Now that I am older, wiser, and more haggard, I look back on my decision to rehabilitate wild birds at home with incredulity. There is only one sane way to get your wild animal fix: by volunteering at a bird or wildlife center. You show up, you work hard, you go home, you resume your life. Your wildlife work may occasionally spill over into your regular life, but it will not engulf it like a tidal wave, which is what happens when you attempt to set up shop at home.
This fact of life had been explained to me by several veteran rehabilitators, all of whom burst into gales of laughter when I said I was going to combine bird rehab with family life.
“How old are your kids?” said one, wiping her eyes.
“I’m going to start next spring,” I said firmly. “They’ll be seven and eight.”
“Hmmm,” she said, assuming a perplexed expression. “Was I going to feed the kids and worm the crows—or vice versa?”
“It’ll be great for your marriage,” added another. “Men just love women covered in bird doo.”
“I’m already covered in bird doo,” I said. “I have parrots.”
A third bugged her eyes and stared maniacally into space. “‘I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille,’” she hissed. “‘Just get these owls off me.’”
I scoffed at their lurid predictions. People create their own destiny, I had always thought; you could weasel your way into or out of any situation, given the right motivation. The key was to be specific. Where there was a problem, there was a solution.
I swung into action.
The problem: how to start a wild bird rehabilitation operation, at home, from scratch. I contacted the bird rehabilitators in my area, of whom there were surprisingly few, and found that what was desperately needed—besides more rehabilitators—was a good flight cage. Flight cages are the large outdoor enclosures where recovering adults can regain their wing strength and juveniles can learn to fly before they are released. At that point I was familiar only with raptor flights, the enormous enclosures made of evenly spaced wooden slats. Federal regulations prescribe flight-cage size according to each species; a flight cage for a red-tailed hawk, the most common raptor species in my area, must be at least ten feet by fifty feet by twelve feet.
It didn’t take me long to figure out that building a proper raptor flight cage was a pipe dream. Our property’s terrain is hilly, rocky, and heavily wooded; a few phone calls revealed that I couldn’t even afford to build the flight, let alone clear the trees and bulldoze the hills so I had somewhere to put it. But at least an injured raptor could go to the raptor center; from what I had heard, there were no flight cages available for the injured waterbirds and songbirds of my area. I thought fondly of the swans I had just freed from their web of lines and fishhooks. The problem was that recuperating waterbirds eventually need water, and our pond was located at the very edge of the property, far from the house and right next to the road.
The solution: I would build a flight cage for songbirds only. Since I couldn’t accommodate the birds I had come to know, I would return to the birds of my childhood—the small perching birds of gardens and backyards. I had never lost the feeling I had experienced when I first stood outside my house, seed-filled hand outstretched and a chickadee hovering inches away. I still viewed even captive wild birds as mysterious and otherworldly, essentially untamable, my brief proximity to them a rare and fragile gift. If songbirds were the neediest birds in my area, then a songbird flight cage was what I would build.
The problem: I needed a clinic. Early on I actually considered breaking through the wall of our bedroom and adding a small bird hospital room, complete with heat and running water. A rehabber friend, to whom I will be forever grateful, seized me by the shoulders and said firmly, “Just get a gun and shoot yourself in the head. It would be quicker.”
The hospital room also fell victim to financial reality. As I searched for alternatives, I regarded myself critically. I had a husband, two young children, and two parrots; common sense dictated that there were only so many creatures I could care for at once. But I knew what I was prone to and, worse, what I was capable of. I needed parameters set in stone, not subject to the vagaries of chance and my own bad influence.
The solution: I would not take injured birds at all. I would build a songbird flight cage and announce that I would take in only small birds from other rehabbers—adult birds who had recovered from their injuries and just needed conditioning, or juveniles who simply needed to practice flying before release. Once I had my license and the Department of Environmental Conservation asked if they could give my name out to the public, I would say no. By removing the clinic, I actually believed that I was removing the one thing that would allow my bird operation to spiral out of control.
The problem: how to learn to care for songbirds, who have neither talons nor any desire to eat defrosted rats. I bought books. I borrowed books. I surfed the net and printed out information. I joined Wildlife Rehab, an electronic mailing list that encompasses all wildlife, but I set up my account so I received only e-mail regarding wild birds. Electronic mailing lists are a godsend for rehabbers, especially single ones working out of their homes. Once you join, you are linked with rehabilitators from all over the country—sometimes from all over the world—and whenever a member of the group posts an e-mail, you receive it. Subscribers include newcomers and veterans, single rehabbers and those working in wildlife centers and zoos, specialists who deal with only one type of bird and those who deal with whatever comes through the door. For example, someone posts a question, “What is the best diet and setup for a hooded warbler with a broken leg?” and inevitably another writes back, “I’ve done hundreds of hooded warblers! My middle name is Hooded Warbler!” and showers the subscribers with advice and tips, which I would dutifully print out and file alphabetically in a purple three-ring binder labeled “SPECIES SPECIFIC.”
The solution: sweat equity, the currency of rehabilitators everywhere. I spent months helping a friend who rehabs all kinds of birds, including the ridiculously small ones. During one of my first visits she showed me how to hold an injured chipping sparrow (weight, 10 grams).
“Look here,” she said. “You see that thing on his foot?”
“His foot!” I said. “I can barely see the bird.”
The problem: how to build a songbird flight cage when the only flights I had ever seen were for raptors. I went on field trips. I visited several bird rehabilitation centers, took photos, photocopied their blueprints, and interviewed the volunteers about what they would change if they could. Songbird flight cages are smaller than those built for raptors, but the entire enclosure must be encased in metal hardware cloth (which is like chicken wire but stronger and has small squares) and lined with soft mesh. I asked questions: A-frame versus straight rectangle? Loft or no loft? What was the best substrate?
The solution: It was an A-frame with a small loft, encased in half-inch hardware cloth, lined with plastic mesh, and had natural flooring with added organic soil and wood chips.
The problem: where to put the flight cage. It needed to be near the house, but not too near the house. It needed sun, but not too much sun. Wherever it was built would entail cutting down some trees, but I hoped not too many trees. It couldn’t be built on rock ledge—which probably lay beneath half our property—because a trench a foot and a half deep would have to be dug around the perimeter of the cage, the hardware cloth rolled downward and angled out and weighted with rocks, all to deter digging predators.
The solution: 150 feet southwest of the house, tucked into a small valley between two hills. If the flight cage were angled properly, it would be protected from the north wind and receive dappled sunlight throughout the day. There were rocks, but they were removable. The area was large enough so I could expand the size of the flight—maybe even build two. And the only tree that would need to come down was a huge old dying oak that had been struck by lightning and was already listing alarmingly to one side.
The possibility of two flight cages and the avoidance of healthy tree slaughter: this was becoming intoxicating.
The problem: who would build the songbird flight cage? (It wasn’t going to be me.) I grabbed the telephone. Had I been more plugged in to the local home-building scene, I would never have had the nerve to call Bruce Donohue and Michael Chandler, who, unbeknownst to me, were renowned for their high-end, elegant craftsmanship. As it turned out, they were also faithful environmentalists with a soft spot for nonprofit work. They were enthusiastic about aiding the recovery of injured wild birds, and they happened to have a small hole in their schedule.
The solution: Bruce and Michael looked at the site, studied the blueprints, gave me a generous break on their fee, and said they could have it up in a week. I was the proverbial snowball rolling down the hill.
The problem: I needed both a New York State Wildlife Rehabilitator’s license and a federal permit to rehabilitate migratory birds. A state license allows the rehabilitator to care for mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and nonnative birds (house sparrows, starlings, and pigeons). Potential rehabbers have to pass a 100-question, multiple-choice test covering the natural history of all local species of wildlife, as well as their emergency care, nutrition, restraint techniques, wound management, parasitic infections, epizootic and zoonotic diseases, and release criteria.
A federal permit allows a person to rehabilitate all native birds. Obtaining the permit entails writing an autobiographical summary of your avian expertise; describing what your birds will be fed and how you will obtain specialized foods; submitting diagrams and photographs of your facilities; and gathering letters of recommendation from what seems like every person on the planet who has ever uttered the word bird.
The solution: For the state test, I studied. In most areas, wild opossums live two to three years. The only sure way to kill the eggs of the raccoon roundworm is with a blowtorch. Feed kitten milk replacer to orphaned bobcats and goat’s milk to orphaned white-tailed deer. For the federal permit, I wrote. I called. I asked people to say nice things about me. I sent out stamped, self-addressed envelopes. I rolled my eyes. I said bad words.
In mid-September, the kids and I sat on our deck listening to the clatter of hammers against wood. As the flight cage rose in the distance the kids casually tossed me state license questions, proving once again that young brains absorb information far more quickly than older ones.
“What do you call the underside of a turtle’s shell?” asked Mac.
“The carapace,” I replied.
“Wrong!” crowed Mac. “It’s the plastron!”
“Darn!” I said. “Well, at least I know that a rabbit isn’t a rodent.”
“But that one’s easy,” said Skye, sighing deeply. “Everyone knows that rabbits are lagomorphs.”
The flight cage was more solid than my own house. It was a 400-square-foot enclosure separated by a plywood wall into two rectangles twenty feet long, ten feet wide, and eight feet high, covered by an A-frame roof and lined with ethereal green mesh. In the late afternoon sun it looked magical, a place where a broken bird could learn to fly again, a temporary refuge created by a crew who were craftsmen by day and artists and musicians at night. It had just come into the world, but already its karma was good.
Where there was a problem, there was a solution. I was confident that when our doors opened in the spring, everything would go according to plan.