I will probably update tomorrow as it is friday and i wont have anything to worry about for saturday! haha
fun day in ICU this past sunday. I got to grab the meanest Barn owl ever ( pic will be included) and a cute little kestrel decided to take a ride on my arm when I was cleaning its cage. Also i want to post a link to a barn owl screech video. It is amazing how loud these birds can get!
stay tuned!
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
yahoo
I completed my 3 months of training! I have trained in ICU, Rehab and Education, so I can tutor any new people who come in to volunteer. Now that I had each section out of the way, I started again in ICU. I really like ICU because it is so hands on and in the summer its nice to be in air conditioning and in winter its good to be inside and warm. HAHA. Right now the intake of animals is low but at the same time that is good because that means animals aren't getting hurt! A lot of birds are migrating right now so their chances of getting injured increase. This is due to them possibly being hit by cars, powerlines, animals they might not be used to encountering etc. Not related to the season changes is the high mortality among raptors due to ingesting lead from hunted animals. When a carcass is left with lead this absorbs into the body of the dead animal, then when other animals such as eagles or turkey vultures feed on the carcass they ingest this lead. The lead then infects their own bloodstream making the birds very sick and many times leading to death. Recommendations to fix this problems are using as much of the carcass as possible and properly disposing the rest, copper bullets or removal of the bullet if at all possible. I will get off my soapbox now but to learn more about lead poisoning in birds you can click
here
.
Back to ICU. IT was an exciting day.I completed my first successful bird grab. I had done a bird grab before but that was on kestrels which are smaller and also a severely injured owl that wasn't really a training in grabbing. I had first tried to get a red tail hawk out of its cage for him to receive his medicine but he outwitted me. He was able to get my right hand in his steel grip talons and I had to have my friend mike bail me out. Again this is another situation where bird handling gloves come in handy. I still can't believe how strong raptor grasps are, even with the gloves I could feel the talons digging in and even with the glove I had minor scratches on my arm. ( VERY very minor, not even worth documenting really but i couldn't believe it broke skin through the glove, imagine what it could do on bare skin). Here is my buddy mike and the red tail hawk that won.
After that unsuccessful grab I tried again on a cooper's hawk. This time I just went for it fast to give the bird no chance to grab my glove and it worked! Even I was a little surprised at how efficient that fast process worked. Here is me holding the cooper's hawk, sorry for the horrible picture of myself, i am a wreck. haha.
. I also grabbed a couple kestrel's later but they are so small you can just cup them with two hands and dont have to worry about one hand being tied up due to them grabbing you.
Later, my team lead was feeding a Harris Hawk while I was tending to some seed eaters and all of a sudden I hear " Bird out! Big Bird out!!" and I turn around to see the Harris Hawk loose in the ICU room! A very organized chaos followed, everyone quickly donned gloves but the big bird net was outside! It was now going to be a little harder to grab this Harris Hawk. Luckily my team lead grabbed a towel and was able to throw it over the hawk and grab him. He was an angry hawk he probably thought his freedom was so close!
That about wraps it up for ICU this week. Now I have to go back to studying for finals boo!
here
.
Back to ICU. IT was an exciting day.I completed my first successful bird grab. I had done a bird grab before but that was on kestrels which are smaller and also a severely injured owl that wasn't really a training in grabbing. I had first tried to get a red tail hawk out of its cage for him to receive his medicine but he outwitted me. He was able to get my right hand in his steel grip talons and I had to have my friend mike bail me out. Again this is another situation where bird handling gloves come in handy. I still can't believe how strong raptor grasps are, even with the gloves I could feel the talons digging in and even with the glove I had minor scratches on my arm. ( VERY very minor, not even worth documenting really but i couldn't believe it broke skin through the glove, imagine what it could do on bare skin). Here is my buddy mike and the red tail hawk that won.
After that unsuccessful grab I tried again on a cooper's hawk. This time I just went for it fast to give the bird no chance to grab my glove and it worked! Even I was a little surprised at how efficient that fast process worked. Here is me holding the cooper's hawk, sorry for the horrible picture of myself, i am a wreck. haha.
. I also grabbed a couple kestrel's later but they are so small you can just cup them with two hands and dont have to worry about one hand being tied up due to them grabbing you.
Later, my team lead was feeding a Harris Hawk while I was tending to some seed eaters and all of a sudden I hear " Bird out! Big Bird out!!" and I turn around to see the Harris Hawk loose in the ICU room! A very organized chaos followed, everyone quickly donned gloves but the big bird net was outside! It was now going to be a little harder to grab this Harris Hawk. Luckily my team lead grabbed a towel and was able to throw it over the hawk and grab him. He was an angry hawk he probably thought his freedom was so close!
That about wraps it up for ICU this week. Now I have to go back to studying for finals boo!
Red tail in my face
Week after thanksgiving and with a lot of people out of town we were a little shorted staffed on the rehab side. No problem me and my buddy mike handled it with skill. However it was cold and the raptor food was frozen which made my poor little fingers freeze in my gloves. But enough complaining on my end, arizona winters are nothing compared to other parts of the states.
I am becoming more comfortable with going into the cages even when several birds are in their at one time. The key is to stay by the walls and to always keep an eye on the brood. However, some birds will just fly like crazy when you are in their enclosure and its these times that the thick gloves we wear for the raptors come in handy.
This week I had two enclosures that were feisty, the sharpshin hawks and the big red tailed hawks. The sharpshins we have are so spastic they remind me of kids running around loose at chuckie cheese. They fly from perch to perch and will sometimes even bounce off of your head as they fly by. This is why i kept my hood on when i went in their enclosure. The red tailed hawks were a little meaner in their enclosure. While I was in the enclosure one decided to stick up for the brood and flew at me. its funny they dont realize that I am giving them their food, they just want the intruder gone! Luckily I saw him coming and i was able to stoop down and put my glove up in case he wanted to foot me. Footing is when a raptor uses its talons to scratch or injure you. Obviously it is not doing it on purpose but is just trying to protect itself. I finished their food and got the heck out of there so they could calm down and eat.
I also got my name badge this week so i feel very official now. :)
I am becoming more comfortable with going into the cages even when several birds are in their at one time. The key is to stay by the walls and to always keep an eye on the brood. However, some birds will just fly like crazy when you are in their enclosure and its these times that the thick gloves we wear for the raptors come in handy.
This week I had two enclosures that were feisty, the sharpshin hawks and the big red tailed hawks. The sharpshins we have are so spastic they remind me of kids running around loose at chuckie cheese. They fly from perch to perch and will sometimes even bounce off of your head as they fly by. This is why i kept my hood on when i went in their enclosure. The red tailed hawks were a little meaner in their enclosure. While I was in the enclosure one decided to stick up for the brood and flew at me. its funny they dont realize that I am giving them their food, they just want the intruder gone! Luckily I saw him coming and i was able to stoop down and put my glove up in case he wanted to foot me. Footing is when a raptor uses its talons to scratch or injure you. Obviously it is not doing it on purpose but is just trying to protect itself. I finished their food and got the heck out of there so they could calm down and eat.
I also got my name badge this week so i feel very official now. :)
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