I Can Get a Wee Bit Distracted at Times!

If you haven't guessed from my posts over the years, I find most things in the natural world kinda fascinating. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't see that as a bad thing at all! But it makes tasks take a bit longer than mayhaps they should. I am fortunate that the great people at Wolf Hollow are understanding about my photographic addiction and have only once, in the 5 years I have been there, asked me upon my return "So, did you get lost on the way out there or on the way back?" Fortunately it was said with an indulging smile. Don't know what I mean? Okay, let me give you an example. In early December we had pretty nippy noodles weather here. Therefore, frost was everywhere when I went down to feed the fawns. And here is how that trip went:

Starting from about 30 feet outside the front door I saw this:

I love when I see the moon over Wolf Hollow in the mornings! And then, after another fifty feet or so, there was this:

I never could get the sparkliness of it all! And then the next thing to catch my eye on the way down the the fawn pen was this:

The entire branch was like this. I found it very captivating! And lastly I saw this:

By this time I was feeling a bit bad, so I rushed the rest of the way down there and fed these beauties:

On the way back, there were still other things that caught my attention, like these red berries that just pop out against their grey backdrop....

...and these white berries all clumped together.

Even on the way home, the crispness outside made Mount Baker shine out like a beacon in the distance. So I parked my car in a small pullout and took to the middle of the street to get first this shot...

...and then this one.

I just love intertwined trees and these two seriously look like they are reaching towards each other.

But that's not all that can distract me obviously. I can get distracted by mushrooms, especially if they are oddly shaped...

...which I'll admit was a slight issue since Wolf Hollow exploded with fungi over a two week period this past year.

Then there are the teeny tiny players. Like these fungal type growths one finds on an old wooden fawn pen fence.

And then there are the crawly ones that have always intrigued me...

...as they can be so easily overlooked if you aren't keeping an eye out.

And last, but certainly not least, are flowers. Sigh. Flowers of all kinds have me breaking out into super-macro mode. It can be any kind of flower, from ones I find in a planter box at a local coffee house...

...to the minute flowers that one finds growing in the moss.

I told you folks, it's a serious addiction and it's one I hope to never get over! Yes, this world we live in is filled to the brim with wonders!

Okay, so back to the Hollow. I actually didn't go in last week as I traveled to Lopez Island to take the Island's Oil Spill Association's Oiled Bird Class. Since I took my HAZWOPER class earlier, this means I am officially on-call if they have a major oil spill where wildlife might be impacted. Of course one hopes that never happens, but if it should, at least now I can do something to help!

The first part of the class was about the different types of birds we might be dealing with, how oil spills affect them, and how they are checked in to be treated once caught. Then it was hands on time.

Wolf Hollow keeps some dead birds in a freezer for hands on purposes and so does Julie Knight, who not only is our Executive Director of Wolf Hollow, but has also been a main player in IOSA since it first started over 20 year ago.

Here Julie is sitting amongst the trainees, helping people identify what they are holding and what special features that particular bird might have. What can I say? Julie is awesome! Jackie Wolf has also been a main player for 10 years now and she is great!

Here is my friend Traci with one of the birds.

Whatcha got there Traci? Looks like a waterbird of some kind!

Here Jackie is chatting with Traci and Tiffany while Tiffany learns to tube a bird for the first time. Everyone who hadn't done this before started out tubing one of the dead birds first. Then it was off for some live hands-on training!

We were all sent to stations where all the tools and instruments needed to intake an oiled bird were setup for us.

Intake sheet, leg band, thermometer, scale, stethoscope, tube feeding setup...you get the idea. And then we met our "patient." Here are Traci and Jenice.

Jenice, also a Wolf Hollow Board member, is going over proper handling technique, which means supporting the legs, making sure the front bend of the wing is held securely, and that the head is restrained. All-in-all it was a great class! Thanks Julie and Jackie! See you March 6th for the Search & Rescue of Oiled Birds training!

As for Wolf Hollow, yes, I did go in yesterday so I will update all of you on the current patients in my next post, including this Bald eagle suffering from lead poisoning....

...and who knows what else. Yeesh! Til next time...

By the Skin of Its…..Head

We have another Bald Eagle in and it's an eagle that is VERY lucky. And why is that you might ask? Because it flew into a power line! Yes, this eagle may not have nine lives, but it obviously has at least two!

Being an adult, it is pretty sketchy around people, so this first pic I took was through the window looking into the Indoor mew, hence the reflectiveness of the photo. It was also mid-feed, hence the feather in its beak. As you can see, it has wounds on its head and on its beak/nare area. It was missing feathers on the top of its head and in their place were 1st and 2nd degree burns. It was given an anti-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication for pain and a mild anti-bacterial/antiseptic cream was put on its head. Obviously, the pain and discomfort have had no effect on its appetite!

After the wounds on the head healed....

...we waited a bit more to make sure the nare wounds were healing and weren't going to be an issue when we placed it outside.

But after being inside for almost a month, outside it went into the Heron Cage....

...so it could start building up those flight muscles again. After a few weeks in there, and after the then-current-resident of the Eagle Flight Cage was released, in it went, to the final stage before release.

Hey! Learning how to land on a rope perch is hard...it IS!

Owls....who doesn't love them? Yes, that was rhetorical. This cutie of a Western Screech owl came to us from nearby Lopez island. Seems like it did a face plant into a car and was subsequently found sitting in the middle of the road.

When he first arrived he held his left eye shut, but by the time Saturday rolled around it was open. But, as you can see, it is still more dilated, and squinty, than its right eye. He, too, was given an anti-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication for pain and swelling.

When he was eating on his own for awhile and his eye was better, he was moved outside to a small mew.

He didn't do so well the first time out. He actually stopped eating. Getting any animal ready to be released is always a gradual process and they will let you know if they aren't ready for that next step. So back inside he came for a few days. When he went back out again, we placed him in one of the aviaries, where it was a little bit darker and not so exposed to the weather.

When I went out to check on him in Aviary 3, I just peeked through the left-side feed door. It's less intrusive that way and there pretty much isn't any area you can't see by looking in one feed door or the other. Hmmm....where is he? I couldn't see him anywhere. I then put my camera through the opening and viewed as much of the aviary as I could via the camera's Live View screen. Still nothin'. I have to say, that's when I started getting a wee bit nervous. So over to the right feed door I went. I STILL couldn't see him. That's when I started my plea..."Please don't be dead...please!" Finally I put my camera in, looked all around again, and then turned it straight up and back to the corner right above the feed door and saw this glaring down at me:

Whew! He has since been released!

Our rehabber Penny was flying solo last Sunday, so I told her to feel free to call me if she needed help with anything and she actually took me up on my offer! She called me at 10am saying that she was getting a hawk in and she could use my help with the exam, so in I went.

It ended up being a Red-tailed hawk and gads..what a MESS it was!

Its a youngster, either this year's or last, and it came in with both eyes crusted shut and white cheesy-looking stuff in its mouth and plugging up its nostrils. When Penny checked its chest muscles to see how thin it was, she looked at me and said "It's still pretty well fleshed!?" I immediately asked how that could possibly be, as it had to have been down for awhile. She had no idea. So then we started wondering what we were dealing with that could cause these types of symptoms in what appeared to be a relatively short amount of time. Even with everything that was wrong with it, it was still upright, so that was a good thing. So, after Penny cleaned up his eyes as much as she could and then added ointment to them, she cleaned out its mouth and nares and took samples of this stuff and proceeded to walk me through the process of making culture slides.

First she spread a thin layer of the cheesy stuff on 3 separate slides and "fixed" the stuff to the slides by applying a flame to the underside of the slide. Then each slide went through a series of...

...stain cycles with rinsing of the slided in between each stage. Each different colored stain will color different part of cells to highlight them. Then we set them on end to dry.

After they are done drying, you slap them in the microscope and hope you have,, between the 3 slides, an answer as to what is affecting the hawk and therefore what is needed to treat it. Boy did we ever luck out! Behold!

Penny was able to take this picture of a fungal remnant through one of the eye pieces. So she immediately decided to start it on oral anti-fungal medication.

He was still doing well the next morning and was alert when she checked on him at Noon. But when she went in at 2pm, he had died. It's a bit harder to take when they are upright and seem alert and then they literally drop, versus when they act sick and you have a feeling they may be on their way out. To paraphrase Penny after she found him dead: Losing patients sucks most times. I'll second that.

To end this posting on a MUCH brighter note, do you all remember this beauty?

This juvie Trumpeter swan came in over a year ago, in November 2008. If you recall, she was found by her lonesome. Her family had flown away and left her by herself, which is tough, as they remain with their parents until full grown. So she came to us and we kept her for a few months, but the longer we kept her, the more things kept popping up, like her knee swelling.

The problem was, by late February/early March, the swans would start migrating again and we desperately wanted to try and get her back out in the wild with any group of swans so that she could hopefully fly off with them. So once her swollen knee calmed down a bit it was decided to get her back out on the water, which would also take the weight off of her legs and give them time to heal the rest of the way.

So she and I took a road trip northwards to a wildlife area that had a MASSIVE lake on it. A lake where we were assured that there were still swans there on a daily basis.

So she got a leg band and a neck band of sorts, courtesy of Brad Otto from the local Dept. of Fish and Wildlife.

It was made of very light weight plastic, and its big letters/numbers allows a wildlife biologist to read the band from afar.

The she was released....

...and she actually caught air for a bit!

Considering how long she had been with us....about 4 months...this was a great sign! But I also remember thinking, as much as Brad said we would get updates when and if she was spotted, that we would probably never hear about her again.

Well, imagine my surprise when I went into Wolf Hollow a few weeks back and was told she had been spotted on Fir Island, which is south of us. Yep, she's alive and doing great! Woohoo!

Til next time...

See Ya 2009! Don't Let The Door Hit You On Your Way Out!!!

Yes, after a drama filled 2009, I am more than ready to start the new year off right. And by that I mean sitting down and doing my first posting of 2010!! I'll wrap-up some adventures and I'll tell you about our latest residents! Sound good? Well let's get 'er started then!!!

The fawns...they came in so long ago. Some had issews....

...and some were quite distinguished!

It seems like time went by so fast. They went from being inside, then to being outside in the mobile fawn pens, and before you knew it, they were out in a section of the "big fawn" outdoor pen.

Then they went off the bottle, lost their spots,....

...you find yourself helping to setup the fawn trailer next to their pen,....

...and then they're gone! Sigh.

Then there was this juvie Bald Eagle.

It came in last June after being found on the ground, unable to stand, and very thin. Its feather-tips fascinated me!

Once it started eating on its own we were pretty sure we were in the clear, and within a few weeks it was well enough to be moved outside to start building up its flight muscles.

It started out in one of the smaller flight cages and over time it was progressively moved up to larger and even larger flight cages until it made it to its final destination in the journey through the ranks of Wolf Hollow...the Eagle Flight Cage.

And there it stayed until we were told that the salmon run had started in the Skagit River. During this time a LOT of eagles congregate there to pick off the spawned out salmon. So, because the eating is good and easy, we try and release eagles there so as to give them the best start they can get upon release back into the wild.

Well, this one wasn't released but a few weeks ago! Yep, it was with us for 6 months! Penny volunteered to drive it up to the Skagit when she headed off-island for the holidays, so I am borrowing her photos for this portion.

Looking at it in its crate, I wonder what it was feeling, smelling the fish and hearing all the eagles?

It certainly was anxious to rid itself of our company, as once Penny opened the carrier....

...off it flew! So long and good luck!!!!

Now, onto some of our 2010 residents. Have I mentioned the Turkey Vulture yet? No? REALLY?! Sheesh! I am behind then!

This interesting bird came to us from nearby Orcas Island. When it was found, it was thin and dehydrated, most likely due to the fact that it couldn't fly really well, what with it missing its secondary flight feathers on both wings and feathers on its back.

We tube-fed it fluids to rehydrate it and it was eating on its own after the first day. Pretty soon after that we got it outside to give it some wing room. First it was in one of the mews out in the woods...

..and then it was moved to the Slatted Flight Cage....

...Isn't it cute?!...and it was just recently moved to the Heron Cage.

For me, this vulture differs from the one we had in years ago. That one never seemed to get too agitated when I went in with it, as opposed to this guy, who, even if I just look at him sideways, does what every good vulture does when threatened....he pukes! Yep, everything in his crop comes out. It's an interesting defense mechanism, as what animal is going to go after some huge moving bird when it can have an easy and free meal? I am sure I will get plenty of opportunities to see this in action over and over again, as we are having to winter it with us, 'cause feathers or no feathers, it's too late for it to migrate.

And, to round out the post, I would like to share the story of this GORGEOUS fella with you!

This male Wood Duck was found on the mainland and shipped to us. Upon closer inspection, a puncture wound was found under its left wing. It immediately was started on antibiotics and a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory.

Most people thought it had likely been shot, so an x-ray was scheduled. So x-ray it we did, and this is what we saw.

Absolutely nothing. No pellets, bullets, or broken bones. So now we aren't sure what caused the puncture wound. It could have been predator related I guess, but we will never know for certain.

So for now, it stays in the crate while its wound heals and then it, too, will go up through the ranks of flight cages until it is ready for release.

I would like to end this post by wishing everyone a year full of love, wonder, happiness, and peace. Til next time...