Day: 1

Today was my first day at the sanctuary!! I am SO excited to share it with you! However I guess we aren’t supposed to put pictures of the animals on facebook so this will be the only place where the pictures will be available (haha they’ll never know I posted them).

In my first 5 minutes working at the sanctuary we lost three birds and we tagged three birds! It was really exciting to actually be working with the animals. To tag the animals Amy and I had to weigh them, put a small zip-tie on their foot, and record the weight and band color.

Right off the bat, I had to deal with the obstacle of losing an animal. It was sort of relieving to get it out of the way. It’s terrible to lose animals but it happens.

My next task (after trying to remember everyone’s names) was to tend to the baby room. When a baby animal comes in, it is placed in this room (along with a few other non-baby animals). I had to clean their cages and feed them. In this room I worked with baby possum, a large number of different baby birds, ducklings, baby owls, and a ferret.

Feeding the birds was fun. They would chirp and chirp and chirp until you fed them. Once they were full it was like their body automatically shut down and they just fell right to sleep. It was lights out.





And the possum would all congregate in a little corner. There was like 10 of them in the cage too! They would sleep together and when we put the food bowls in they would grab a piece and go back to their huddle in the corner. It was adorable. And when we took them out to clean the cage, these little guys would hiss and show their teeth and act like they were tough stuff. When in reality they were no bigger than 3 to 5 inches.





I also got to hold a baby bobcat which was incredible! I love cats and holding that little guy was so much fun.



After the baby room I had to go clean the big bird flight area. It’s a huge pen with different birds of prey like Bald Eagles, Golden Eagles, Turkey Vultures, Red-tailed Hawks, and a Crested Caracara. The birds just hung out while we hosed down the area. They would fly over and get kind of close because they were curious little buggers. There was one turkey vulture that liked to play with the handle of my bucket (we had the buckets to pick up the parts of chicks and mice that the birds didn’t eat). He would play with the handle and the look up & stare at me when I threw something in there. Funny little shit.


The flight area.


One of the Red-tailed Hawks

After the flight area, I explored the bird rehab area which is where birds are kept who are injured and cannot live on their own. There were some pretty bad ass birds in there.


This is Luna. She would peek through the boards and bark like a dog.


Luna the Great Horned Owl


Perri the European Eagle Owl


Amanda the Crested Caracara


Iffy the Golden Eagle


Red-tailed Hawk


CPA the Barn Owl


Golden Eagle

I also got to go into the snake house and help Stefanie (one of the staff) feed the snakes. She really taught me a lot about the different snakes in the house. Stef fed one of the snakes right in from of a group of kids, turns to me and says, “Uh oh… I’m going to get in trouble for this”. Haha





During the day I did another round of feeding the babies, prepared a nice bucket full of different fruits and veggies for the deer, and I also helped get new bracelets for one of the education owls, Sable.

It was a very tiring and fulfilling day. I had an incredible time. I am doing what I love and I can’t wait to go back bright and early tomorrow morning!

After I got home I jumped in the pool for a little relaxing with Aunt Nikki and mom. It was sooooo amazing. But then my Aunt thought it would be cool to go on a 08923478237200523409523 mile long walk. But guess what! We only walked half of what she normally walks. Haha (Love you Aunt Nikki!) I am looking forward to our walks with the right shoes. :)

Now I’m going watch the rest of The Book of Eli (can anyone say a movie that is exactly like Fallout 3?) with the rest of the family and hit the sheets. I’m pooped.

Night!