In life and death

Whenever a bird dies at the wild bird center from unknown circumstances we try to do a necropsy. A necropsy is basically a post-mortem examination on a non-human animal. Just like an autopsy, but again, not on a human. I started doing necropsies on deceased patients when I was an intern at the Florida Keys Wild Bird Center in Tavernier in 1994. My mentor at the time, Laura Quinn, thought that these experiences were crucial for wanna be rehabilitators and was always annoyed with the interns that baulked at the idea! When a patient would die, and if time allowed, we would perform the procedure out back behind the hospital that housed the intensive care patients. Laura had a table set aside for the task and all the tools she would need. In the "olden days" we used to spend 20 or so minutes prepping the bird carcass for the necropsy by plucking its chest feathers so we could have access to the skin. If you cut through the feathers with shears they tend to fly everywhere! Later, I learned a much, much easier prep technique while attending a necropsy workshop at a wildlife rehabilitation conference. Simply spray lots and lots of rubbing alcohol on the bird's chest and the feathers become matted rather than flighted. A lot of the species we work on are either water resistant or waterproof. Using water doesn't do a dang thing! However, the oil or powder that the birds' use to accomplish their water resistance are no match for rubbing alcohol.

When doing a necropsy with Laura it wasn't an exact science. She would open up the carcass and point out the vital organs. Sometimes they would be healthy looking and, after a number of these necropsies, it wasn't hard to recognize unhealthy tissue. When I participated in the conference workshop I learned a few more techniques. Namely a necropsy should always be performed in the same manner...A to Z. I exclusively rehabilitate birds and therefore have only done less than a half a dozen necropsies on mammals. These were usually done with a volunteer veterinarian because their insides do look different than birds and if you don't know what you're looking at the procedure is basically pointless. The A to Z manner starts with always placing your specimen in the same position. This makes it easier to recognize "where you're at". The first step is to examine the bird externally before you even begin to dissect it. For example, check feather condition and around all the orfices for blood, clumped fecal matter, oozing, etc. I look inside the mouth and ruffle feathers looking for parasites such as lice and mites, too. After the feathers are matted with the alcohol I use a sharp scalpel and strip away the skin that covers the chest. I examine the muscles underneath for things like bruising and more parasites. Once the carcass is completely open I usually start at the top. I look to see if the bird had any body fat, the color of the tissues, or any lacerations such as a torn liver. I check that the lungs are a healthy neon pink. If they are pale, the bird may have suffocated. If they are gray or greenish, the bird may have inhaled water. Blood in the lungs from a collision is also pretty obvious. I look at the organs. Do they all seem to be what I'd consider normal in size? Is there fluid or fat around the heart? A huge bag of fluid around the heart could mean that the bird died from heart failure. I check the inside of the trachea for plaque. I've never seen it inside a bird, but once witnessed the necropsy of a sea turtle and was told by a world renowned veterinarian that what I was looking at was considered pneumonia. I check the contents of the stomach and push things around (or remove them if need be) to take a look at the kidneys and other organs that may be hiding behind the liver. Birds have the unique ability to shrink their sexual organs to 1/18th the size they need them to breed with when not in breeding mode. I have learned that the older the bird is the easier it is to even find these itty bitty organs. Testes for males and a cluster of eggs (which looks like itty bitty grapes) for females. I have even necropsied an adult pelican before and simply was unable to find its sexual organs at all!

There's a lot to be learned from necropsies and I try to do them with interested interns and volunteers at my own facility. Some say, "No thanks," while most say, "Cool!" The experience is fascinating and not something that makes most people squeamish. I will admit that I will probably never be witness to a human autopsy because I have found that even watching fake ones on TV, like on CSI, does make ME queasy! More often than not the results of a necropsy does provide us insight as to why the animal died and this makes the time it takes us to do it even that more valuable.

The other morning we found one of mature permanent double-crested cormorant dead in our main flight pen. It happens. Some of these birds are old and have to die, that's part of "Life and death". However, we couldn't help wonder if that was the cause and took the time to do a necropsy. I was lucky enough to have on hand an intern, Rob Qually, who aspires to be a zookeeper. Together we went through the A to Z procedure. When we opened the carcass I was able to point out to Rob that what we were seeing was definitely not normal! The lungs were oddly dark, the bird was large but had no body fat and it's liver was not the normal maroon color it should have been. Also, right way, we could see that the stomach was full yet hard and distended. We opened the stomach and were shocked to see its contents. A tight clump of feather shafts! We removed the cluster and counted 30 feather shafts and two twigs about the same length of the feathers. I had never seen anything like it! Apparently this cormie had an eating disorder. His craving for feathers had obstructed food which explained his lack of body fat. The impaction most likely led to organ failure, hence the discolored lungs and liver. Behind the liver we also observed discolored kidneys. The cause of death appeared to be a disease known as Pica,

a medical disorder characterized by an appetite for substances largely non-nutritive. Who would have thought a bird, specifically a double-crested cormorant, could have such a thing?!

We also had on hand a new patient that had come in the night before. A laughing gull that Rob had rescued from a local beach. The caller had described to me a gull that wouldn't fly away and was drooping a wing. Rob had said that he had not observed the bird drooping its wing when he rescued it. It had died during its first night in the hospital. The bird was emaciated, having no visible body fat. This time, however, the tissues and organs were of normal color. I mentioned to Rob we should investigate the shoulder areas as, like I said, the caller had said the bird had been drooping a wing. We peeled back more tissue to reveal the shoulder area. Here we found something. A lot of necrotic (dead) tissue. Necrotic tissue is black and dry. As we continued to cut into the necrotic tissue I saw something unusual. Within a moment we had a cause of death. I easily extracted a two inch fish hook from the necrotic tissue. The hook had obviously snagged on the bird quite some time ago and had worked its way into the bird's body, namely the shoulder joint. The cause of death was starvation due to the bird's inability to fly to places where it could find sufficient food.

Necropsies may sound like an unpleasant procedure but can reward those who do them with vast knowledge. I have probably done at least 500 necropsies and it not only helps me to identify causes of death, but as Laura Quinn originally explained to me, helps me to also understand how the body works when it's alive. I know where the organs are and this allows me to make educated guesses as to how to better help a bird if it sustains an injury in a particular area. For example, if a bird has a hook in its chest, close to where the heart is, the hook may have penetrated the heart. I would want to x-ray the bird to confirm this prior to attempting to simply remove the foreign object. Also, internal injuries, such as a bleeding liver, may be the case if a bird hit a powerline and sports a bald spot on its abdomen in that vicinity. Bed rest before exam could mean life or death for this patient. And by the way, the size of Rob's eyes when we came up with two conclusive causes of death told me that he thinks necropsies are "Cool!" not "Gross!".

It's a boy, no it's a girl!!!

For those of you who know I'm expecting my first (human!) baby in a few weeks, you might think today's blog title is referring to my own little hatchling. Well, it ain't so! That little tidbit of information, boy or girl, won't be known until the wee one literally makes its appearance! Today's title is in reference to some of our educational birds whom we recently had sexed.

A few years ago we sent a blood sample of our osprey out to the lab for sexing. When Oliver first joined our non-releasable educational bird staff in 2002 I hadn't seen an osprey for many months. My first thought was that it was a female. Female raptors are larger than male raptors. For a lot of bird species it happens to be the opposite, for example female pelicans are smaller than male pelicans and female cormorants are smaller than male cormorants. It just so happens, in the world of birds-of-prey, the female is bigger and sometimes by quite a lot. That being said, as I mentioned, I hadn't seen an osprey in a while and "thought" the this newly acquired bird seemed, to me, to be rather on the large side. Therefore, I named the osprey Olivia!

After we'd had "Olivia" for a few weeks we took in another injured osprey. And guess what? It was much larger than "Olivia", hence I reconsidered my decision that Olivia was Olivia and renamed it Oliver! By the way, I'm a fan of olives, that's how come I chose Olivia/Oliver for the osprey's name. In fact, I had always thought I might name my own child Oliver if it was a boy, but after having an osprey named Oliver for over 8 years I now feel like the kid would someday ask, "Why did you name me after a bird?" Needless to say Oliver was scratched off my "Baby names list" a few months ago! Ok, so Oliver it is for the osprey. But, am I really sure it's a boy?

In the world of bird species where the sexes are different sizes there is always that "gray area". For example, if you're not good at simply looking at the overall size of a brown pelican and tossing out your guess for male or female you can always make a guess based on bill length. Plenty of studies (and of course I don't have any references handy to footnote here!) suggest that if the bill length is 10 to 11 inches, the brown pelican is a female. If the bill length is 11 to 12 inches, the brown pelican is a male. Well, that means that a brown pelican whose bill is 11 inches could be a male OR a female, right?! But, in the world of osprey it is "commonly noted" (again, sorry, not references to footnote!) that female ospreys behold a "necklace" of brown feathers across their upper chest. In other words females have a narrow band of brown feathers from one shoulder to the other across what is otherwise a solid white chest of feathers. But...this isn't carved in stone! And in fact, Oliver, our smaller (?) osprey has what I'd describe as a sketchy necklace of brown feathers across his supposed (according to overall size) male chest! Good grief! Is he a he or not???

Not that it really matters, as the bird isn't going to interrupt an educational program to say something like "Hey, would you stop calling me Oliver...I'm a female for goodness sake!" But...sometimes we just want to know! So, a few years ago Oliver broke a blood feather. This is a new feather growing in that still has a blood supply to it. With this broken blood feather came a bit of a bloody mess. We quickly took Oliver off display and into the hospital. The part of the feather that was still in his wing, wicking out his blood supply, was quickly pulled to halt the leakage. And since we had an optimal blood sample, we dab a dot onto a nice white index card. A second card was pressed over the blood drop on the first card. This not only flattened the blood spot, but provided us with a back up sample...should the US mail or lab lose the sample we sent. No worse for wear, Oliver was then returned to his habitat and the blood sample was sent off to a well known lab (for sexing zoo animals) along with some basic data such as what species of bird the sample was from and an identification name or number and a check for $20.00. I believe this was in 2005 or 2006.

A few weeks later we received a letter from the lab. Sex for osprey [identification Oliver] indeterminable. What? After we had patiently waited to know once and for all the lab was claiming "we can't tell"? I called the lab and spoke with a representative who told me that they simply didn't have male/female references on file for osprey. I told her that if I got one in that died that I would necropsy it and send her a "proven" blood sample for comparison. She agreed to the plan. And surprisingly, a week or so later, a beautiful osprey (with a distinctive "brown necklace") arrived after being struck by a car. Unfortunately, the bird died within an hour from internal injuries. Right away I suspected this osprey was female because (a) it was really large and (b) it had a very obvious necklace across its chest. A necropsy (think autopsy for animals) proved that to be true. I took a blood sample, in the same fashion as I had from Oliver, and sent it off to the lab. Only to be disappointed again when a few weeks later the lab sent a second letter to say they simply didn't have the right testing materials (I can't remember exactly what they called it) to compare this positive female's blood sample with Oliver's sample that they had kept on file. Ugh!

So, for the next four or five years we continued to call our osprey Oliver and assume he was a male with a slight brown necklace. That brings us to the present. A few weeks ago I posted on a wildlife rehabilitation Q&A site, that I'm a member of, inquiring of other fellow rehabbers to suggest a different lab that they have used for DNA sexing of some of their educational birds. The response was very much in favor of a lab I had never heard of. I contacted the lab by email and asked if they had had success determining the sex of several different wild bird species. We had a turkey vulture that we'd named Daisy, never sure if this bird was actually a female, and a relatively new member to our collection, a burrowing owl, we call TJ. All of this was spurred by a broken blood feather from my own personal pet cockatiel, KC, whom I have always assumed is a boy. This assumption was based not only on his ability to talk -- they say female cockatiels don't chatter as much, but that's already been proven not to be a sure thing as I know some female cockatiels that do -- but the fact they my little KC likes to get busy pleasuring himself on a perch in front of a mirror almost every morning! The lab responded with an email that said yes, they've tested numerous osprey, vultures and burrowing owls. So volunteers and I got busy and collected blood samples from Daisy, TJ and, poor thing, Oliver! And with a check to cover the $19.50 fee for each sample, off it all went in the US mail last week.

Today, I received an email with the subject line "DNA Test Results". I was surprised at how quickly the lab had produced the results and opened up the email with much anticipation! And low and behold! My dear KC (cockatiel) is definitely a MALE. Daisy, the turkey vulture, is in fact a FEMALE and Oliver, the osprey, is indeed...a MALE!!! The big surprise was TJ. For some reason I had always thought TJ was a male. But, no, TJ is in fact...a FEMALE! So there we have it! Definite answers to a rather irrelevant question. I say irrelevant because, in fact, it doesn't really matter to anyone but those of us who "feel" that the birds are male or female, something we simply wanted to verify so we wouldn't feel guilty giving a boy bird a girl's name or a girl bird a boy's name! TJ, for the record, stands for Tomato Jelly...a name bestowed upon the owl because it came in a week after a good friend to the bird center passed away...and what I remember the most fondly about this gentleman was that the evening he invited me over to his house (he was in his late 80's at the time) he was eagerly awaiting my opinion of a special treat he'd made me...tomato jelly (aka aspic)...yuck!

What idiot would stop on a bridge?!

Ahhhh, the quiet days of summer! I don't think the phone rang but once today and it was for a bird 50 miles away! Luckily it was in another facility's "territory" so I simply gave the caller their number. I did tell him to be sure to leave them a message, they may be out on a rescue, but that if he doesn't get a response out of them to call me back in 15 minutes. The reason I do this is because I've talked to too many callers that get frustrated while trying to do "a good deed" and they get upset saying "Everyone keeps telling me to call someone else!" Once when this happened the caller said I was the 20th (or so) phone call he'd made. I said, "Really? You should have called me first, it would have saved you some time!" I was in a joking mood that day, but there are days when rehabbers are simply stressed to the max and have been known to be a little short with callers, myself included!

When the tenth call comes in for a "bird on the 7-Mile Bridge" the fearless rehabber thinks, "Gee, can't ANYONE stop for the bird before it becomes road pizza?" but the logical rehabber knows that it is a very dangerous situation and a call to the local sheriff's dispatcher for the nearest cruiser in the area to provide the experience rehabber with an escort is the better way to handle it. I once drove a few miles onto the 7-mile Bridge looking for a reportedly injured pelican with a good friend of mine who runs The Turtle Hospital in Marathon. They rehab sea turtles here in the Keys. When the call came in I was visiting him and he said "Let's take the ambulance!" The ambulance is just that, an ambulance for injured sea turtles! He said when we got there he'd turn on the rotating lights on the top of the ambulance (orange, not red and blue!) and he'd jump out and grab the bird while I went to the back of the van and threw the doors open to receive it. The plan was for him to quickly hand me the bird so we could resume driving and get off this rather narrow bridge. We saw the bird in the northbound lane, but since we were in the southbound lane he pulled the van over here and jumped out. He held his hand up to stop traffic. This allowed him to cross the lane and scoop up the bird. As he turned around the lady who had stopped for him had already resumed driving and almost flattened him. What would it have taken for her to wait a whole minute versus ten seconds so he could safely return to the ambulance?!

On this same bridge years later I got a call about a downed osprey. Here we go again, the 7-mile Bridge, but to boot it was a cloudy, rainy day! I grabbed a volunteer to go with me since it always helps to have someone know who I am if I get creamed by a restless driver! It will make the police work easier! Just kidding, sort of! Two sets of eyes looking for a bird on a long bridge like this comes in handy. When I saw the bird I was frustrated to see that "some idiot" had pulled up to the bird and was exactly where I would prefer to be pulling up for such a quick and dangerous rescue. Here I am, usually aggravated that no one stops and when someone does I feel like they're in my way! The person hadn't even exited their vehicle yet! I jumped out of mine (in the rain, remember!), ran past the first vehicle and tossed a towel over the bird in a flash. As I scooped up the bird and stood up I turned around to come face to face with the driver of the vehicle. "Kelly! I'm glad it's you," said the person. I couldn't help but smile, "Rick! I'm glad it's you!!!" I responded to our local sheriff Rick Roth! Rick and I have a history that has to do with ospreys and he's a known "bird magnet" -- someone who has rescued their share of injured birds. No more had to be said because both Rick and I knew that stopping on bridges was dangerous. "See ya!", I said to the sheriff. "Later!" he replied as we both hopped into our trucks and pulled back into traffic. I like friends like that! Those that can communicate without all the small talk!

Ahhhh, again, the quiet days of summer! I have lots of little stories to fill in quiet days like today! But it's been a long day and an oppressively hot one at that so hi ho, hi ho, off to home I go!

Don't tell me how to do it until you've walked a mile in my sandals!

Today was a day I kind of hoped would never come. But, it is inevitable. A good friend of mine has said to me many times that there's only ONE thing in life we have to do and that's die. Well, another dear friend of mine is doing just that. Her name is Laura Quinn and she is the founder of the Florida Keys Wild Bird Center in Tavernier.

Allow me to tell you how I met Laura, the one woman who gave me a chance. In 1993 I had been laid off (every other week!) from my job as a computer graphic artist in Providence, Rhode Island. During the weeks I wasn't working I freelanced in Boston for a company that paid very well on an as needed basis. This allowed me a lot of unexpected free time. One afternoon I read an ad in the local paper for docents (education volunteers) at a small zoo in my neighborhood of Attleboro, MA. How cool! I wanted to "play" with animals in my spare time and the training was to start soon. So I signed up.

The program was what I considered long at the time! About three hours every Saturday morning for 6 or 8 weeks! But it was fun! Until one day when the Curator of Education at the zoo, Kevin, announced that today's class would be led by his good friend, Sue, who was an ornithologist. An ornithologist? Isn't that a "bird-hugger"? Good grief, how boring, was all I recall thinking. But Sue wasn't only an ornithologist (a scientist who studies birds, not a "bird-hugger"!) she was a "bird lover". And when someone is truly passionate about a subject it isn't long before they captivate their audience with tidbits and stories that suck you in! I remember learning that birds were different then other animals and that were "light for flight" (meaning they had a high metabolism and processed their food quickly). There body temperatures were even high -- 105 degrees Fahrenheit...something that would be deadly to a mammal. And there was so much more that sank in, but I just can't think of it all at the moment. By the end of class that day I was fascinating. Not to the extent that I was a new found bird lover, but I definitely started to consider birds as animals, something I hadn't really given any thought to previously!

Later at the zoo I met a lady named Jane. Jane was hired by the zoo to raise funds. Jane was a neat lady who shared many great stories with me and basically (pun intended folks!) took me under her wing! One day Jane mentioned she had a hawk in her basement. What? A hawk where? Why? Jane explained that she was a licensed wildlife rehabilitator. This was interesting as I had never heard of such a thing. Jane told me that she took in sick and injured wild animals and tended to them. When they were better she would simply release them. How cool, I thought! I want to do this. Jane gave me my first pair of baby starlings to raise. Not a particularly popular bird because they are considered an invasive species. As a matter of fact you don't even need a permit to raise them. Next Jane gave me a nest with three baby American robins. I'll never forget the one that wouldn't open his mouth and beg like his two siblings. I didn't want him to starve to death so I pried open his mouth and put food into it, forcing him to swallow. He was dead in the morning! Jane assured me that I didn't really kill him, some are just not meant to make it. And then there were the squirrels. A handful of baby squirrels that reminded me of Velcro. They were cute as buttons and I could walk around the house with them stuck to my winter sweaters like, what else, Velcro!

After a few months Jane could see my enthusiasm for wildlife rehabilitation wasn't going away and gave me a booklet published by the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council. This booklet listed all the wildlife centers in the country, and some overseas, that offered internships. A live-in opportunity, on a volunteer-basis, to be saturated in wildlife rehab. Most internships were for a minimum of six weeks, some for as long as six months. There was only one problem. It seemed like they ALL wanted intern candidates with animal experience. In other words, if you weren't studying to be a veterinarian or you weren't currently a veterinary technician, they were not interested in you applying to their internship program.

But, alas, there were just two facilities that didn't disqualify you for simply being interested in animals and wanting to help those that could not help themselves. One facility did it all. They rehabbed marine mammals, small mammals (ie. raccoons and opossums) and birds. They were in Washington State -- brrrrr! The other facility exclusively rehabbed birds. They were in some place called the Florida Keys. I had never heard of the "Florida Keys" so I dug out an atlas and looked them up. Boy, was I surprised! There were actually a chain of islands along the most southern tip of the state of Florida called....the Florida Keys! Who knew! Now, you've got to remember I was living outside of Boston when all of this happened. And it happened to be January and as I looked out the window it was beginning to snow...again! This would make the eighth snow storm to dump one foot of snow on us in a matter of weeks. Not likely a hard decision! Florida Keys, here I come!

I figured I could learn on birds and return to Massachusetts to tend to my dream animals...skunks and porcupines! I wrote a letter addressed to the contact in the booklet, a Ms. Laura Quinn, founder of a place near Key Largo called the Florida Keys Wild Bird Center. I was well aware that the other facilities in the booklet were hot for applicants with animal experience so I played up what little I had with gusto. In truth I had never seen an osprey, but, while visiting Cape Cod, I had looked into an empty nest with a friend. In the abandoned nest were, of all things, a shoe and a cloth doll! I added this tidbit to my letter telling Ms. Quinn that I was fascinated with this particular species. I was, even if I had never actually saw one! I thought the fact that a bird would put a shoe and a doll in its nest made it quite fascinating! I waited patiently for a response, thinking I was sure to be rejected. But then one day a return letter came. It said welcome! The letter gave me some details but mentioned I should call Ms. Quinn for the specifics. I did.

Ms. Quinn gave me more information on the phone and asked when I would be available to come down to the Keys. She told me that I could fly down and a man named Lloyd would pick me up at the airport if I wanted. She said that this Lloyd scared some of the girls because he drives around with a gun on the front seat of his pick up truck (FYI -- Lloyd Brown has been my best friend for over 16 years! As a matter of fact we visited Laura together today). Or I could drive myself. If I did this then I would be in Key Largo after driving through 18 miles of nothing (18 miles of nothing turned out to be the 18-mile Stretch and to this day I still think of Laura's description of it -- which, in my opinion, is hardly "nothing" -- every time I drive through it!). When I hung up I had sealed the deal! I was going to the Florida Keys for six weeks to learn wildlife rehabilitation from Laura Quinn in April of that year, 1994!

After driving from Massachusetts to Florida (I can't remember how long it took, but I do recall stopping for the night just outside of Miami) I arrived at the Florida Keys Wild Bird Center in Tavernier...the fabulous Florida Keys! Unfortunately, when I got out of my car and walked in, the place was empty, not a soul in sight. As it turned out it was lunchtime. My first impression was that there was a sickly little kitten in a box on the desk. A kitten? At a bird center? Huh? The next thing I noticed were multiple copies of a single sign that were posted on almost every wall in the room. The sign said, "Don't tell me how to do it until you've walked a mile in my sandals!" All I could think was hmmmm.... someone's the boss! And then walked in Laura B. Quinn!

Well, that's enough for now! During the next few weeks (or days) Laura is slowly leaving this planet for a better place. I am blessed that this time I spent with her and Lloyd today was one of her "good days" and that she was eager to go to the shoreline to feed her beloved birds. Cancer is eating away at this wonderful 83 years old body and she had to be carried down the stairs and placed in a wheelchair, hooked up to oxygen. Even though she never quite smiled she said a word or two that made me think that she was indeed "with us today". Whether she recognized me or not, I don't know. I did tell her as I was leaving that I was about to "hatch" a baby, a "fledgling" of my own, and rubbed by seven month bump. And, more than anything, I'd told her that I hoped that she'd hang around just a few more weeks to meet it! That was the hardest part and I purposely didn't say good-bye, but rather I'd see her soon!

What's silver & red & goes 60 mph?

Fish in a blender! lol Over the last two days we've taken in three double-crested cormorants. Two immature and one mature. All three are severely emaciated although only one has an injury. It's injury is that it is walking on one of its foots turned upside down. Or rather the foot is curled under and it is walking using the top of that foot. A new volunteer today asked me what happened to make the bird do this with its foot. My response was I didn't know. The bird doesn't want to talk about it! Ha ha ha -- classic answer!

The bird is very weak so we actually waited a day to see if it would survive it's first 24-hours before splinting it's foot in the correct position. Without a splint on the foot it doesn't take long for the skin on the top of the foot -- which it is walking on -- to wear through. On this part of the foot there is no muscle under the skin so when the skin is gone the tendons and nerves would be exposed. Once the tendons and nerves come in contact with a surface, such as the ground, they are quickly destroyed. If the bird's foot was to get to this stage it would eventually lose the foot and that would be the kiss of death for a cormie. Cormies swim underwater and need both feet to do this successfully so that they can swim swiftly to catch tasty fish!



The cause for the state of emaciation (starvation) that these birds are facing was explained in a previous post on August 6th entitled "A pretty quiet week". The protocol is to warm the bird's body up to at least 106 degrees Fahrenheit, rehydrate their cells to kick-start their internal systems and then offer them food. The first 24-hours they are gavaged fluids. To gavage a bird you first warm up their fluids between a range of 100 and 110 degrees. Then you suck the fluid up into a syringe put a tube on the end of the syringe and slide the tube down the bird's throat dispensing the liquids directly into their stomach. Additional sterile fluids can be injected under their skin. On Day Two the birds are tubed with plain fluids in the morning followed by 3-4 additional gavages of fish soup.

Hence the title! Fish, either capelin or thread herring, are put in a blender. About 8-12. Then fluids are added and away we go. We blend the heck out of it...on liquify, of course...then strain it through a food strainer -- we call this tool a pureer. The pureer separates the liquid and meaty flesh from the fish scales and bones. Though scales don't have much nutrition, the bones might add calcium, but they also tend to clog the tubes attached to the gavage syringes. And believe me, when this happens and the whole things explodes on you, your clothes and the bird your first instinct is to laugh! Then you realize you're going home really smelling like fish today! Before we gavage the bird the fish soup we add liquid vitamins. The soup can be warmed up, but only in tiny increments of 10 seconds in the microwave. It doesn't take long to "cook" fish soup! If it can't be served at the ideal temperature then so be it, but it should at least not be cold. The bird would have to spend valuable energy warming up the nutrients just injected into its stomach.

I learned years ago (16 of them!) that if an emaciated cormorant is going to be saved (and I think their chances are 50/50) then they will live past three days. If they do well on Day One with fluids, Days Two and Three with fish soup then hopefully they'll be much more perkier and ready for some small easy to digest fish, such as smelt, on Day Four. Sometimes though we jump right to tiny pilchards. A tad harder for them to digest, but guess what? Smelt comes from the Great Lakes and pilchards are found locally. Which would you eat? A green garden cucumber or a sea cucumber?!?! We tend to opt for the more familiar which, in the case of a bird that almost starved, could be a matter of life or death. If the bird recognizes the food it is offer (and by the way, smelt float, and upside down at that, while pilchards sink on their side) it not only eats but often has a look on its face like "Yeah, finally...a decent meal in this place!" 'Til next time!

Turkeys in Marathon?!

I just received a call from a lady asking if I'd heard about the turkeys on 83rd Street. You know the kind, the ones we eat for Thanksgiving. I told her that I had not heard about them but that we would take a drive down the street to check out the report. She even said they had the red skin "like turkeys." I sent a volunteer over to see what he could see. If anything they might be a few turkey vultures. Turkey vultures usually head north for the summer but we've noticed quite a few have decided to hang out in the Keys for more sun and fun. The turkey vulture did, in fact, get its name because it has a head free of feathers and red skin. Well, the volunteer just got back and said he saw nothing. Either the big ole turkeys are hiding in the "woods" or they were turkey vultures who did their job (ate up some tasty roadkill) and went on their merry way!

And now for an update about the cormorant that arrived last week with the swollen ankle. His progress over the weekend continually improved so he was moved to outside to our the PT habitat. PT is short for physical therapy. This particular habitat was constructed last summer right outside the hospital so that we could keep an eye on particular patients. Some stay in it during both the day and night, while other weaker birds might enjoy some fun in the sun and then be brought inside for the night. The habitat does wonders for a bird's mental health because, let's face it, it's not normal for a wild bird to be inside where it can't feel the sun shine. We're lucky that our ICU (intensive care unit) for the birds is an old carport that is screened in. They don't get sun in the ICU but our patients can still hear the sounds of nature all around them. The PT is about 20 feet by 12 feet in size. In addition to the native thatch palms that we left undisturbed when we built it (they provide a feeling of security for the birds who sometimes hide behind them) is the 500 gallon saltwater pool. This pool allows the birds to bath -- again, a mental health perk -- to just hang out around it or to exercise injured feet and legs. Most of the birds that utilize the PT are cormies and pelicans...also known as waterbirds.

As for the cormie with the swollen foot, he is doing well. The swelling has not gone down at all, but that might take another week on the antibiotics. He's using the foot so there's no need x-ray it. If the antibiotics don't have much effect after another week we may decide to lance the swelling to try to drain out some fluid. This isn't an option now because we don't want to provide an opening for new bacteria to get into the trouble spot if we don't have to. The procedures we follow here at the Marathon Wild Bird Center come from our hands-on experience after seeing the same types of injuries over and over and over again for the last fifteen years. During that time we've tended to over 10,000 birds of over 80 different species. So, what we can do we are doing and what we don't know yet will reveal itself soon...!

A pretty quiet week

It was, in fact, a quiet, if not stifling hot, summer week at the Marathon Wild Bird Center. Everyone seemed exhausted by the heat and humidity, but we managed to keep laughing. Earlier this week we received a juvenile double-crested cormorant from a local marina. It is severely emaciated (starved) with a swollen joint at the foot. We are extremely hopeful that this particular bird will make it since it has been perky and alert since day one -- always a good thing!

Adult DC cormorants do not teach their offspring much in the way of life lessons before they basically kick them out of the nest at 10 weeks of age. By that time they are full grown (size wise) but with lighter feather color and brownish eyes. As they mature their feathers turn darker black and their eyes become dark blue then light blue. As "abandoned" youngsters they must learn to survive by watching others. If they hang out with the "smart kids" they have a better chance of finding themselves in good fishing grounds and quickly master the skills they'll need to catch these dang things! If they aren't paying attention they may end up with "the wrong crowd" cormies and eventually perish.

When a young cormie lacks the skills needed to catch its own supper it eventually doesn't get any nourishing food...or fluids for that matter because those are found in its food. Cormie's can drink saltwater, to some degree, because they have what are called salt glands behind their eyes that excrete the excess salt out of their system (ah, if only humans could do that!). However, a hungry, thirsty cormie who's basic body system is beginning to shut down due to emaciation is not necessarily thinking straight. The bird survives in this state by living off its body fat before its major organs start to fail. When the kidneys start to shut down the bird's blood is no longer being cleansed as it should. Without the toxins removed from its blood it begins to act, what else, intoxicated! This is the state we often find these young cormies in. Callers regularly say, "My kids are petting it right now" or "It's walking right down the middle of the highway". Red alert here! A cormie, in its right mind, would never allow a kid to pet it...but would rather bite it in the arm or, worse yet, take a stab at "fending off the enemy" by lunging for some one's eyes! An intoxicated bird senses no harm and is lack in judgement...hence the wandering down the middle of a busy highway.

Though we cannot show a cormie how to survive in the wild, we can, if we're lucky, halt its path towards death and bring the cormie back to health...to give it a second chance to learn to survive in the wild. How successful are we at this? Well, in reality, we just don't know. We have yet to receive a single postcard from one of our released cormies saying, "Hey, just wanted you to know that I made it. I'm an adult now with a family of my own! Thanks!" No kidding, not one postcard!

To do this we first follow a basic protocol. When the bird comes in it is examined for injuries. The cormie mentioned above didn't have any "injuries" but we did notice that its right ankle was more swollen than its left ankle. We dusted the bird for feather lice and checked inside its mouth for mouth lice. The Ortho Sevin dust we used to kill the feather lice worked and the mouth was free of lice -- good so far. Next we gave it 20 ml of lactated ringers that we injected under its thigh skin. This is a good way to start rehydrating the bird. We then slipped a tubed down its throat and injected 40 ml of a Gatorade-like solution to "wet its whistle"! This oral rehydrating process is repeated every 2-3 hours until we leave for the evening. The next morning we injected more fluids under the thigh skin and offered it some antibiotics (now that it was more rehydrated) to combat the swelling in its foot. What we absolutely DO NOT DO is offer it any fish until we notice that its urinates (pee) is coming out white, not yellow. When the urinates are yellow we know the bird is still dehydrated. By late afternoon on Day 2 we start to see white urinates and the bird is active...walking around its cage and looking at us like it's never seen us before -- even though it's been there for 24 hours or so. Don't forget it was "intoxicated" when it arrived!

After its 4pm tubing on Day 2 we offered it some soft, easy to digest fish. Not a lot, just two. It snapped them up from its water bowl like it thought we were never going to feed it! This is a good sign, but the biggest thing here is for us not to get over eager. Volunteers often think, gee, it really seemed hungry so I'll give it some more. But we don't! The body's response to solid food can be a shock so we have to give it time to adjust. If all goes well, meaning the bird doesn't regurgitate its snack in the next two hours before its next tubing, then we can increase the amount by two more fish. Another important fact here is not to stop giving the bird its fluids via an oral tubing because (1) it's eating or (2) it "appears" to be drinking water from its water bowl on its own. It should be two or three days of good self-feeding before the oral rehydration (at least three times a day now) is ended. And for that matter it won't hurt to continue to give it oral fluids in the morning to "cleanse its system" for another three or four days.

Well, that will have to do for now. It's Friday evening and time to go home. I'll be back in the beginning of the week to let you know how the little emaciated cormie with the swollen ankle from the marina is doing after this, what else, hot and humid weekend we're rolling into!

No sign of momma

Well, it's been 48 hours and we removed the Hav-a-Hart trap from the marina where the baby raccoons were found mid-day Sunday. After we put the babies in a small carrier we tossed in an old towel. We used the towel as "bait" in the trap hoping to lure the momma raccoon in so we could reunite her with her kids. Unfortunately, though there was no sign of the momma coon noising around and the trap remained empty. Once the trap was set up late Sunday, with the tainted towel as bait, it was checked the following morning by a volunteer, the following evening by a marina resident and then finally removed this morning by a volunteer.

Returning to check a trap regularly is a tad inconvenient, but essential. If the animal does go in the trap then it is just that, trapped. If the sun shifts the animal may overheat or it may attract ants, the worst being fire ants! If the trap isn't checked regularly the animal may also go way too long without food and water. Usually a trapped animal, after their initial panic, will calm down, and if their surroundings are quiet, eat the bait. For coons we usually use dry dogfood as bait, but in this case we were trying to entice momma coon with the scent of her adorable little kids.

Regardless, this weekend's orphaned baby raccoons will remain in the care of Nancy Chatelaine until they are old enough to be released on their own. This could be anywhere between the ages of six months to one year. The babies will first learn that Nancy is NOT the enemy, but rather their new momma. She will, afterall, be the one providing them with the yummy formula to fill their empty bellies. As youngsters they will also quickly learn to play with other coons their age and eventually to eat solid foods and to forage for these tasty treats on their own.

Before long these two coon babies will be released into a large hardwood hammock of suitable habitat with a number of their newfound friends. As sub-permittee working under my wildlife rehabilitation permits Nancy, along with her husband Ritchie, are permitted to capture, transport, rehabilitate and eventually release small mammals. Before releasing the animals, however, they must have the landowners permission. Animals cannot be released on state owned property, such as in state parks. Once released, Nancy and Ritchie will return for several days in a row, probably at dusk when the coons are most active, and deposit some piles of food around the release site. This will provide the youngsters with a meal to snack on while they continue to fine-tune their hunting and foraging skills. This is called a soft-release.

Many thanks to the kind folks at the marina for calling us for help when they found the two baby coons quivering in the corner of their tiki pavilion, to the volunteer who drove the babies to Nancy, to the volunteers that checked on the trap and mostly to Nancy (and Ritchie!) who will add these two orphans to their ever growing family of baby coons this summer!

Our "side job" -- baby raccoons

There are two wild mammal rehabilitators in the Florida Keys. Both are currently working under my licenses. They tend to all the sick, injured and orphaned squirrels, opossums, raccoons and bats. Karen Dettmann of Ark Angels has been voluntarily doing this out of her home in Tavernier for almost 30 years and Nancy and Ritchie Chatelaine of Raccoon Rescue have been voluntarily doing this out of their home in Big Pine Key for over 3 years now. Thank goodness! If it weren't for these kind folk the Marathon Wild Bird Center would probably be known as the Marathon Wildlife Center.

We specialize in the rescue, rehab and release of sick, injured and orphaned wild birds, but...we are also the Middle Keys ambassadors for small mammals! What that means is that if there is a mammal in need within our established boundaries we deal with it. Luckily, though, we can usually arrange transport to either of our two fellow mammal rehabbers within 24 hours and unload the patients pretty quickly. We love helping the mangie, snarly adults, but also the ability to hand them off... The babies are, as all babies are, adorable! We'd love to tend to them ourselves except that there is a knack to getting them to take a bottle after they've become used to their moms' nipples (which, for both parties involved, is at least a 3 day frustrating transition) and, let's face it, we have enough to do with the birds as it is!

Today the MWBC responded to a call of two baby raccoons tucked away in the corner of an outdoor tiki bar/picnic table pavilion at a local marina. Not the normal place a momma coon would leave her babies and not the time of day she would normally even be out foraging. Once we arrived we asked some more questions of the folks who found the coon babies. How long have they been there? They noticed them a couple of hours ago. Have they seen them before? Never. Have they seen the mom raccoon around at all? Nope! As much as we hate to "kidnap" babies, this particular situation sounded like, for whatever reason, the two 10" babies may have indeed been orphaned. The location wasn't close to the highway so it was unlikely the mom had not returned because she'd been hit by a car, but it was possible someone in the neighborhood 100' to the east may have trapped and relocated the mom considering her to be a "nuisance".

We took the babies and called Nancy. Nancy agreed to meet with us to receive the babies, but suggested that we toss a little towel in with them for an hour or so before driving to Big Pine Key. She said this way we could set out a Hav-a-Hart trap, with the towel as bait, where the babies were found and hopefully their scent would encourage her to go in the trap. The momma be identifiable by her engorged nipples. If we did catch her Nancy would reunite mom and babies and, since the babies were indeed old to follow mom to some degree, release them in a safer location.

Obviously this post will have to wait to be continued...