Weekend Releases!

     This past weekend we released two patients that have been with us for over a month: A Herring Gull and a Mourning Dove. It is always a great thrill to release patients after a long recovery.

     The Mourning Dove, who had been with us since late January, came to us with a neck twisted ninety degrees to the right side. This torsion of the neck made him unable to stand or eat on his own. Many birds suffer a twisting of the neck (called Torticollis) after a sudden head-on impact (typically with cars or windows). This is typically not a permanent problem, but takes some time for the neck to straighten out. When we admit birds with this problem, we make them as comfortable as possible while the torsion slowly heals. We must forcefeed all of these patients, as they are unable to feed themselves.
     After some time, the dove was finally able to right himself and began to stand and eat on his own. His head was no longer tilted. Once we were sure that he was stable, he put him in a large outdoor aviary where he would be able to fly and get acclimated to the outdoors again. After about 10 days of being in our protected aviary, we decided he was flying well enough to be released! We thank the compassionate donor that brought this injured dove to us, and wish him luck in the upcoming Spring!

      The Herring Gull was admitted to us on February 5th. A concerned couple found him while walking on Jones Beach. He was not moving, and both of his wings were hanging on the ground. We took the gull right away to get X-rays, and discovered he had not one, but fractures in both of his wings. This poor gull had really been through a lot! We suspect he was struck by a car.
      We were instructed by our veterinarian to keep him in a smaller enclosure while his wings healed, because any excessive movement of the wings could impede proper healing of the wing. After a few weeks, we moved him into a larger enclosure, and started giving him daily baths where he could bath and stretch his wings after a long period of inactivity. We also started putting him outside for the day in an outdoor aviary. His wings seemed to have healed well, as they were no longer hanging and were back in the proper position! We started to test flight the gull daily. His first few test flights did not go so well, which was to be expected after a long period of inactivity. Much to our delight, things changed yesterday. We tested his flight in our large, open 'recovery' room, where he flew around the room and was able to gain height. We decided that he did not need to be with us any longer, and released him later that day at a beach with many other gulls!

It's That Time of Year...

 Spring is just around the corner and here at Volunteers for Wildlife we are excited as we prepare for the 2012 baby season.  We rehabilitate several types of baby animals at our clinic including Eastern Cotton Tail rabbits, Eastern Grey squirrels, Virginia Opossums, and various species of native song birds.  With lots of hard work and a little TLC we try our best to return all of these orphans to the wild so that one day they will be able to have offspring of their own! One of my personal favorite species to work with is the Virginia Opossum, which is the only native Marsupial in North America.  Female opossums can give birth to up to 26 baby opossums at once; however only 13 are able to fit inside the mother's pouch and survive.  When they are born, these tiny babies can be as small as a jelly bean!  Young opossums will continue to grow in the safety of their mother's pouch and when they get too big to all fit together in there they will venture out and catch a ride on mom's back! 

One of our resident opossums, Millie, was an orphaned baby at our hospital about two years ago.  Unfortunately, Millie's mom got hit by a car, but because all eight of her babies were snuggled safely in her pouch they were able to survive.  Millie and her siblings were kept warm and fed often so that they could grow big and strong and be released out into the wild when they were ready.  As time went on, the staff at VFW started to notice that in this group of young opossums there was always one that seemed to have more interest in the human staff than in her own siblings.  For some reason, this little opossum was friendly toward people and didn't have much fear of anyone taking care of her.  Due to Millie's docile nature, she became a permanent resident at our education center and she now works to teach people all over Long Island how great Opossums are!  Shown here are pictures of Millie with her siblings as a baby (top) and Millie taking a stroll in our animal garden at Bailey Arboretum (bottom).

Exciting Upcoming Events!

Another warm winter week has quickly gone by here at the hospital. We've had an exciting week with several education programs and the release of an adult Mourning Dove that suffered a fractured wing after having been hit by a car. We released the dove on the South Shore near where he was found and he flew beautifully!

We've taken time in the last few weeks before our spring baby season begins to plan some exciting events open to the public. We hope you'll be able to join us for a few this spring!

Sunday, March 18th: 1:00-2:00 pm
Raptors of Long Island!

Come visit us at Bailey Arboretum and meet our resident Birds of Prey up close! Admission is free! Nature hike to follow with Bailey Arboretum's Dan Kriesberg.

Sunday, March 25th 1:00-2:30 pm
Photography Day with Volunteers for Wildlife!

Calling all Photographers! Join us for the incredible opportunity to photograph our resident animals as you learn about their natural history and role on Long Island. Program fee of $20/ photographer. Please send an email to wildlifeadvisory@gmail.com if you are interested in attending.

Sunday, April 22nd 12:30-2:00 pm

WILDLIFE BABY SHOWER!

Join us to welcome spring and learn all about young wild animals. We will have crafts for kids, games, live animals and more! Admission is free. "Baby shower gifts" from the following list are greatly appreciated.

Produce:

Strawberries, Blueberries, Raspberries, Romaine, Kale, Chicory, Frozen Vegetables (especially corn), Bell Peppers, Mushrooms, Grape Tomatoes

Other Food Items:

Natural Peanut Butter, Fresh/Frozen Mussels/Clams, Unflavored Oats

Items to Keep the Babies Warm:

Fleece Baby Blankets, Sunbeam Non-Auto Shutoff Heating Pads

Cleaning Supplies:

Sponges, Dish Soap, Bleach, Baking Soda, Bleach, Unscented Laundry Detergent

Happy Weekend Everybody!

We’ve had a busy last couple of days at our hospital. After a thorough check-up with a veterinarian that specializes in avian medicine, our Lesser Scaup was deemed healthy and ready for release. Although he had a steel pellet lodged in his side from this past duck-hunting season, our vet ensured us that the pellet would not interfere with his flight, and that many birds live with pellets in their bodies for their whole lives. We decided not to wait another day to release our Scaup, who has been in the custody of various animal hospitals since mid-January.

When we release any animal, we make sure that there are other animals of the same species in the area. This is especially important with birds which need to join a flock. We took a short trip to a pond in Oyster Bay where we discovered many male and female Lesser Scaup, as well as Buffleheads, Canada Geese, Mallards, and Mute Swans. This was the perfect spot for our Scaup! We went straight back to our hospital and released our little guy right away. He was very excited to go and quickly integrated himself with some other Scaup buddies.

We also released an Eastern Grey Squirrel that had been with us since September. We admit many orphaned baby squirrels every year, which we must raise on our own and then release once they are old enough. In order for our squirrels to properly acclimate to the wild, we release squirrels in places where we can provide food and shelter for them for as long as they need it. This is called “soft releasing” and is a common technique used by wildlife rehabilitators. Since I released the squirrel in my yard, I had a squirrel nestbox set up in a tree and a plethora of food ready for her for the next couple of weeks. Many squirrels move on to another home after only a couple of days, and some take much longer than that. When they decide to leave really depends on the squirrel!

Other events of note include a program we did on Sunday, February 5th about the winter adaptations of mammals. Our program featured our permanent Virginia Opossum siblings Martin and Millie, as well as Wyatt, our permanent Eastern Grey Squirrel. The program was followed by a fun and educational hike through Bailey Arboretum with Dan Kreisberg.

Here comes February!

Happy February and Groundhog Day!

As many of you may have seen, our resident Great horned Owl, Marcus, was featured on the cover of Explore LI in Tuesday's Newsday. Many people have seen the story and come by the arboretum to meet our resident wildlife. The photos for this shoot were taken several weeks ago by LI photographer Heather Walsh . As always, our resident animals were captivating and photogenic.


Things have started to pick up a bit in the hospital and we know spring is not far around the corner! In the last few days we admitted another Mourning Dove and a Lesser Scaup. The Mourning Dove was another unfortunate victim of a car collision. He was in rough shape on arrival but is improving slowly. The Scaup came to us from a local veterinarian on the South Shore. This little duck was shot with a pellet. We have a follow up appointment with our veterinarian tomorrow but so far he is eating and swimming well. In addition to the lodged pellet, he also is missing some of the webbing from his feet. For many diving ducks, they rely on their webbed feet to help them catch live fish. Luckily for this scaup, his species consumes slower moving food like clams, crustaceans and insects in addition to aquatic plants and seeds. As long as he can overcome the injuries from the pellet shot, we think he'll have a good chance back in the wild. Here he is in the tub:


Yesterday, we visited one of our favorite elementary schools on the South Shore with our owls, hawk and falcon. We love going to this school as the teachers and students are so enthusiastic and excited to see the birds! We will be returning tomorrow for the final two of the five programs. Here is Addie, our Clinic Assistant, handling Solomon (Barred Owl) for one of our programs!

Lastly,on Sunday at 1pm, we'll be participating in our first Nature Adventure at the Arboretum! Come on down to meet our Virginia Opossums and Eastern Grey Squirrels and learn about the wonderful adaptations of our local mammals! Following our program, a nature hike with Bailey Arboretum's naturalist will take place at 2 pm. We hope to see you there!

January Thaw

This past Saturday, we woke up to snow blanketing the ground! On Sunday, we had a busy day with a new volunteer orientation and a visit from a local reporter writing a story on our new home. We filled many open volunteer shifts through this orientation and we will be working to get our new volunteers well trained prior to spring's baby season!

Now, the weather appears to have done a total 180! The snow has all melted and we are enjoying 50 degree temperatures and sunny skies! With the nice weather this week so far, our permanent resident animals have had lots of enrichment time outside of their enclosures. Below is Wyatt, our resident Eastern Grey Squirrel, on a morning romp in the yard:

Also enjoying some time outside her enclosure was Millie, our Virginia Opossum. Millie is pictured here sitting atop our brand new fence.

Here's another picture of the fence. It fits in so well with the feel of our new home!

On the rehabilitation side of things, we continue to provide care to three Eastern Grey Squirrels, a Herring Gull and a Mourning Dove at our hospital. The squirrels are progressing along nicely and two moved to outdoor cages in preparation for their release soon. The third squirrel won't be too far behind them!

New Year, New Home!

Happy 2012!

We're back on our blog after a long hiatus for our construction and move to Bailey Arboretum!

We open up this brand new year in a brand new home with beautiful surroundings. Thus far, January has been fairly quiet with animal patients, likely due to the warm temperatures we've been experiencing. We have taken full advantage of this "off-season" by completing some very important projects before the fast approaching spring baby season! These projects include shelf installation, building indoor aviaries, an outdoor turtle garden and enclosures for ducklings and juvenile squirrels.

Now that the holidays are behind us, many schools and organizations are scheduling education visits with our engaging resident wildlife. Last week, we headed out to the Daly School in Port Washington to teach some very enthusiastic students about our resident owls. During the program, the students had the great treat of hearing our male Great Horned Owl (a Port Washington native himself) hooting in both of our hour long programs!

Today, we conducted two "Living with Wildlife on Long Island" programs at PS-33 in Queens Village. About 190 third graders learned about the fascinating tree climbing abilities of squirrels and unique pouches of North America's only marsupial, the Virginia Opossum, from our Education Volunteer Alice.

To add to the excitement of our week, installation just started on our new split rail fence surrounding the aviaries of our resident birds of prey. This fence is the first step in building an interpretive nature trail through our permanent raptor aviaries. The fence should be fully installed by the weekend. Come spring time, the area will have plantings and interesting signs to adorn the trail as well!



We look forward to keeping you posted on the latest happenings in our hospital!
Best wishes for a happy and healthy new year!