Yesterday I installed and tested our new medical database on a laptop, sent out a WRC Update to more than 400 volunteers, and spent six hours in a car transporting our first Avian Nursery patients back to their Duluth home.

Of the many hats I wear at WRC, my favorite by far is as a participant in the absolute joy of releasing animals back into the wild; animals that would have died without our care.

The two Hairy Woodpeckers I returned to Duluth were our first Avian Nursery patients to be released this season.  They were orphaned in early May as a result of tree trimming.

They arrived at WRC as tiny, naked nestlings in the actual tree limb that had housed their nest cavity. After weeks of care, the birds were flying well and foraging for their food, and most importantly, were feisty toward humans: a good sign that they were ready to be released.

The Hairy Woodpeckers, a male and a female, are now flying free on several acres of wooded land just north of Duluth.

Here’s a video of Avian Nursery Coordinator Jessika preparing the birds for their journey back home.

Canada geese are very attentive parents and will even raise goslings that are not their own.  They will also form nursery groups of many goslings and adults as shown in this photo.  Yesterday we were able to successfully “foster” five goslings admitted to the center into a wild Canada goose family.  Fostering waterfowl is by no means an easy process, only works with certain species, and requires a knowledgeable trained person to be successful. 

First, a family must be located that has goslings relatively the same size as those needing to be fostered and that we are able to get close enough to in order to make an introduction.  We are always careful not to choose a family that already has a large number of goslings.  Once the perfect family is found, then we need to approach the family and allow the foster goslings to make noise and let the adults see them and hear their calls. 

For me this is the most amazing and rewarding experience.  As soon as the adults hear the goslings distress call, they are all business and came right up showing their displeasure that I was near their family.  Once the foster goslings saw the adult, they immediately ran to it for protection.  The adult then lead the goslings and united them with their own, still of course making sure I knew my presence was not welcome. 

The best place for an orphaned goose is to be raised by its own kind in the wild.  So a family of 4 became a family of 9 giving these foster goslings the best chance of survival.

The 3 Red Fox kits that came in a few weeks ago (see March 27th post) are growing by leaps and bounds (no pun intended)! They’ve already tripled their weight, and their eyes and ears are open. Tiny, sharp teeth are growing in, and they’re starting to explore solid foods.  These babies are estimated to be approximately 3 weeks old now. They will be with us until they are completely weaned off formula, and have been eating solid foods for several weeks.

Sunday we got our first baby squirrel of the season in!  He’s a healthy 52 grams with a small puncture wound on his abdomen–otherwise he’s doing great!

Still no baby cottontails or squirrels yet, but more baby foxes!! Today we received three newborn red fox kits from Rochester. They were found in a barn; initially there were five – mom moved two and never returned for these three. They were found to be very cold and lethargic, and brought to us when it was determined that mom was unfortunately not returning.

They are all in good health and are about a week old, only weighing a quarter of a pound each! Newborn red fox are dark brown-gray when born, and are deaf, blind and toothless. They have a white tip on their tail, which acts as a distinguishing characteristic to tell them apart from gray fox, coyote or raccoon. As they age, their fur will gradually turn to red, first noticed on the face around 3-4 weeks of age.

Tonight we admitted our first baby of the season, an orphaned fox kit. Although red fox kits can be born in March in Minnesota, it is not common for us to admit them this early, especially in a snow storm. In 2010 our first red fox kit was not admitted till April 20th, and it was much younger than this one.

We don’t know exactly why the kit was orphaned, it is possible the mother was moving her litter and somehow they got separated. The kit is being treated for upper respiratory issues. No matter what it is like outside today, our first baby animal is a sure sign that spring is on its way.

They are very small but able to jump extremely high.  Okay, not really high enough to scale small buildings, but high enough to be impressive.  When admitted just a few days ago, these Meadow Jumping Mice still had their eyes closed.  They have developed very quickly and are showing their natural behavior of jumping when threatened or frightened.  Note the long tail and large rear feet that assist them in these maneuvers.

Jumping mice eat a varied diet of seeds, insects, beetles and vegetable matter.  The mice are doing very well and will be ready for release in no time.

After nearly two months, two of our baby hummingbirds were ready to be released back into the wild last Saturday. We’ve watched them learn how to hover, figure out how to drink nectar from flowers, and practice catching fruit flies out of the air. These skills seemed hard-wired into them and it took very little coaxing on our part to get them to stop gaping and learn how to feed themselves.

The last thing to do before releasing these birds was to show them how to ’stand their ground’ at the hummingbird feeder. Normally I made sure that they had a variety of food sources (such as classic hummingbird feeders, live flowers, and small syringes filled with nectar and fake flower tips on the ends) but a few days before release, I removed all but one feeder. The purpose of this was to let the birds practice ‘fighting’ over the feeder so that they would not become intimidated if another hummingbird were to come along. Being competitive and solitary birds who like to defend their territories, this is very important!

The release went beautifully, you can watch it here on our YouTube Channel. We watched both birds leave their cage and begin to explore their new surroundings. They drank from some flowers before darting off into the sky, and eventually…to Central America!

We admitted our 7,000th animal of the year this afternoon! It was an infant mouse! Last year we admitted #7,000 on August 24th. Are we looking to have a record-breaking year?? We will see!!

While every day at WRC is rewarding and filled with moments of deep satisfaction, yesterday was a very special day.

Two juvenile river otters, which we’ve raised for the past eight weeks, were released at the Rapids Lake area of the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refugee near Carver.  Releases are usually intriguing, often unpredictable and sometimes exciting; yesterday’s release was that and more.  The otters were certainly ready to be free.  They were snarly and aggressive when we captured them for the trip to freedom.

In addition to US Fish and Wildlife officials, our staff and some of our summer interns, KARE11 joined us to film the release and aired it on last night’s news.  Here’s a full-page display of the news video.

River Otters are a difficult species to raise.  They get very stressed during handling, their diet is challenging and requires introducing a variety of foods, including live prey (such as the crayfish you’ve seen in an earlier post).  As they grow older they require significant space and high water quality.  Their aggressive nature makes it difficult to monitor their progress. They are also social and seldom do well alone.

We (and the otters) were fortunate in this case.  We rarely see otters, yet these two came to us just five days apart – on June 10 and June 15.  And the later arrival came from Belle Plain, near the release site.

We’re very grateful to the US Fish and Wildlife staff for finding an appropriate site at the National Wildlife Refugee and for giving us permission to do the release.  USFW staff have seen otters all along the Minnesota River Valley.  This release is a celebration of our success in raising these otters and is also symbolically important since the presence of otters is an indicator of improving river habitat on the Minnesota River.

Here’s more information on River Otters.