Late Winter storms were tough on our region. Rain seemed to fall for days without ceasing and many of us suffered from chronic wet socks and an unshakeable chill. And that endless rain was tough on more than the human community.
In the last two weeks of February, Humboldt Wildlife Care Center admitted 8 birds of prey who were found struggling, their hunting grounds covered in water, or other challenges that caused more than a few area raptors to go hungry.
Young Peregrine Falcon found near Crescent City, mildly anemic and thin. Two weeks of domestic quail (purchased frozen from a supplier in Southern California) and a safe place to recover and he was ready to get back into action
A Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) was found struggling near Lake Earl outside of Crescent City, too weak to fly, as well as two Red-tailed Hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) from the same area, Crescent City and Brookings, Oregon, just north of Crescent City.
Found in Ferndale, covered in mud and with a deep cut on one of her toes, this Red-tailed Hawk gained over 300 grams (approximately 25% of her body mass) in the month she was in our care. That’s a lot of rats. (about 60 of them actually)Red-shouldered Hawk, found in the middle of a gravel road near Ferndale wastes no time leaping back into his wild freedom after a little bit more than a week in care.This adult female Red-tailed Hawk, found in Crescent City grounded with her feathers caked in mud, was a fierce and formidable patient. She refused to eat for the first few days, so un-accepting was she of the indignity of captivity. So we cut her rats in half and she was appetized beyond the reach of her principled disgust with all things human. She started eating. She was released after 10 days in care.
As the Eel River began to flood we admitted five hawks, four Red-tailed Hawks and one Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus), from its bottom lands, all of them displaced, wet, cold and hungry.
We can only surmise that there were other wild neighbors who didn’t survive the drenching storms of this winter. The last two weeks of February, during the rains, we admitted 31 wild animals for care, including several songbirds, ducks and gulls. During storms, simply because fewer people are outside, fewer struggling wild animals are found.
Another adult Red-tailed Hawk, found in Brookings after the storms. He was so thin and anemic at the time of his rescue that we weren’t sure he would recover, but here he is a month later, healthy, whole and back at home in the wide sky.
Right now, we are preparing for our busy season, yet also having a busy winter. Already our caseload is up 20% over last year, which was our busiest year so far. We need to raise $50,000 by April 30 to be able to stay open, with our staff and housing ready to meet whatever comes our way. These are trying times for many, and it’s no less true for our wild neighbors. We need to be here for them when they need us. Only your support will make that happen. Please donate today. Thank you for your love of the wild!! DONATE HERE
In mid-February many of us are dreading the long wait for the return of warmer weather, and all of the joys of Spring and Summer. Here at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center, we are not dreading the long wait at all. For us, it’s right around the corner! By the end of next month, we need to have all of our ducks in a row and be prepared for the arrival of the first wild orphans of the season.
In the past, we’ve admitted our first orphan Raccoons (Procyon lotor) as early as March 31st. Meanwhile, we are keeping busy during our so-called downtime taking care of the injured hawks, seabirds, raccoons, songbirds and more. We’ve already admitted over 80 injured wild patients in 2019.
Western Grebe in care, 2019. Fish are the cure for young struggling seabirds. $1.25 a pound isn’t that much to save a life!
We have important projects to complete before Spring madness fully kicks in and we need your help.
Our main building, a double wide modular that’s been our primary facility and office since 2006 is in need of critical repairs that will cost us over $2000.
Our Seabird pools need a thorough rejuvenation – liners need to be replaced and pumps and filters need to be repaired, costing approximately $500.
Last year we admitted close to a dozen orphan fawns, about the maximum we can handle. We need to increase that capacity and add a better yard. This will cost approximately $2000
Not a project, just a regular fact of our existence, but we need to pay to use the land our facility is on at the Jacoby Creek Land Trust – our annual rent is $6000.
All of this is in addition to the cost of caring for each of our patients. We accomplish a lot on very little. We have one full time paid staff person and two part time staff, whose contributions to our mission are invaluable. Already underpaid, if we were to be unable to maintain their positions, the care we provide our patients would suffer.
We operate on the proverbial shoestring. Each year we raise the funds and resources to complete our mission as we go along. So far, we’ve managed to get through each year with our bills paid. And each new year, we start again. It’s stressful, certainly, but it’s the only thing we can do.
Nestling Barn Owls in care 2018: Babies of any wild species show up at our door everyday in Spring and Summer. These two, from different nests, eventually made it back to actual Barn owl parents south of Ferndale. An excellent outcome!
So for 2019, we’ll be mounting three major efforts to gather the support we need to meet our challenges.
This Spring, our goal is to raise one third of our annual budget by the end of April. That’s $50,000! If we raise $50,000 by April 30, we will have paid not only the expenses of February, March and April, but we’ll enter May with the resources on hand and the facility prepared to begin meeting the following months, our busiest time, Half of the animals we treat in any year are admitted in June, July, and August. Your support this Spring will give us a strong place to stand as we enter the most difficult part of our year.
Our community’s support is how we meet the challenge of treating hundreds of wild neighbors each year, helping resolve thousands of wildlife conflicts peacefully and prepare the next generation of wildlife caregivers.
Now four years after second generation anti-coagulant rodenticidess were taken off store shelves and restricted to licensed applicator use (commercial, agriculture) studies have shown that these poisons are still increasing dramatically in the populations of many different wild species, from threatened birds of prey to Bobcats. Latest results show over 90% of wild animals test positive for rodenticide exposure!
The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) has begun the process of re-evaluating these terrible poisons for further action to address their mounting prevalence in the environment.
Click on this image for link to full document.
The deadline for public comments has been extended to January 16, 2019.
Our friends at Raptors Are the Solution (RATS) has this suggestion for commenting on the DPR action
” Please send a short email to Rodenticide.Comments@cdpr.ca.gov expressing your support for DPR’s proposed decision and urging them to follow through and remove all second-generation anticoagulants (SGARs) from use in California. Although the state banned SGARs for use by consumers in 2014, a giant loophole allows the pest control industry to continue using them widely.
If possible, please forward a copy of your sent email to raptorsarethesolution@gmail.com. We would like to track the number of comments submitted. ”
As always, your involvement makes a difference! Let’s start the wheels rolling to get all of these wildlife-killing toxins off the shelves and out of our lives! Thank you!!
Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) mothers for millions of years have selected safe secluded places to lay their eggs. Under bushy plants, in high grasses, and not more than a day hike from a nice pond. Once her babies hatch from their eggs, they are quickly on the move. Unlike songbirds whose young are altricial, meaning they are unable to do anything for themselves at all but open their mouths and accept food, ducklings are precocial – they come into the world ready to walk around and feed themselves. Within hours of hatching, mother Mallards lead their babies to water.
[Please support our work. Your contribution goes directly to the care of injured and orphaned wild animals and keeps our doors open! We need you! Please help. You candonate here now.]
Of course in the intervening years, human have arrived on the scene, and in the last few thousand years began the process of covering the Earth in roads and other serious threats to our wild neighbors. Now an obstacle course of mayhem stands in the way of Mallard families and the ponds where they must grow, develop and learn to be successful adults. A mother killed by a car in traffic might leaving a dozen day old ducklings scrambling for their innocent lives. An off-leash dog might scatter a family with some babies never re-grouped. However it happens, thousands upon thousands of Mallard babies are separated from their families in California each year. Every year Mallards are the avian species most frequently admitted for rehabilitation in our state. Swimming pools with no way for a duckling to get out, pollution, traffic, dogs and cats, curious unsupervised children – the threats to young ducklings in human society are nearly endless.
At Humboldt Wildlife Care Center, we see less victims of these threats simply because we have a much lower human population. Still, we raise anywhere between 20 and 40 Mallard ducklings each year.
Orphaned Mallard patients from 2016, learning about duckweed, the miracle food!
Our three young Mallards who are currently in care, under a heat lamp in our indoor housing. Soon they’ll be old enough to be housed outside.
Last week we admitted the first Mallard orphans of the year. Found scrambling though a backyard in the coastal community of Manila, these three babies are doing very well, now. Currently housed indoors until they are big enough to stay warm through the night, soon we’ll move them to our specially built duckling pond and then to our waterfowl aviary where they will continue to grow and develop in relative privacy – their wildness respected and protected – until they are old enough to fend for themselves. When they are ready, after about six weeks in care, they’ll be returned to their free and wild lives.
Right now we are entering the busiest time of our year. Every day from now through the rest of Summer we will be helping keep wild families together and raising wild orphans when we must. The workload is intense and so is our need for your support. We are striving raise $25,ooo by May 31. We have $20,000 to go. Your support makes all the difference. Please donate today. Thank you!
The earth rolls around the sun dipping first this hemisphere then that one toward the light and the wild animals follow suit. Summer birds have already begun to return to the North Coast. Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) investigate the old cavities where they may have raised last year’s young. Ravens (Corvus corax) fly though late Spring winds with sticks for their nests held tightly between their bills.
Mother mammals are on the move, seeking safe places to give birth. This year everyone is in a hurry to bloom and leaf!
All of this means that our busiest season is about to start. Each year we treat around 1200 animals. Nearly half of these patients come in during the months of May, June and July. While we stive to reduce the number of our wild neighbors who need help, through public education and good phone consultation to resolve human/wild conflicts, still our caseload and our costs will predictably skyrocket in the coming weeks.
We will be reaching out to you frequently, asking for help. Financial contributions of any amount are critical. We’ll also be asking for donated supplies, like goat milk, produce, sheets, towels, vinegar and baking soda – all things that are crucial to our daily operation!
Nestling Swallows (2015) receiving their regular feeding – soon these birds would fledge into our Songbird aviary where they continued to be fed while they learned to fly and eat on the wing. Common Murre (Uria aalge) chicks, separated from their fathers at sea, too young to provide for themselves. Each year we raise any number of these oceanic birds, depending on the how successful the year’s breeding season is… last year we raised 6, the year before, 30. Every year for the last 5 years we’ve provided safe haven and bits of mouse for a Western Screech-owl (Megascops kennicottii) chick found in Fortuna’s Rohner Park
Every year we care for several Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) goslings who’ve been orphaned by the highways that separate their nest site from the water. Parents killed trying cross US101 leave chicks scurrying in traffic – a dangerous situation for all. If safely captured, the young geese will come to our facility in Bayside.
The most common reason for young Opossums (Didelphis virginiana) to be orphaned? Their mothers are hit by cars while they’re still in her pouch. Each year we admit over 50 babies!
A Black-crowned Night-Heron(Nycticorax nycticorax) chick’s life took a turn for the worse when s/he was knocked from the nest high above the beach at Moonstone during a wind storm. This yung bird ate a lot of fish! Every summer we save lives, preserve wild families, and give unfortunate victims of accidents and human intervention a second chance. This juvenile Hermit Warbler (Setophaga occidentalis) whose nest was disturbed in the Arcata Community Forest. An improvised substitute made from a basket lined with twigs and mosses was placed high in the tree above where the young not yet flighted bird was found. Soon parent birds were seen bringing food and resuming care. Reuniting wild babies with their families is an important and frequent task throughout Spring and Summer. Each year Raccoon (Procyon lotor) mothers are shot, trapped, poisoned and otherwise mistreated in ways that leaves their babies behind, often stuck in an attic or a crawlspace and left to die. When they’re lucky, someone hears them, finds them and brings them to us. Almost every single orphaned raccoon we care for could have been raised by their mother if only people would take basic steps to protect their property by preventing Raccoons and other animals from getting in, or seeking advice before acting irresponsibly and resorting to lethal solutions. Providing care to orphaned Raccoons isn’t cheap! Usually they are in care 4 moths before they can be released. Each baby costs nearly $500 to raise successfully and we raise over 20 of these curious Earthlings each year!
Every year our busy season has the added stress of paying for food and medicine, the water bill, the electric bill, staff salaries. Scrimping and saving is good and necessary, but so is knowing that our basic costs are going to be covered. It’s good to know that if an unexpected major expense comes up – like last year when we treated a lead-poisoned Bald Eagle whose care required six months of recuperation – that we’ve got it covered.
So, we’re launching a special Baby Season fundraiser.* Our goal is $25,000 between now and May 31. That’s 9 weeks. $25,000 will keep us going through early Spring and leave us ready to take on the most hectic months of our year with something in reserve, reducing our stress so that we can be better care providers. It costs us about $12,000 a month to operate during the Summer. Your help is vitally important. Without your generosity… well, let’s just say that we are grateful that you’ve kept us going this long and we look forward to your continued support. Let’s make this the best, least stressful Wild Baby season we’ve had. Thank you!!
*By the way, we are still a couple thousand short of our March goal of $7000. Want to help us reach it? Donate here. Thank you!!
Found on Samoa Beach, this young Pacific Pond Turtle (Actinemys marmorata) was almost kept as a pet. Fortunately he mentioned the turtle to his veterinarian at Sunny Brae Animal Clinic and they cautioned him that the turtle is wild and needs freedom. They called Humboldt Wildlife Care Center and we went over and picked up the curious and active youngster. No injuries or illness were found on his admission exam and he was released to a nearby mucky area that from now on will be known as Turtle’s Delight!
There are so many ways to live on Earth! Some of us spend years wth parental help and supervision on our way to adulthood and others, like this turtle, are born ready
Even though we strive to maintain a professional distance from our patients, sometimes it’s hard not to just be bowled over by the cuteness!
Seriously, though, this young turtle came very close to having his life ruined, spent in a glass box. Fortunately the person agreed to give this turtle his freedom. Also, the turtle was fortunate that the people at Sunny Brae Animal Clinic knew to call us at HWCC.
As we enter Spring and wild babies start to pop up around our community, please let’s help remind each other to keep wild animals wild, and to keep wild families together (even if it’s a family of one turtle!)
Want to help us meet our challenging mission to provide care for injured, orphaned and misplaced wild neighbors? We’ve raised over $4000 toward our March goal of $7000 and need your help! Without you, this turtle and all of our patients would have nowhere to go when the chips are down. You can donate here. Thank you for helping us help our wild neighbors!
A storm-tossed Western Grebe (Aechmophorus occidentalis) was admitted last month at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center.
Western grebes are relatively common birds on the Pacific coast in winter where they can often be seen in the salt chucks, bays, lagoons, and the ocean, often in large groups, just beyond the breaking waves. We treat many each year. Last year we provided care for nearly 30 Western Grebes. 2014 was a bad year for these elegant aquatic birds – we treated 97.
Because Western Grebes are frequent patients, we generally have good results treating their most common ailments, parasites such as tapeworm, emaciation, and loss of waterproofing due to contamination.
In most ways, the Grebe that came in last month was an ordinary patient. Found on the beach in Trinidad, small abrasions under her lower bill had bled and soiled her neck feathers, which caused her feathers to lose their waterproofing. But that wasn’t her primary problem. Her biggest problem was that she is a juvenile who’d been facing her first winter of independence. This year’s exceptionally stormy season got the better of her. Emaciated, dehydrated, and wet, she didn’t stand a chance without rescue.
But in one critical way this Grebe’s treatment was unusual.
Many of the aquatic birds we treat are piscivores, or fish-eaters. Ordinarily, it is the protocol in successful treatment of highly aquatic birds who require pools to offer these patients fish with low fat content. Pool water quality is important to protect and fish with higher fat content has caused problems, the fish oil contaminates the pool water and in turn contaminates the feathers of the patient, which disrupts the carefully maintained waterproofing. In the wild, these contaminants lead to death. Oil isn’t water-soluble. A detergent of some kind is required to remove it. Once oiled, a bird needs to be cleaned.
Caring for aquatic birds is a specialized skill precisely because of their need for water. Pools, water quality, feeding techniques are each crucial elements in providing care, as are the efforts we make to protect our patients from the harm that can be caused by holding aquatic patients out of water. On land and inside our building, birds who typically float on water their entire lives, are highly susceptible to pressure wounds, respiratory infections, and other secondary problems caused by their time in captivity.
An aquatic bird housed in “dry-dock” needs protective wraps to guard against injures from even the softest solid surfaces. Even with these measures, the patient still must get back to water quickly.
Most of the techniques and protocols for rehabilitating injured aquatic birds come from oil spill response. During an oil spill, sometimes thousands of birds might be impacted. The techniques developed to increase success with such large caseloads is the basis for most current aquatic bird care. Generally we follow them with predictable and largely positive results.
However, something very unusual happened in 2016. The low fat fish we feed our patients, Night Smelt were no longer available. Our supplier said there would be nome until April, and that wasn’t even certain.
Fish populations across the oceans are in trouble, of course. Rising sea temperatures, plastic pollution, over-fishing, agricultural waste run-off, acidification are all wreaking havoc on the marine environment and the health of Mother Earth.
So, we got the fish that our suppliers could deliver: River Smelt, known here on the Northwest coast as Eulachons.
Eulachons are a very nutritious fish, with twice as many calories as Night Smelt. They are also bigger. Not so big that they can’t be swallowed whole by a Western Grebe (see video below) but five times larger than night smelt. Mathematically, it’s easy to see how Eulachons are a better fish to feed. Two 50 gram fish hold a total of 150 calories. Night smelt, at 10 grams each and 70 calories per 100 grams, require 20 fish to reach the same energy content!
This Grebe wouldn’t eat for her first week in care. She had no interest in food. She also had an injury just inside her cloaca, or ‘vent’, so it is possible that she was very uncomfortable when eliminating solid waste. In any case, we had to provide her nutrition via a feeding tube, a technique known as ‘gavage’ feeding – basically putting a fish slurry (a blend of smelt, vitamins, and a nutritionally enhanced liquid similar to a protein drink) directly into the patient’s stomach. Gavage feeding is necessary when a patient isn’t able to self-feed.
Her weight during this period gradually rose. Our schedule for feeding balanced the needs of the patient to not see our scary faces too many times a day against the calories she needed to recover from her near death by starvation.
Typically aquatic birds require about 3 weeks of Night Smelt to recover from clinical emaciation. Of course there is some variance depending on other factors, including the personality of the patient.
[Your support needed! We are several thousand short of our March goal of $7000! Any amount helps! from $5, to $5 a month to $5000 dollars, your generosity goes directly to our mission of direct care and education. Please donate today!]
After the first week in care, going in and out of the pool, the Grebe struggled with her waterproofing. Her feathers around her vent were consistently wet. Besides for the confirmation that she might indeed have a wound healing just inside her digestive tract, her waterproofing issues were keeping her from spending all her time in the pool, which she needed badly. She had begun eating on her own and her weight was climbing steadily. The only thing holding her back was the persistent wetness around her vent. So we applied detergent to that area to give her a boost. Within a day she was waterproof. After a week in care, she’d started eating on her own, and with our help, she was waterproof.
After 48 hours in the pool, we thought she was going to be released very soon. And then came a major setback. A volunteer went out to check at the end of the day that the birds in the pool had food and our Grebe was completely soaked, sitting on the little net (we call it a ‘haul-out’) we have for birds who need get out of the water. A healthy bird rarely uses it – it’s essentially a lifeboat for a bird who is struggling.
We pulled her from the pool, put her under a pet dryer and kept her indoors overnight. We analyzed the pool for what might have caused her problem. An obvious suspect, of course was the fish, the fatty Eulachons that had been such an effective food for her emaciation. This is a very soggy bird using her haul-out. 50˚F water isn’t comfortable for warm blooded animals without thir protective shell. Aquatic birds rely on their feathers to satay warm and dry.
How fish are presented in pools is a tricky proposition no matter what the fat content is. Pieces of fish rather than whole fish are an oily mess even with Night Smelt. Our pools all have an overflow system so that any oils from fish or feces on top of the water are constantly being eliminated.
The problem was identified and we took corrective action. The basket we place the fish was not allowing water to freely flow, trapping oils. Every time our patient put her head in that water to grab a fish, she was picking up the oils and then spreading them around body when she preened, the time-consuming work that most birds must do every day to keep their feathers in good, functional shape. It was a simple problem, simply fixed.
We re-washed her. Within 24 hours she was fully waterproof. 48 hours after that, she was released, 300 grams heavier than when she was admitted, her wounds healed, and her life back on track. Her total time in care, with set backs: 15 days. The Eulachons, even with the problem, shaved a week off her recovery time. That’s simply too good to reject. So we amend our ways to accommodate the oil. Using a very mild detergent and warm water, the Grebe was quickly washed. From here she was palced in a warm water pool where she essentially rinses herself, finishing the job. Another day of preening and she’ll back on top of her game. A hidden camera caught her as she works to reolve her feather issues in private. She also likes fish!
After another 48 hours in our pool, with modifications made to our system, she ate Eulachons and gained even more weight. After 2 weeks in care, she was released back to her wild freedom.
And then she was gone. Our intimacy with her is done. She returns to her rightful place, out of our hands.
Right now we don’t have a choice. Eulachons, or river smelt, are what we can find. But even if we do have a choice, we’ll be sticking with the Eulachons. Our goal is to provide the best care, and good nutrition is cornerstone to that goal.
At our clinic in Bayside, with 1200 animals per year in care, we have the opportunity to elaborate on the gains made in aquatic bird care that emerged from high casualty marine disasters such as oil spills. We have the opportunity to develop strategies using our hard won knowledge to improve the care individual animals receive. Will Eulachons be a good fish choice to feed patients in an oil spill? Maybe, but we’d need to devise methods to improve water quality in ways that aren’t currently available. For individual patients, however, or for the much more common caseloads that coastal wildlife rehabilitators face daily, at our teaching hospital here on Humboldt Bay, we are doing the cutting edge work of improving the results of our care. Just as importantly, our efforts here don’t stop here. Through workshops and conferences we take the results of our work to other rehabilitators, demonstrating techniques and processes that they can use, on limited budgets, with limited resources. This necessary self-reliance seems to be the future of all rehabilitation work.
As we enter this period of dire uncertainty – with the Endangered Species Act under threat, with the Environmental Protection Agency openly attacked – in this terrible anti-bloom of the post-conservation era, our work is critical to the future of wildlife rehabilitation.
No matter how bad things become, no matter what night mare unfolds, wild animals will continue to suffer from human activity, human structures, and human caused problems such as quickly deteriorating ocean health. There will be those among us, today, tomorrow and as long as humans are present, who will be compelled to help. If we meet the challenges of our mission, those rehabilitators to come will have reliable information on how to provide good care.
Your support is the only thing that makes any of our work possible. Thank you!
Harlequin Ducks (Histrionicus histrionicus) are not typical. Through the Winter they prefer the rocky coast, foraging blithely among the smashing waves. Generally speaking, they’re unusual to see, not because they’re rare, but because waves smashing on rocks is not habitat that suits the human animal that much. Come Spring the Harlequin leaves our rocky coast and goes North to raise this year’s family in the thrashing and fast moving current of Arctic rivers and streams. All of this is why it took us a moment to identify the injured duck brought down from Crescent City in the middle of last month.
A female Harlequin, she’d suffered quite a trauma. Found among the minefield of rocks that makes up the beach on the North side of Crescent City, she had a severe laceration on the top of her head, and her left cheek was badly cut, part of her feathered face hanging loose.
Somehow she’d been battered. By the recent storms? By a dog unleashed? We’ll never know. We do know that she needed care and given her dark colors among the dark rocks, her small size and the vastness of the sea, she was very lucky that she was found.
The lacerations looked bad, but in fact, they were easily treated. Each of her limbs was intact; she was in good health. We cleaned and dressed her wounds and prepared for the real task of her care: keeping a duck who loves the turbulent sea, fast moving water, and the freedom to dive against the rocks for her dinner of mollusks and crustacea in a calm pool in the middle of a small ranch a mile from the nearest saltwater.
Fortunately she accepted our diet of krill and small fish purchased at the pet store as a workable substitute for barnacles and tiny crabs.
A deep laceration on the Harlequin’s face would likely have lead to her death had she not been spotted and rescued.
While a Western grebe (Aechmophorus occidentalis) is not one of her own kind, housing patients with others, usually helps reduce the stress of their temporary captivity.
After more than three weeks in care, she was at last ready to go home. Her wounds fully healed, in good body condition, her blood work good, we took her to Trinidad. We are fortunate with most seabirds that they don’t rely on specific territory as much as bountiful habitat. We didn’t need to return her to Crescent City – she’s soon going leave our region for the high Arctic. With a sheltered ocean beach that is just a quick paddle around the corner to the open swell of the Pacific, Trinidad offers an excellent place to release oceanic birds that is also relatively safe for human caregivers to reach.
Please help us reach our March goal of $7000. Now is the time to prepare for our busy Spring and Summer season! We need you. Please Donate Here ]
Here is the sequence of photos from her release on March 8.
Searching beneath the waves…
And finding food!
At home again.
And here we left her: to her own life, her privacy, her autonomy, her wild and mysterious freedom to be the kind of duck she is. Our world is a many-roomed mansion, and we enter few of its doors. Yet our actions have impact everywhere. Even the Harlequin must be considered.
From where this duck came and to where she will go, we’ll never know. Our concern, and what we can do, is make certain that she and her kind are able to freely live their lives. Your generosity made her success in rehabilitation possible.
Thank you for supporting the work of Bird Ally X and Humboldt Wildlife Care Center. Your love for the Wild makes a difference for thousands of our wild neighbors each year. Even those who you may never see.
While the most significant part of our mission is the direct care of injured and orphaned wild animals, Bird Ally X also puts effort into training wildlife rehabilitators and future wildlife rehabilitators. During the winter months, as our caseload decreases, we often hold workshops on different aspects of the care we provide our wild neighbors in need. Last weekend we presented a new workshop for our volunteers titled, “How Do Pools Even Work? Providing Critical Housing for Aquatic Patients”.
Discussing our Duckling Pond, used for orphaned Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos), and how it can be re-configured for aquatic turtles, such as the Pacific Pond Turtle (Actinemys marmorata)
Learning how to keep water flowing through our aviary suitable for ducks, geese, Belted Kingfishers (Megaceryle alcyon), Herons, Egrets (family Ardeidae)and rails (family Rallidae).
For the untrained eye, rocks and water, for the trained volunteer, each component here is critical to providing good housing for certain species of aquatic birds.
Complex patients require complex solutions. Safely operating an aquatic environment requires skill and knowledge.
Duckweed is food! Duckweed is a filter! And how that helps us in many ways!
Part of operating pools correctly means controlling waste water responsibly! The frog pond that neighbors our facility doesn’t want pool chemistry dumped in it. You can’t be an ally of wild animals without being an ally of habitat.
Pools for Pelicans, Cormorants and Gulls have their own requirements. Here we take a look at how water is recycled for this pool.
A well functioning “bio-filter”…
Keeping the pools clean does require some skills! But we all get the hang of it eventually. Practice makes perfect!
Each pool has its quirks. Here we discuss a small pool and how its principles can be scaled to accommodate different volumes and species.
Wrapping up and answering questions… all in all, a very successful workshop!
Our wildlife hospital in Bayside, California, Humboldt Wildlife Care Center, provides a perfect setting for developing our workshops, trainings and labs – improving available care for wild patients is a critical part of Bird Ally X mission. If you are a permitted wildlife rehabilitator we can bring this workshop to your facility. Contact us though this website for more information. And if you’ve supported our work, thank you! You make it possible! And if you want to help, donate today! Thank you!
How this bird was ever rescued was the product of the two ingredients we rely on the most: the unlikely timings of coincidence and intuition combined with the intentional timing of preparedness. Early in the morning last Tuesday, Humboldt Wildlife Care Center staff rehabilitator, Lucinda Adamson, woke up early from a dream about seabirds. Now Tuesday is Lucinda’s “Saturday” – the first day of her weekend – and getting up in the early hours of the day and heading to the beach might not be the first thing she wanted to do, but she thought she might as well go have a look. So off she went, equipped wth towels and a net, in case she found any seabirds stranded.
The surf has been rough and the waves large for most of November – and our clinic has been admitting more seabirds. We currently have several in care, recently released several more and will likely see many more seabirds before the end of the year.
As soon as Lucinda got to Samoa Beach she found a bird. A Pacific Loon (Gavia pacifica) tangled in a lost scrap of fishing net. Scooping the bird up she brought him into the clinic just as staff was beginning the workday. Some mild teasing about working on her day off was in order, as we moved to admit the entangled loon.
On the beach at the moment of rescue -, any loon on a beach is a loon with a problem. If you see something say something!
Derelict fishing gear, improperly discarded fishing line, hooks, and lures are estimated to kill thousands of wild animals each year along California’s coast. At Humboldt Wildlife Care Center, we don’t see many birds entangled, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. This Loon was found early in the morning, when the tide was low, during inclement weather on a deserted beach. That he was found at all is incredible.
Fortunately, although both feet, both wings and even the bird’s head and neck were caught in the net, no injuries except for a few mild abrasions were noted. The net slipped off easily. After a quick examination, we realized that bird was indeed very lucky – no serious injuries, thin but not yet dangerously thin, and still very alert and strong. After the exam we put the Loon in our new seabird pool to test his feather condition. Again, he was in better shape than many – waterproof, immediately diving, able to stay in the cold water and thrive. Now all he needs is time to regain lost weight.
The small scrap of net that had very nearly killed this Pacific Loon.
A moment during the examination after three days in care.
In our pool, waterproof and doing well – with a good prognosis, this loon is beating the odds.
This Pacific Loon is one of the luckier victims of derelict fishing gear. Most die at sea. Loons that make it to shore are often so debilitated that their chances for recovery are poor. Less than 50% of our patients impacted by are able to be released. If it wasn’t for your support – none would be. You provide the resources that enable us to take care of less common patients like this Pacific Loon, as well as pay staff members like Lucinda, who’s dedication and willingness to follow her early morning intuition rescued this bird from certain death. We rely on you, now and always. Thank you for your support!
Orphaned Mallard patients from 2016, learning about 
Our three young Mallards who are currently in care, under a heat lamp in our indoor housing. Soon they’ll be old enough to be housed outside.
Nestling Swallows (2015) receiving their regular feeding – soon these birds would fledge into our Songbird aviary where they continued to be fed while they learned to fly and eat on the wing. 
Every year for the last 5 years we’ve provided safe haven and bits of mouse for a 
Every year we care for several 
The most common reason for young 
A 
Every summer we save lives, preserve wild families, and give unfortunate victims of accidents and human intervention a second chance. This juvenile
Each year 
An aquatic bird housed in “dry-dock” needs protective wraps to guard against injures from even the softest solid surfaces. Even with these measures, the patient still must get back to water quickly.
Gavage feeding is necessary when a patient isn’t able to self-feed.
After a week in care, she’d started eating on her own, and with our help, she was waterproof.
This is a very soggy bird using her haul-out. 50˚F water isn’t comfortable for warm blooded animals without thir protective shell. Aquatic birds rely on their feathers to satay warm and dry.
Using a very mild detergent and warm water, the Grebe was quickly washed. From here she was palced in a warm water pool where she essentially rinses herself, finishing the job. Another day of preening and she’ll back on top of her game. A hidden camera caught her as she works to reolve her feather issues in private. She also likes fish!
And then she was gone. Our intimacy with her is done. She returns to her rightful place, out of our hands.
A deep laceration on the Harlequin’s face would likely have lead to her death had she not been spotted and rescued.
While a 
Searching beneath the waves…
And finding food!
At home again.
Discussing our Duckling Pond, used for orphaned Mallards (
Learning how to keep water flowing through our aviary suitable for ducks, geese, 
For the untrained eye, rocks and water, for the trained volunteer, each component here is critical to providing good housing for certain species of aquatic birds.
Complex patients require complex solutions. Safely operating an aquatic environment requires skill and knowledge.
Part of operating pools correctly means controlling waste water responsibly! The frog pond that neighbors our facility doesn’t want pool chemistry dumped in it. You can’t be an ally of wild animals without being an ally of habitat.
Pools for Pelicans, Cormorants and Gulls have their own requirements. Here we take a look at how water is recycled for this pool.
A well functioning “bio-filter”…
Keeping the pools clean does require some skills! But we all get the hang of it eventually. Practice makes perfect!
Each pool has its quirks. Here we discuss a small pool and how its principles can be scaled to accommodate different volumes and species.
Wrapping up and answering questions… all in all, a very successful workshop!
On the beach at the moment of rescue -, any loon on a beach is a loon with a problem. If you see something say something!
The small scrap of net that had very nearly killed this Pacific Loon.
A moment during the examination after three days in care.
In our pool, waterproof and doing well – with a good prognosis, this loon is beating the odds.
