Squirrel Diaries, Part 1

Three squirrels came home with me one evening. The SPCA had six baby squirrels slated for foster care because they could use a little more attention than the squirrel-innundated wildlife department could offer: three girls about the same age and size, and a boy and two girls just a bit older.

They were all eastern grays – light brown with white underbellies – but the boy was a black variant. I knew the little guy had an injury that might require extra care. But I didn’t realize I was taking him home until I picked him up and one eye flew open. He gazed at me with one big black eye… the other was sealed shut.

“Oh my god,” I exclaimed. “Is he blind in one eye?”

The vet-tech chuckled at my alarm. “No,” she reassured, “it’s just not open yet. Sometimes that happens – one eye before the other. The other eye will probably open tomorrow.”

I looked down at him again. He eyed me with his one big eye. He looked not fearful or handicapped, but calm and brave – jaunty even. Like a pirate. Mark had to see him.

Yaaar matey! – I said to him telepathically. Pack yer bags, yer coming with me.

With One-Eyed Blacky came two girls. One was a bit larger. Her head was a bit bigger than it should be, possibly a little swelling from a fall from the nest, possibly a congenital condition that might lead to troublesome complications. She was tagged with whiteout on her ear so we could keep an eye on her. When I picked her up, both eyes popped open. Hello girly, you’re with me too. No dying on me, okay?

Her sister was smaller, almost scrawny. Her eyes were closed when I picked her up, but she calmly turned her head then tilted it up to face mine. Both eyes were blind, for now – their promise marked in place with sweet, simple slants.

These were my squirrels, on loan for a while from Mother Nature and the Peninsula SPCA. By the following day, Mark would name them Rufus, Zelda, and Emma.

One-eyed Rufus:

Whiteout Zelda:

Blind Emma:

Day 1: 7 am. I’m up and working. I am thinking about the squirrels in the living room, but haven’t heard a peep. I plan to feed them around 9.

8 am: Breakfast. I hear rustling. They’re up. Their last feed was at 7 pm the night before so I figured they were hungry. The scratchy sound of squirrel-nails against cardboard seemed to confirm my suspicions.

I go to the kitchen to draw up their formula. 8 cc’s in each syringe, a rubber nipple on top, filled syringes go into a jar of hot water to warm. Baby squirrels won’t touch cold formula, which makes sense when you think about it. And I was told the microwave kills crucial nutrients, so hot water it was.

I had spent two shifts feeding baby squirrels in the SPCA, so I knew what to do. But I was a little nervous about these three because they had just come in and had been fed only once by hand. Though I was told all baby squirrels eventually get used to it, it can take a while. These three had certainly gone some time without mother’s milk before being brought in, so I wanted to get as much food into them as I could.

Zelda. When I opened the box, Zelda was the one roaming around, alert and hungry, so I picked her up first. With the jar of warming syringes and a box of tissues nearby, I sit with a couple handtowels in my lap and a squirrel in my hand.

(One last bit of information: A good squirrel mama, with babies this young, apparently licks her babies’ nether regions to stimulate them to pee and poop. This also awakens the sleepy and gets them revved up to eat. Much as I already loved these kids, I was not about to lick their nether-regions… light brushing with a tissue would have to suffice.)

I hold Zelda up and see if I can get her to pee or poop. Nothing. She looks at me like I’m crazy and obviously wants to get on with it, so I set her in my lap and pick up a syringe. She has no idea what that is, so I nudge it into her mouth and give her a squirt of formula.

I can almost see the lightbulb over her head as she starts chewing on the rubber nipple, then starts to suck. She gets it. She settles down and sucks down the whole syringe in a minute or two. Success!

With full belly, Zelda happily settles back into the box, crawling under a towel to find the warmth of a sibling. Emboldened, I take the next victim…

Rufus. Rufus also has nothing to offer in terms of bodily evacuation, but he had probably hadn’t eaten much the night before, so I wasn’t alarmed. I am happy to report that he still had only one eye open, Mark would get to see our one-eyed pirate later that night.

After a moment of confusion, Rufus also took to the nipple. He chowed a respectable 5 cc’s before calling it quits. At the SPCA, we are swamped and only feed them a few times a day, so we usually force-feed reluctant squirrels to make sure they get enough for the day. But since these kids were home, I figured I’d sneak the last 3 into him later.

Not waiting to get back into the box, Rufus crawled under the towel in my lap and curled up into a food coma.

After a moment, I carefully ease this warm squirrel bun into the palm of my hand and transport him to the box. I lift the towel and slide him in next to Zelda.

Emma. Emma hated the nipple. Like a stubborn baby with little squirrel teeth, she clenched her jaw shut and squirmed when I tried to get the nipple into her mouth. I heard her telepathic message loud and clear – You are not getting that thing into my mouth. I am definitely not chewing or sucking on it. And that liquid you just squirted into my mouth?… Disgusting!

We struggle mano a mano, with me squirting and her only swallowing the tiniest bit, letting the rest dribble down her fur. We went through 2 cc’s, but less than 1 made it down her throat. I didn’t have the heart to keep torturing her, so I wiped off her fur and loosened my hold.

Free but still sightless, she sniffs the air, feels her way around my lap then under the towel. Then without blinking a proverbial eye, she heads down my pantleg. She is outta there – Emma the Intrepid, Emma the Brave.

With a laugh, I unhook her tiny, sharp squirrel claws from my pants and bring her back to my lap for another try. Still a reluctant participant, but not as determinedly difficult as before, she lets me squirt 3 cc’s into her mouth before she wiggles free and clamps her jaw shut again. That made almost 4 altogether. Not great but better than nothing.

I return her to the box. She marches in and curls up with Rufus and Zelda. A sweet squirrel bundle.

10 am: Snack time. Determined to make up for breakfast, I warm up the remaining Emma and Rufus formula and head over to the box.

With a tissue, I got a few drips from Emma, still nothing from Rufus. But more to the point, they both woke up and finished their portions. I actually feel a little bad about Rufus because he clearly would have eaten more, but 3 cc’s was all that I had for him. Emma still refused to chew or otherwise engage, but she begrudgingly swallowed what I gave her.

12 noon: Lunch. It’s beautiful out, so I decide to feed them on the back step. I figure the fresh air and direct sunlight might be a more appropriate location for squirrel feeding. I was immediately proven wrong.

Emma the Intrepid refuses the nipple resolutely, jaw and body tight. I stop harassing her with the nipple and release her for the moment. I feel for her — she knows that nothing is right about a person holding her and putting a rubber nipple and reconstituted powdered formula into her mouth. She is waiting and hoping for her mother to return. I love her for her loyalty, but it starvation is not an option. Not on my watch.

Emma spends a good several minutes sniffing the air and heads resolutely away from my lap into the great unseen unknown. Surely her mother must be around here somewhere, I feel her thinking.

I let her explore but keep bringing her back to my lap. Eventually, I am rewarded for my patience. After a good ten minutes of exploration and corralling, Emma finally accepts the nipple into her mouth and starts to chew awkwardly. (I still have to squirt the formula in her mouth.)

She takes 4 cc’s. Only half of what she’s supposed to get, but better than nothing. And more importantly, we have come to a detente.

I coax a few drips out of her before moving onto…

Rufus. Still nothing coming out of him, but after taking a good one-eyed look at his surroundings, he sucks down 5 cc’s. I wonder if snack time was a mistake and decide to wait the full 4 hours before trying to feed them again.

Zelda. In the dictionary under the word voracious, you should find our girl. Despite the shining sun, bird chirps and light breeze, her couple of steps on my lap were clearly just a search for the nipple. I couldn’t get it into her mouth fast enough. She takes the full 8 and then pees like a racehorse. She is a champ. And, I am happy to report, no neurological ticks in sight.

We all survived our first morning together.

(Stay tuned for more squirrel adventures….)

The Squirrel Diaries: A Prologue

I have, in my possession, three squirrels in a box. It is a small box, roughly eight inches by six inches and six inches tall. The sides of the box angle up so you can close them together into a handle. When closed, it looks like a house.

It is a box in which one can carry small creatures. And I have three — three baby squirrels….

How did the bird lover end up with three squirrels, I hear you wondering. First, let me say that I am a fan of all creatures great and small. But the real answer is — it is baby squirrel season, part deux, at the Peninsula SPCA where I volunteer.

Ends up, squirrels have two mating seasons: One in early spring, which occurred before I started volunteering in the wildlife department, and one in late summer. So here we are.

It is perfect timing, because I was on the verge of empty-nest syndrome…. all of the baby birds who had chirped and fluttered their way into my heart were grown and released. Just as I was getting melancholy about that, the squirrels appeared — lots and lots of squirrels, several at a time.

I tried not to think too hard about their poor, hardworking mothers who were taken by predators or poisoned by humans aiming for rats. Instead, I focused on learning what I needed to know about helping their babies grow big and strong.

After a couple shifts of learning how to feed the squirrels, I was finally sent home with three. They were young and would do better with 24 hour care: 5 feedings a day, 8 cc’s of formula each time.

I had powdered formula and the syringes and nipples I needed to feed them, extra towels and heating pads to keep them warm, and three baby squirrels in a box.

They had already had their last feed, so when I got them home I moved them into a larger box and watched them root around and settle in for the night.

I was nervous about being a bad foster mom, and maybe having to bring them back to the SPCA in defeat. But I loved them already and could not believe that I had three squirrels in a box.

After watching over them a while, I went to the kitchen to make their first batch of formula then I put myself to bed. Tomorrow, I would see how good a squirrel-momma I could be…

Let the adventures begin!

The Wild Parrots of the Inner Sunset

The parrots have arrived!

The colorful, sociable parrot is considered one of the most intelligent birds around, up there with crows, ravens, and jays. They originate from tropical and sub-tropical territories, but their conspicuousness and sociability made them easy targets for capture and export for centuries.

According to one website, a pet parrot first appeared in European literature in 397 B.C. (1) In the 1900s, parrots became such popular pets worldwide, that despite new conservation laws, they constitute 30% of the birds on the endangered species list. (2)

Some of those that were captured, exported to the San Francisco, and enslaved for our amusement, eventually found an open window and escaped — starting a local flock in the late eighties. An unemployed (and apparently unemployable) musician, Mark Bittner befriended the parrots and logged their travails for years. His resulting book and documentary, “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill,” catapulted the birds into fame.

My (eminently employable) Mark and I watched the movie a couple years ago, and he has since reported seeing them in Pacific Heights. But the Cherry-Headed Conures, a.k.a. the Red-Masked Parakeets, have apparently tired of the staid exclusivity of the mansions…. For the second year in a row, they have arrived in the Inner Sunset!

While slumming it, these redheads have found delicious snacks in my neighbor’s tree. They seem to show up for only a couple weeks each year — well-timed, I suspect, with the ripening of the fruit or nuts on that mystery tree.

You hear a parrot long before you see one. Now that I recognize the sound, I had my camera handy….

Note, the hardy beak used to crack a tough nut also makes them expert gymnasts!

Parrots are raucous, flocking birds by nature. I offer this video so you can imagine the racket they create around the $30 million dollar mansions in Pacific Heights!

On a final note, if you’d like to keep a parrot or parakeet, please take in an abandoned bird from a shelter or rescue organization. Do not encourage the illegal parrot trade that stocks pet stores. They are destroying the remaining wild parrot population in Mexico and around the world.

Power to the Parrots!

References:
1. Fun history.
2. Enslavement and the extinction of a species.

General parrot information:
Wikipedia

Adopting a parrot:
General information
Rescue/adoption organizations by state

New Beginnings

I have been accused of making people cry with my last post, so I wracked my brain for something wonderful enough to make amends. I’m sorry it has taken me this long, but gathering my source materials was a bit tricky….

I should start off by saying that I have been volunteering at a nearby humane society. The Peninsula Humane Society and SPCA has a wildlife department that takes in injured wildlife all year. In the spring and summer, they become innundated with baby birds.  So for the last two months, I’ve been volunteering on Wednesday afternoons to help feed and care for these birds. It is the very best part of my week.

I have been too busy running from the incubators to the baskets to the outdoor wire cages (for babies, to fledgelings, to almost-ready-to-be released birds, respectively) to ask the wildlife vets all the stats. e.g. How these birds make their way here, how many survive, and where they will be released. I hope to fill you in some other time. But for now, I give you a small window into the joy I experience every Wednesday from 4 – 8 pm.

First, the baby birds. They are kept in incubators at the appropriate temperature. We feed them during the day every 15 or 30 minutes, depending on the species, and we try to keep them clean. (Some species make a point of backing up and shooting their business out of the nest, some are used to momma bird carrying their business away — we do our best, but it doesn’t always look that great!)

Some babies take some time to adjust to the fact that momma bird has become extremely large and funny looking, so I occasionally have to hold one in my hand and carefully pry her little beak open to get food into her, but after a while, she adjusts and turn into this…

As they get older, we move them into laundry-type baskets, feed them once an hour and start leaving food so they can learn to eat on their own. What I love is how similar and different birds can be. For example, Western Scrub-Jays are bold and noisy, but as you will see here, some are more personable than others. (And, strangely, their cousins the Stellar’s Jays were silent and standoffish.) I didn’t catch the best version of it, but what I love about these jays is how they actually gurgle and sing as they swallow. When you are eye-to-eye with them, it’s a joyful sound.

Notice, the video begins with me feeding goop to a barn swallow. The next shot is the same swallow a week later with adult feathers and eating adult fare.

And later, there’s a brief snippit of a woodpecker (through the side of the basket) who was getting a mealworm. He’s the only one we got this summer. And that day when I was washing the dishes for the night, I heard the funniest thing — the quiet tap tap tap of beak against plastic!

Basket birds graduate to outdoor cages. We check on cage birds every two hours to feed the few stragglers who still want to be fed. But cage birds are usually eating on their own, mastering flight, and getting ready to go. Finches will never admit that they are full, but some are just a little more fearful than others. I fed the fellow in this first bit from incubator to basket to cage, and he did his neck-contortions the whole time! The Scrub-Jays, sadly, no longer needed me. I was disappointed they wouldn’t gurgle-sing for me any more, but they were ready to go back into the world — which is really what this is all about…

A brief note about my last post and an apology: Mark thought it was amazing that I was trying to save the hummingbird. And he stood by my side on the porch as the little guy zipped away. If I made him sound heartless in any way, please understand that it was purely accidental — just me trying to condense the story and move the story along.

– Sorry Mark! Be glad I don’t write about us for a living! And please know I would have never have made it this far without you…

While I’m at it, another apology to my beloved Maggie who is really sick of my ignoring her for the sake of the crazy screeching birds trapped in my computer!

Heartless Hummingbirds, Revisited

I wrote the following post before my mother’s health turned. I post it here as originally written. An epilogue follows…

November 11, 2008

You might say my history with hummingbirds is one of wary distance and mutual disrespect (see Heartless Hummingbirds).

Since that single hummingbird visit to my feeder — clearly an act of desperation by a starving bird, followed by marked distain for all of my further attempts at hospitality, I began to see and hear hummingbirds all over town. Whipping from flower to flower, chasing each other around, sitting still in bushes and trees. They were everywhere, but not at my back porch. I decided it was time to release my resentment. My mother was the magical one who attracted her hummingbird disciples, I would have to settle for enjoying their presence in the world.

A few months later, everything changed.

It’s 7:30 am, my phone rings. I hear the machine pick up and the voice of my downstairs neighbor. “Loretta,” she tells my machine, “I’m late for work, but I wanted to let you know we have a dead bird on our steps. Would you deal with it?”

I hear her slam her door shut, head down the stairs, and close the gate.

A dead bird? Good morning to you, too, world. After an unhappy moment, I crawl out of bed to investigate.

I go down the stairs and see nothing. I figure Jane had hallucinated and head back up. Then I see it – a very small, very dead-looking hummingbird huddled in a tight ball on our cold brick steps.

It was a message from the universe: You get the dead ones – Ha ha!

I run upstairs for a box small enough for a bird-coffin, line it with a tissue, and come down to collect the body. The bird must have flown into our stairwell, gotten disoriented, maybe hit a wall in the dark, then collapsed and frozen in the cold. It was its time, and this was the place.

The body was so light, I could almost blow it into the box.

Back upstairs, I stared down at the small bird, sad and a little afraid to touch it. Emerald green feathers on his back and wings, he had a black neck and a shimmering red breast – a Ruby Necked, I thought, just like the ones that visit my mom.*

The sun streamed through the window onto the kitchen counter, so I figured – Well, it couldn’t hurt. I put the box on the counter and started washing the dishes and making coffee.

Mark wanders in, looks over my shoulder at the bird and says, “Sorry baby, it’s dead. Want me to take care of it?”

I’m gonna give it a minute, I tell him. Mark takes another look at the bird’s lifeless body, pats my shoulder, and heads to the shower.

I stand there, listening to the coffee brew and staring at the bird when it jerks, like struck by a defibrillator. Still prone, eyes shut, he slowly opens his wings to the warm sun, looking like an exhausted cormorant.

He’s alive! What do I do? My mind races, stories of my mom’s hummingbird rescues flash through my head. I rummage through my kitchen cabinet – sugar, I need sugar. I had not baked in a year – did I even have sugar?

I did! Organic turbinado sugar — not enough for a cake, but plenty for a half-dead hummingbird. But what was the ratio – one to one, one to four? I wasn’t going to let him die while I figured it out, but I didn’t want to shock his system either.

I mixed some sugar and warm water and put it in a small shallow dish I use for dipping dumplings. The hummingbird had retracted his wings, a loose bundle now, still on his side, eyes closed. Had I just seen his last gasp?

I gently shifted him so his beak lay in the sugar water. His body was lifeless. Mark wandered in for coffee, saw the situation and said, “Well, don’t drown him.”

Drown him? Did hummingbirds breathe through their beaks? Didn’t they have nostrils? I realized that for all my fondness for birds, I had no real idea about their physiology. So I raised his beak just above the syrup, just in case.

Suddenly, he started to drink. The tiniest sliver of a tongue whipped in and out, his tiny throat moving in concert. And then he stopped.

Long minutes went by with voracious drinking followed by long, maybe-he’s-really-dead-this-time breaks. But I was finally hopeful that he might make it. Then I realized I should get him outside or I might end up with an amped-up hummingbird trapped in my house. So I went to open the door to my back porch.

The storm door swung open with a bang, and he was up! Flying like a maniac, but fortunately trapping himself under the kitchen cabinet, he hit his head repeatedly against the cabinet then the wall — completely baffled by this huge, solid tree. I grabbed a tissue and trapped him gently in the corner, closing the tissue around him like a net. He was so light, I couldn’t tell if I had him, but I saw no more crazed hummingbirds whipping around the kitchen.

I stepped outside, put the tissue on the handrail, and carefully unfolded the bundle. He blinked a long moment, then he zipped up a few feet, got his bearings, and zoomed off towards the trees, dipping and swerving like someone recovering from a rough and boozy night.

I got teary-eyed, standing there staring at his trail back to life. I had saved a hummingbird — I had, perhaps, inherited the hummingbird gene from my mother.

Re-inspired, I filled my feeder with organic turbinado sugar syrup. And a week or two later, I had my first visitor.

I imagine someone spread the word, because I have several regulars now: A Calliope who likes to try the nectar from each hole in my feeder, buzzing around in a stuttering circle. A small female who always starts off hovering, then takes a seat for a good long meal. And a super-sized Black-Chinned with a flashing red neck – my mom can’t believe his size. I like to think this is my guy.

Now there are days when I am on the phone with my mom, and she says, Oh, a hummingbird! And I get to say — I have one too!

* I was wrong, it was a black-chinned hummingbird. The only local bird with a black and red neck.

Black-chinned drinking deep:

 

Epilogue: June 12, 2009

In February, I was called home. My mom was losing her long battle with cancer and before anyone could believe it, she was gone.

I returned to San Francisco a few weeks later. One of the first things I did was refresh the nectar in my hummingbird feeder. Over and over, every few days, I cleaned the feeder and added fresh nectar, but no one came. Ants swarmed the feeder and a rat took over the seed I put out for the blue jays and sparrows. It was a very dark time in my corner of the city.  

I figured I would never get to post the lighthearted sequel to my hummingbird saga. But just last week, from nowhere, a single hummingbird came back to the feeder. It felt like a sign, but I’m not sure of what. In any case, with this, I close this story.

My world is still dark and stormy at times, but the hummingbirds, at least, have found a way to keep flying.

The Swallows Have Arrived!

Swallows are the most impressive flyers on the planet.

When I watch swallows fly, I am certain they inspired designs for fighter planes and I hear Hollywood vrrooom and rrrreooow sounds as they bank, plummet, and turn. Happily, swallows do not wage war on civilization as we know it, but on the mosquitos and other flying insects that would otherwise annoy me as I enjoy the show.

In preparing to write about swallows, I did some googling for scientific estimates of swallow speed or impressive comparisons to human speeds. But what I found was hundreds of people amusing themselves with references to a Monty Python Holy Grail bit about the landspeed of laden and unladen swallows. So in the end, I can only tell you that one of the more serious of these people thinks an unladen swallow can hit speeds up to 24 mph.

I say this: If you compare a swallow to a car and adjust 24 mph by the general mass by which the car eclipses the swallow, you can get an idea of how fast the swallow is going by bird standards (really really fast!) and how immediately and horribly crushing it would be for the swallow to hit a tree at that speed.

(Math stopped being my strong point in tenth grade, or I would concoct an equation and add to the many silly google pages about swallow speed.)

I don’t know where the swallows went for the winter, but as spring arrived, I had been scoping out my favorite lake for their return. Finally, on May 2, they arrived.

I spent quite a few afternoons trying for a good photo, but they’re too fast, and my pocket camera completely unfit for the task. So I offer you a video and a few photos of Maryland swallows so you can get the general idea. As always, you can click the photo to see a larger version.

(The Maryland swallows strafed me for hanging out too close to their nest!)

Swallows at my lake:

Swallow in action

Missed it!

Rrreooow

Incoming!

Giving me the stink eye

It takes a village

Stowe Lake is a man-made lake with a large island in the middle, so it seems less like a lake than a free-form moat around a steep, wild hill. Paved walkways circumnavigate the lake, and dirt paths circle and traverse the island. Two bridges allow access to the island, one picturesque stone arch, and a paved utilitarian drive. As you circle the lake, you see a pagoda, a small falls, a boat rental spot, turtles, gulls, pigeons, ducks, geese, herons — birds galore.

If the lake were more manicured, it would seem entirely too artificial, but its age and overgrowth lend it an otherworldly air, especially when you realize it is less than 50 feet from the two main roads through the park.

Stowe Lake draws a regular and diverse local crowd. Elderly Russians pushing their unbelievably-old mothers in wheelchairs, elderly Chinese women slowly accompanying their creaky cane-assisted parents, teenage couples texting and smooching, 50-somethings powerwalking with their dogs, young parents in the paddleboats with their kids.

I usually avoid Stowe Lake because it is so well-attended, but about a month ago I had a sneaking feeling it was time to stop in for a look. And that’s when I saw my first goslings, and the following week, the ducklings. (see “Proof of Spring”)

The other day, I was tired and heading home, but I was so close to Stowe Lake I had to stop by. It was after six — the sun lowering in the sky and the wind picking up… the time when birds have their last foray into the world for a little air and a snack before settling in for the night. On that day, I saw a goose.

And then a gosling, and another gosling, and another. Then another gosling and another gosling…. That mother goose was amazing prolific, I thought. Then as the parade continued, I realized this was not a single family I was seeing at all… It was a two. Four geese, ten goslings — the children completely commingled.

The parents carefully corralled their children when grouped, then lead the way with sentries along the side and following up at the rear. No gosling was left behind.

It reminded me of elementary school field trips, but it was much more than that. It was co-parenting — sweet and amazing to see. I give you evidence of old-school, big-family parenting in the wild….

Videos:

Proof of Spring

First ducklings of spring!

They can walk within minutes of hatching, but I think this guy's a few days old...

How can people poison them?

Just pretty

A lucky moment (I staked out this spot for days!)

On the lookout for a safe time to leave (or just twitchy)

Public Service Announcement

It’s spring. The buds and leaves sprout from the trees, the sun lingers into the evening, and despite our on-going pollution of water, land and air, the spring breeze somehow brushes in a bit of light, clean joy. And if you haven’t noticed it yet, in amongst the regular squaaawks and caaaws of your bird neighbors are the cheep-cheep-cheeps of hungry little mouths. It’s spring – and the baby birds are here!

This winter was difficult one for me. One night as I dug deep into the internet for something useful and fun to do, I came across a local ASPCA looking for extra hands from May through August. They needed, get this…. “baby bird volunteers.” They needed volunteers to help to feed and care for the baby birds that come into the center.

Need I say more?

I signed up one dark, February night and have looked forward to May several times a day ever since.

Last weekend I attended the orientation. In a room filled with kids looking for their volunteer credits, retirees, and what are probably bird-kooks like me who could be doing something more “useful” with our time, I sat and listened to Sue, a 20 year veteran of wildlife care, describe what we would do for the next several months. During the Q&A, someone asked how the baby birds arrive at the center. I’d like to pass along a few things I learned in her answer:

1.  Spring is a terrible time to trim trees – if you let it go this long, you might as well wait until fall. Or at least look carefully for nests before you hack at the branches! 

2. If you do manage to knock down a nest and the eggs have miraculously survived, leave it and leave the area. When mom or dad get back and see what happened, they might be able to figure something out. One lucky photographer documented an outraged pair of birds return to their decimated home and carefully carry each egg in their beaks one-by-one to a safer location.

3. Eggs need to be warmed and turned all the time. So if you do happen upon a nest of eggs with no parent squawking to draw your attention away, it’s probably too late. (Most centers don’t have the ability to care for eggs anyway – eggs take the love and care of a determined mamma or pappa bird…)
 
But the good news is, most birds have several clutches through the spring and summer, so there’s still hope that they found a safer nesting spot and are starting over already.

4. Once the eggs have hatched, most parent birds don’t spend much time at home – they just alight to deposit food to their fuzzy chirpies, then take off. (Human parents, don’t get any ideas!)  Parent birds need to search for food all day, and their prolonged presence at the nest draws the attention of predators.

So if you see an “abandoned” nest of baby birds, watch the nest every moment – don’t blink, don’t make yourself a sandwich, don’t go to the bathroom – for at least an hour before you decide to climb up and “save” them.

4. Even when the baby birds are mobile and waddling their way to, say, the lake with no parents in sight, don’t think they’re abandoned. Mom and dad aren’t too far away – they’re just letting their kids learn and grow, and probably having some well-deserved food and personal time.

And finally…

5. Many baby birds spend 3-5 days on the ground hopping around before they “fledge” (learn to fly). So if you are lucky enough to see a few chirpies pathetically trying to get some lift out of their still-fuzzy wings, not quite making it to the lowest branch, don’t run over with a shoebox to save them. Momma bird in the branch overhead might swoop in and peck at your eye…

This concludes this public service announcement. Enjoy the spring and look for birds!

Heartless Hummingbirds

I’ve been harboring a secret grudge against hummingbirds for a while now.

Since the day my mother hung a discreet single-hole hummingbird feeder on the porch, the hummingbirds have loved her. They duck and swerve in territorial battle for the honor of hovering beautifully in flight, bobbing and sipping at her feeder.

Over time, my mom has saved several from Merciless Nature – warming a nearly frozen bird from her porch, and freeing one caught in a tight cocoon of webs and leaves. After the second salvation, I understood that my mother was a hummingbird whisperer, perhaps even hummingbird goddess. My mother loved her hummingbirds, and they worshipped her.

Last summer, thinking to follow in her footsteps, I found a spot for my own hummingbird feeder. A clever spot, viewable from both my kitchen and bedroom windows. My mom warned me against fancy gimmicky feeders. Unable to find her tried-and-true version, I opted for a 4-port relatively simple feeder that I could strap to the railing of my back steps. I filled it with extra-sweet sugar water and I waited.

And waited…

And waited.

Every day as I worked from my bedroom I stared out at the unused hummingbird feeder. Ants and bees found it, but no hummingbirds.

Be patient, my mom advised. It takes them a while to find a new feeder. Just keep the sugar-water fresh and they will come.

I faithfully rinsed and refilled the feeder once a week for months, adjusting the sugar-to-water ratio hopefully. Still nothing.

So you understand the injustice, San Francisco’s moderate temperatures are a hummingbird haven. We have hummingbirds all year long and six different species of hummingbirds live in the bay area, but I had yet to see a single one.

In contrast, Maryland (and all states east of the Mississippi) gets only one variety, but one of the most spectacular: the Ruby-Throated Hummingbird. As they summer in Maryland, they visit their Queen Mother morning, noon, and night, performing acrobatics to please her. It is a rare summer phone conversation that is not interrupted with a – Oh, oh, he’s back! Look at that!

That’s great, I say. But I’m thinking: Damned hummingbirds.

I didn’t mean it entirely – I’m old enough to know you have to appreciate the beautiful moments that life gives you: the bus showing up on a rainy day just as you reach the bus stop, making it to a gas station after driving 30 miles on empty – but I was a little bitter. Once again, the universe was telling me that I was not capable of following in my mother’s gigantic footsteps. And what more could I possibly do? Mix some meth with the organic sugar from Rainbow?

In the meantime, Mom kept sending one beautiful picture after another of her faithful disciples. That’s right, the hummingbirds visited long enough for her to grab her camera and take pictures – lots and lots of pictures.

Then winter approached and the first blustery storm hit. It was a long one – knocking down branches and leaves and blowing the remaining summer flowers off their stems. In the late afternoon, we got a lull in the storm. People hurried out to move their cars and bring in their trash and recycling bins. I was in the kitchen washing dishes when I saw him…

A very wet hummingbird was perched on my feeder, drinking deeply. His feathers were so dark from the rain I could not distinguish colors or markings. He was not flitting or flying, he was just sitting there, his needle-like beak so deep in the feeder I was afraid he was stuck. I had never seen a hummingbird sitting still. Wings tucked, he was about the size of my thumb, a little rounder, but probably much, much lighter.

He pulled out his beak and sat, dazed. Then he zipped two feet straight up, hovered a nanosecond – and he was gone.

I ran out, refreshed the feeder – which I hadn’t cleaned or filled in a month – and called my mom. I was thrilled, it was the beginning of my new life with hummingbirds.

Except it wasn’t. I kept the feeder fresh and filled all winter long and not a single bird visited again.

Damned hummingbirds.

(to be continued…)

Mom’s disciples:

Mom’s hummingbird pictures

General Information:
Hummingbird Facts