for a kitten for a couple of months now. As it turns out, my coworker has a friend who bred her cat and she promised me a kitten if she had an orange/white male one. After the first three kittens were born my coworker got a call saying there were no orange ones and she thought there was only going to be one more kitten born. I went home resigned to the fact that it just wasn't meant to be. But later that night I bumped into the woman whose cat it was. She hugged me and said the VERY LAST of the five kittens born was orange and white and was mine if I wanted him. And want him I did!

Here Riley is at 2 weeks, with eyes partly open and ears still closed.

You can't really tell from these pictures, but he is a BIT bigger than his siblings. In fact, I hear that he is the best eater of the bunch, so much so that he will push the other kittens out of the way to get to Mom. Now, our family has come up with some VERY creative names for our beloved orange and orange/white male cats. The first cat I ever counted as my own had a LOT of extra toes, and was therefore named Jon Thom Le Feet. The kitten that we got the first Christmas I lived here in Washington ended up with the auspicious name of Ashley Darlington "Killer" Farnsworth the Third. So, keeping in mind this extended nomenclature tradition, my sister Shannon has dubbed that Riley's middle name, due to his penchant for eating, shall be Templeton, after the rat in Charlotte's Web. In fact, I think she called him Riley Templeton, the little piggy rat kitten.

Here is Riley, this week, at 3 weeks of age, eyes and ears finally open!

I will have to drag out some pictures, but, IF memory serves me correctly, he has VERY similar markings to my first cat, Jon Thom Le Feet...almost eerily so.

And last, but certainly not least, here is one of my favorite pics of Riley and me, with him just hanging out on my knee during my most recent visit.

So, there's my exciting news! I will be back to posting Wolf Hollow posts tomorrow, as we had some interesting creatures in last week. Til next time...

Let's Talk About Seals!

Sorry about the posting delay folks! So, let's get right down to business and talk about the seals. And I need to forewarn you that there will be a couple of graphic photos in here, so be prepared!

We had 25 seals in as of last Saturday. It was kind of funny, as I wandered over to the biggest seal pool and only saw 5 seals hauled out on the center platform. Then all of a sudden the water erupted in seals!

We have had a few come in with some man-made injuries as well. This one is Reef. I took this picture while I was giving her a bath, hence the angle looking a bit odd.

She came in with a pretty nasty boat prop injury to her back flipper.

She seemed to be doing well in spite of her injury, but I came in last week to find out she hadn't made it. The necropsy showed that the boat impact did a number on her insides as well.

We also had a seal that came in with a fish hook caught in her mouth. She was fine outside of that and was the queen of one of the pools by the time I left on Saturday. But if that isn't a reason to try hard to retrieve lost hooks when fishing, I don't know what is. I mean, who knows how this may have affected her in the long run if she hadn't been brought in!

This is Anchovy. He is one of two VERY emaciated seals that came in a couple of weeks ago.

The other seal had died and as of 2 Saturdays ago, they weren't sure he was going to make it either. When animals get that emaciated their ability to digest food becomes almost non-existent. You can see just how skinny he is and I was advised to fill his tub up with just enough warm water for him to splash around in. I went in last Saturday not expecting to see him, but see him I did! He has gained weight and is doing GREAT!!!

Meet Limpet. He came in with a rather gruesome eye injury!

After being told that he would most likely never see out of that eye again, I asked how that would affect his ability to hunt for fish, since, if only having one eye has the same affect on a seal as it does a human being, he wouldn't have depth perception. I was reassured that seals usually hunt in water to dark to see in anyway and therefore use their whiskers much more so than their eyes.

This is Medusa and boy is she feisty!

What, you may inquire, is she doing in this picture and why is her face all scrunched up? Why, she is biting the towel and GROWLING! That's right....I said GROWLING! I was told that this is what they do when they catch fish and it happens quite often, but I haven't seen this spectacle AT ALL the whole time I have been volunteering there. I've gotta tell you, I haven't laughed that hard in a LONG time!

Wondering about our little Sea Star? Well, she STILL has her long preemie fur!?!

Yes, I know it's a really bad photo of her. Saturday is "seal weighing day" and the ONLY way I could get a picture of her is when they hauled her out of the pool to weight her, as I hear she never hauls out on the platform anymore. But at least you can see her long fur...right? They are seriously wondering if she might be the first seal they ever release that still has her preemie fur, as the preemie seals usually shed it within 2 weeks of being brought in.

And last, but certainly not least, is Coral!

My good friend Allison, who, when it comes to animals, is one of the most caring people I have ever met, actually found her behind a huge piece of driftwood on South Beach! She called me, I called Wolf Hollow, they called the Stranding Network, and they brought her to Wolf Hollow. She was underweight, weighing in at a meager 17 pounds, and very dehydrated. She now is a healthy 25 pounds and doing great out in the big seal pools! Thanks Ali!

Okay, I hope you have had you fill of seals for the time being. I will post a separate... well...post about the other animals we have in at WH in the next few days. It is slowing down a LOT at WH, but I will try and do my best to be a bit more regular when it comes to posting...well...posts. Til next time...

TWO...TWO....TWO POSTS IN ONE!

That's what I will be attempting tonight! First off, let us revisit the raccoon youngsters. Remember this little guy and his sibling?

Well, just look at them NOW!

They have gone from that "Where's my bottle?" stage to the "Hand over the grub, sista!" stage. They have graduated to what we call the Weaning Cage. This is step 3 in a 4 step process. After this they will be moved to a larger cage out in the woods that has more room and less human interaction.

The barn owlet has also been moved to a roomier enclosure.

Yep....same reaction as last time even though I am standing at least 8 feet away from him. Isn't he beautiful though?

We are still getting in baby rabbits. This is a group of cottontails that came in from off island.

Goodness knows how a mother ever tells them apart!

We got in a young eagle who is ALL attitude. First he was in one of our smaller mews and trying to get old food out of there was an interesting experience, as he was usually very close to it and behaving...well....like THIS!

He has now been moved to our Eagle Flight Cage. They always seem to get a bit cockier when they get moved into there, as they KNOW they rule in there. And they make sure you know that as well.

Okay, let's get down to some SERIOUS otter business! Have you ever tried cleaning out an otter pool with some four-legged "help"? No?! It's really QUITE interesting! First, as you start draining the pool, over come your "helpers" to check out the draining action.

Then, as you get down to the nasty business of scooping all the old fish out of the pond, the net MUST be inspected for any possible delicacies.

Having determined there are none in the net, the fish bucket must then be thoroughly examined and tasted.

Then, last week, I went out with a few girls from WH on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning to collect shore crabs. "Why?" you may ask. Why, for my very first Otter v.s. Crab smackdown!

And, once they figured out that there were more of these little mobile guys in the basin, it was "Bobbin' for Crabs" time!

Needless to say, the outcome was a given.

We are STILL getting in swallows of all types and sizes. We have some tiny ones....

to whole gangs of them!

And this isn't even taking into account the 10+ swallows we have flitting about the Indoor Mew!

That's about it for me. I know....I know....some of you are probably thinking "Hey...wait...what about the seals!?!"

Well, we had 24 of them in as of last Saturday, with all but 4 permanently in the "big seal" pools. I will elaborate more tomorrow after my shift. I promise! Til next time...