Rescuing Baby Birds
Spring is bird mating season, and every year the Wild Bird Rehab Haven helps about 1,000 baby birds recover from abandonment or a fall from their nest. This year the center needs help too: volunteers and a new home
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Mikaela Rivera, 6, with a
recovering pigeon
Love is in the air - literally. We’re right in the middle of bird mating season, and that means that over the next few months the folks at Wild Bird Rehab Haven (WBRH) will be fielding thousands of calls about injured or orphaned baby birds. And more than 1,000 birds will come into the center needing care.
“A lot of people walking down a sidewalk will see a baby bird and won’t do anything for it,” says interim director Jenn Cook. “They’ll go, ‘Well, he’ll be OK,’ or ‘I’m sure his mother’s around here somewhere,’ or ‘There’s no way he’ll survive,‘or ‘I don’t know what to do.‘So, they just walk on by.
“Others will snatch him right up and do everything it takes to have that baby survive.”
The 20 members of the rehab haven and their network of about 50 volunteers fall into the latter category. Most of the men and women working with the organization got started after discovering a needy bird.
“I remember the first time I cared for some babies from when they looked like little amoebas to releasing them - the feeling of ‘I saved their lives,‘it’s a wonderful feeling,” says Patty Scharff, who heads up a monthly training session for potential bird rescue volunteers.
The monthly meetings cover general care, which includes giving a newly found bird warmth, hydration, food and medication if it is injured or sick. Scharff and her colleagues, some of whom have nearly 20 years of experience, give advice on every step of the process. They demonstrate care by feeding some babies and, at the March 25 meeting, they bandaged up an injured bird brought in by a participant. (WBRH also gets some pro bono help from Dr. Tom Chlebecek of the Makai Animal Clinic in Kailua, and they have a list of other veterinarians who will see wild birds.)
Sue Bellisle works on a pigeon with an injured leg as Soni
Nandoskar and Marvin Hatfield look on
The group’s web-site, www.wildbirdrehabhaven.org, is a great resource for tips on what to do if you find a bird.
“If someone finds a baby and they’re willing to care for it, we’ll start them out with the things they need - syringes and tips (for feeding), formula, instructions, and a huge network of people who are willing to support them,” says Cook. “When the bird gets bigger, they (the volunteers) don’t have to go out and buy a cage - we provide that for you as well.”
The survival rate for baby or juvenile birds is 75 percent or better, Cook estimates. The youngsters generally have been abandoned or have fallen from their nest and will recover with a little care.
“They just need a safe place to rest,” Scharff explains at the training seminar. “If the bird dies, at least it can die in a safe, warm place.”
Demonstrating the ease of caring for baby birds, Scharff arrived at the seminar with three small cages, each containing two to three tiny doves. Two of the squirming featherless creatures were barely the size of a quarter, and they were so brand new that their eyes were still closed. Scharff will take them everywhere she goes to give them their hourly feedings until they can eat on their own. In a month or two they will be released.
“We take in birds to get them back out there,” she reminds her audience.
If feeding the babies (powdered formula mixed with warm water) every hour or two sounds daunting, “you can keep that little baby in your purse and take it to work with you,” says Cook. “It’s a true labor of love.”
Fittingly, a trophy displayed in its office names WBRH as the recipient of the Honolulu Veterinary Society’s 2007 Best Friends Award.
Kristy Rivera, 4, pets a baby
mynah
The Rehab Haven Is Looking To Relocate
Because of a major rent increase on its location at Puck’s Alley, the Rehab Haven is looking for a new office and intake center before its lease expires on June 1. They are scurrying to find an animal-friendly facility to conduct their many activities.
“The rehab center is a place for meetings, to keep fowl, to store our information and to take birds on a limited basis,” explains Cook.
The office currently houses sick and injured birds that only need morning and evening care. Adults are treated at the location until they can be adopted, and newborns are brought there so that someone from the volunteer network can pick them up. The place is also a hub for volunteers to plan their education programs, conduct out-reach activities (answering phones, soliciting volunteers) and organize fund-raising campaigns.
“The sick and injured birds only need morning and evening care,” says Cook. “Volunteers come in to clean and do feeding and med-
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