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Furry Friday
2009-May-29, Friday 09:53 amThanks to all the donations that we received, we made our fundraising goal of $1 million this year. That's a huge accomplishment, given the nature of the economy these days.
I've been too busy lately to visit the animals myself, though, so I don't have any of my stories about them for this issue. Instead, I'll pass along another narrative that I received last year. It was the experience of a coworker's daughter.
So after finding an injured "baby" bird with no tail feathers, just a smudge of yellow, that won't fly. He lets you get real close and has been stuck there all morning. I quickly see if there is someone who can help. I put him in a small dark quiet box with plenty of ventilation. Only an hour later it starts to move around. Huh, I think to myself. I do a bit more research on birds that eat the berries from Mountain Ash...which the bird was pooping out quite frequently. It turns out that this little fella looks a lot like a Cedar Waxwing....who incidentally has yellow at the end of it's tail. I think to myself....maybe it's just a baby and drunk on some berries. So I go to the box and open it up...the darn little thing tries to fly out. SO...he can fly?
I take him outside to where he was to release him...he perches on my finger and flies away. Only he make it to the middle of the road where a street sweeper nearly misses him, all while he stands inches away as it goes by. Then another car goes by and swerves to miss him. As I see that another car is coming...I walk to the middle of the street to get him to move on and he jumps on to my finger. I quickly cross the road as I am in the way....and then hold the bird close to me a bit and carry him back to where I found him, to the near by Mountain Ash Bar. There I see more of his brothers and sisters all getting drunk off of the same tree. He jumps and flies away to greet them.
She talked at some point with our Wildlife department for help on figuring out what was happening with this bird. Another employee mentioned that her parents had a mountain ash tree in their yard and the crows there were large enough "to stagger convincingly" when they got drunk. *laugh*
I've heard of apes (chimpanzees?) getting drunk and falling out of trees and even having hangovers the next day too, but I didn't know that birds did the same thing.
I've been too busy lately to visit the animals myself, though, so I don't have any of my stories about them for this issue. Instead, I'll pass along another narrative that I received last year. It was the experience of a coworker's daughter.
So after finding an injured "baby" bird with no tail feathers, just a smudge of yellow, that won't fly. He lets you get real close and has been stuck there all morning. I quickly see if there is someone who can help. I put him in a small dark quiet box with plenty of ventilation. Only an hour later it starts to move around. Huh, I think to myself. I do a bit more research on birds that eat the berries from Mountain Ash...which the bird was pooping out quite frequently. It turns out that this little fella looks a lot like a Cedar Waxwing....who incidentally has yellow at the end of it's tail. I think to myself....maybe it's just a baby and drunk on some berries. So I go to the box and open it up...the darn little thing tries to fly out. SO...he can fly?I take him outside to where he was to release him...he perches on my finger and flies away. Only he make it to the middle of the road where a street sweeper nearly misses him, all while he stands inches away as it goes by. Then another car goes by and swerves to miss him. As I see that another car is coming...I walk to the middle of the street to get him to move on and he jumps on to my finger. I quickly cross the road as I am in the way....and then hold the bird close to me a bit and carry him back to where I found him, to the near by Mountain Ash Bar. There I see more of his brothers and sisters all getting drunk off of the same tree. He jumps and flies away to greet them.
She talked at some point with our Wildlife department for help on figuring out what was happening with this bird. Another employee mentioned that her parents had a mountain ash tree in their yard and the crows there were large enough "to stagger convincingly" when they got drunk. *laugh*
I've heard of apes (chimpanzees?) getting drunk and falling out of trees and even having hangovers the next day too, but I didn't know that birds did the same thing.