Wildlife Rehabilitation Center

This summer I will again volunteer at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Roseville, MN, in the avian nursery.

This will be my third year, and I look forward to going back every summer.

We are always super busy in the summer, and always need volunteers.  If you are interested you can go to their website: http://www.wrcmn.org/index.php.

I love doing this for I love animals, as you know.  But it is more than that.  It fills me with a thrilling feeling, that I can't explain. 

I love to hear them sing, in all their unique songs.  I love to watch them gape like in the photo above, waiting for me to squirt formula into their tiny beaks.  I love to make new nests for them out of toilet paper, so they don't have to sit in their sacks of excrement.  I love the different ways they even excrete their excrement!  Some birds scoot to the edge of their nests and stick their butts up and squirt it out.  This way their parents can pick up the sack in their beaks and carry it away somewhere.  Isn't that smart?

I love how some birds make such a racket when you feed them, it is louder than the songs.  I even love sifting for live worms and maggots to feed the birds, and watching them snap it off the end of the tweezers. 

I do feel sad when they die.  At my first death, I cried.  But after that I knew that we couldn't save all the birds.  At least we could save some.  Otherwise, all the birds would be dead. 

I feel good knowing that I am taking care of God's creatures that bring me such joy.  Now when it is warmer I can open my screen door and hear the birds sing, and see the ducks swim in the creek behind my building.  I see life again after a seemingly long, bleak winter (I say seemingly as I think all winters in MN are long and bleak). 

It's good to see life again, especially after so much grief.  I guess I am starting to feel hope again.