What is something in the past year that makes you happy or proud? Maybe you learned something new, finally got that thing you wanted for ages, managed to make a hard decision with a good outcome. etc etc.
No pressure to share if you don’t want to. Hope you all have a good new years eve :)
Finally got off my butt and started volunteering at my local wildlife rehab clinic. It’s been a tough year for me mentally, so having something regular where I’m surrounded by kind people doing something positive itself was great, and then getting to work with a ton of unique wildlife was the icing on the cake.
I even got to release a few squirrel patients at my house, and a beautiful young Screech Owl on my wife’s birthday.
I’ve learned a bunch about all kinds of animals and found out about some animals I didn’t even know we had in our state. I also attended a conference and got to meet people from other clinics across the country and see some of the special projects they’re working on.
I owe it to the community here for pushing me to get more hands on with this, and I hope to continue to give back with some great stories, facts, and photos. It’s been a truly amazing experience that I wish to continue.
My utmost respect. I fostered a pigeon this year and it was the most stressful thing I’ve done.
Birds feel so fragile (even the big ones) but can require some intense care. Their very non-mammalian anatomy can even make feeding them tricky, and the babies need to eat every hour.
I have so. Much respect for the sacrifices of the actual licensed rehabbers. It’s a literal 24/7 job and so many areas are underserved it’s a massive workload. We did I think 4000+ animals this year with just 2 rehabbers and us volunteers.
its thier respiratory system, very efficient at getting oxygen, but it also means thier susceptible to any volatiles chemicals.
Bird respiration is very different than ours. It is much more efficient since there is such a high energy and oxygen requirement to fly, but they also don’t have a diaphragm to fill or expel their lungs.
Instead they have a series of air sacs spaced out in their bodies and they have to flex their muscles like pumping a bellows system to pump air through themselves.
With small lungs, low body weight, yet a massive air intake for their body mass, that makes them much more vulnerable to anything damaging in the air. We don’t even spray the surface cleaner directly into their enclosures, we spray the paper towel and bring it over to the incubators.