From Bruce Buckingham
88 grams of beauty. Saw-Whet owl, Catawba Island, 11/18/25. Caught using mist net during banding operations.
From Bruce Buckingham
88 grams of beauty. Saw-Whet owl, Catawba Island, 11/18/25. Caught using mist net during banding operations.
“I am a fierce predator! Let me go, I’ll claw your eyes out! Rawr!”
“Ok buddy I’m just gonna immobilize you with my thumb and index finger and shower you with love and admiration instead, ok? You wanna snack or something?”
This is my favorite way of immobilizing them! 😄
SIR! That is NOT what Pringle’s cans are for!
These operations run on shoestring budgets, they need to reuse whatever is available 😜
No but seriously, thank YOU for your service to nature and humanity. <3
I really have so much fun both working with the animals and sharing things with you all here. I’d really encourage any of you to give it a shot if you have a rescue within reasonable distance. My clinic is super supportive in giving flexibility what animals we prefer to work with, and they’ve saved me over $1000 on getting my rabies vax, and in December I’m going to the state rehabber conference to learn a ton of new ideas and techniques for care. At the same time, on my shift we have a lady who just wants to work with bunnies and nothing else whenever possible and no one gives her a hard time since help is help. Everyone I have met has been so supportive and compassionate.
And while we’re all obviously animal nerds, we are usually shorthanded, so I get to talk to you guys about this stuff more than I really do at the clinic, so I have you all to share my excitement with, and we get to learn all sorts of stuff. At the Halloween event the lady working with the Screech Owl kept looking to me to answer the guests’ questions, and clinic head heard about my owl knowledge, so I’m hoping next time I will get to be holding the owl through the whole event! So I am thankful to you all for encouraging and supporting me here, since that is what got me to dip my toe in being involved hands-on.
I hope some of you will be inspired in return to help out, donate, or even just be more mindful of your actions in regard to our wild neighbors. So much of their problems come from us not taking that moment to think how our actions can impact them.
Look I’m a highly educated, highly skilled unemployed miserable drunk who lacks a purpose in life. I refuse to make more money for some megacorp to rape the planet so that I can eat. I’ve been looking into volunteering, shit, I’ve been living on my own in a camp in the woods as a conscientious objector to society and capitalism itself for a good while (not now, but I miss it a lot), and if I can find a purpose helping life living, then I’m all over that.
In lieu of that, I have no money to give, and can but offer my genuine love and encouragement for you, who are in a spot to do so, to keep doing it.
<3
Edit: My person in Christ, I have taken SO many fucking rabies shots- twice in my index finger top. TOP. I think I’d rather take it in my dick, honestly. I feel ya.
Edit2: sorry i’m the kind of guy to reply before I even read people’s comments, I read the whole thing and I love you. Share some links or some shit. I want to get into this stuff.
Edit3: I passionately, genuinely, and lovingly take care of everything living in any way I can. Shit I feel bad about killing mosquitos and try to avoid it. Aummm.
My rabies shots were pretty easy, as intradermal preventative shots in the arm rather than intramuscular shots at some random bite location. I barely felt them, and they just felt like mosquito bites for a while afterwards.
You’ll need to find who your local wildlife rescue is and see when they start taking volunteer applications. I think my group starts taking applications in January. Baby season starts in April, so they’re likely going to want to be staffed by then, as it’s the busiest time of year if they do mammals and songbirds. Different places can choose what they want to rehab. Some only do birds or bunnies, some only do things like bats. We had a brief interview with one of the heads to see if we were a good fit, and we had to do a state background check like you would for employment and a child abuse type background check since we have an education center that has children on site. That kind of thing is probably going to differ from center to center based on what services they provide the public.
Volunteers don’t typically need any experience, and the only thing I had to buy was leather work gloves from the farm supply store. The main thing in the interview was do you think you can handle basic animal mess and will you show up when you say you will.
I’m glad you’re getting happiness from the posts here. We live in a world of such natural beauty and wonder, I just want people to appreciate it, especially the owlish side of things, as that is often hidden from us humans.
I see you, too, lack a lot of people to discuss topics pertinent to you! One love.