2w ago

My Breakfast Buddy (OC)

I made sure to get to work on time today so I could volunteer to feed the Screech!

We lost the other one last week, so I wanted to spend time with this one but I kept missing it because he's inside and quick to feed.

Not that it cooperates!

So it should be eating on its own at this point, but it's being a drama queen about this whole captivity thing. He took the first piece of food I offered, but that dropped it, so. We did it the manual way.

One of the lead people held it, and it started throwing a tantrum, but not enough I could just toss stuff in its mouth. I had to open its mouth and shove some mousey bits all the way in the back.

She tried to teach me about the glottis (the opening to the esophagus is in the center of their tongue) and I was all proud of myself since I already knew alllll about that! 😇

So I had to open that teeny beak myself. So again, this was a time where I know stuff from reading it so many times but getting hands-on time really gets me to understand it. Owls' feet are where all the power is, why is why they don't really kill or fight by biting. Firstly, their beaks curve down, making them have even shorter range, plus they're too close to the vital eyes. Secondly, since they do almost everything with their feet, those jaw muscles are weak!

A Screech is far from the biggest peek, and even though this was a baby, it's almost full adult size. Once I could actually get a slippery gloved finger in between the top and bottom, it opened right up like nothing. Then I was able to sneak past the tongue and toss down his mouse munch, repeat a few times, and it was all set.

It did calm itself once it knew what we were doing, but it was no more cooperative. Little brat!

I came by to check on it later and caught it giving me this cute little smirk, probably relishing the difficulty he gives us for no reason. It's lucky that it's so darn cute! 🥰

The rest of the day was not so exciting. Searching the hot attic for towels, sorting donations, chopping veggies for 40 omnivores, and scrubbing out transport cages while it started to rain. The hose got away from me and soaked my crotch. Thankfully that was at the end of the shift and I had quick drying shorts. 😒

Animal rescue isn't all the glamorous stuff I share! You do get to experience so many wonderful things though. I'm really glad to be there and doing important things, even if they're not always the great jobs.

5 comments

The beak looks like a little vulture staring out
- It does! The one regular here has screenshot and captioned a few of the better ones on what they look like. 😁
  While we're zoomed in on nostrils, that glottis (tongue hole) I mentioned you can see here on this bird.
  On the inside of the beak under those nostrils is a little channel where that glottis just happens to fit and make a seal. This gives the birds a ram air effect while they're flying, so they get all that oxygen they need to do such intense physical activity. It just shoots air right into those lungs.
  That easy lung access is also one reason people that aren't trained should feed or water wild birds they rescue. You can try to help them and end up tossing stuff into their airway creating additional issues for your rescue buddy. The other reasons are most people feed animals the wrong stuff, making them sicker, and if they need to get anesthesia when they get to medical help, them having food or water in them can delay that or cause issues.
Well done you! I hope you inspire some more animal aficionados to volunteer at the local thing.
Although, you should know that You Can’t Tame The Screech!
- Someone told me last year they volunteered, since one of my posts taught them of a place near them they didn't know existed. They gave me a couple updates, but I don't think they Lemmy anymore.
  It's very hectic, busy, and sometimes gross, but you will get the best window into nature you could ask for. You gotta do it for a love of the animals, and not because you want "fun" stuff, but I totally recommend it if that's something one thinks they can handle.
  Sadly the more the animals like us, the worse they will fare in the wild, so I gotta play the bad scary human for them, but it's for the best.
I also remembered to snap a pic of our intake form if any of you were curious what info to have handy if possible if you bring an injured animal to your local rescue. They'll probably ask you similar questions.