We currently have 3 baby Green Herons in our Avian Nursery. They are all doing very well and love to eat their fish! The photo above is of the one that was admitted today!

You can watch part of its admit exam on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niNou4msY7g

We have two orphaned River Otters in our Mammal Nursery!  They were admitted a week apart but have already bonded, curling up with each other while sleeping.

We’re introducing them gradually to adult food by offering a mix of a fish slurry and dead fish in their pool.  We’ll add live fish, crawfish and other delectables as they mature.

As with any wild animal, their instinct is to hide from humans so filming them is challenging, but we did manage to get a few short video clips.

Check out our new YouTube channel:  http://www.youtube.com/user/WRCMN.  Subscribe to it and you’ll be automatically notified anytime we upload new video.  The 2 new videos of the River Otters in their room and pool are uploaded.

One of the neatest things about working at the WRC is the opportunity to see such a wide variety of species.  (more than 165 every year!)  Here are a couple of the new admits to our bustling Mammal Nursery:

13-lined Ground Squirrel

You may have seen them alongside roads or even in your backyard, but these little squirrels have beautiful markings when viewed up close.  They’re quite common: found throughout most of North America.  They live in burrows and do a true hibernation, sealing the openings of their burrows before heavy snowfall.  And they’re fast!  They can run up to 8mph.  Unfortunately, in the wild nearly 90% of the season’s young do not make it through their first fall due to predation.

Short-tailed Weasel

This cute little creature will turn into an impressive hunter before it’s released.  Short-tailed Weasels are widely distributed throughout America, including Alaska and are oftentimes referred to as “ermine.”  During the winter their soft brown coats turn a brilliant white, helping them remain unseen by both prey and predators.

The Short-tailed Weasel grows up to 15″ long and have a very high metabolism, requiring them to eat 40% of their body weight every day.  Their preferred diet is mice, but they’ll consume anything they can catch, even young snowshoe hares.

They have a large territory (nearly 40 acres) and have been known to travel 3 miles in search of food.  They’re a member of the Mustelidae family which includes skunks, otters, marten mink and the wolverine.  When frightened they emit a pungent musky odor similar to a skunk.

Baby season is always an exciting time full of surprises. You never know what’s going to come through the door on any given day! Yesterday, we admitted an infant Great Blue Heron. He/she has a fractured radius in one of the wings, which fortunately is well-aligned and should heal well with a body wrap. The baby is in our avian nursery and is eating well!

The coyote pup we got in last week was successfully reunited with his mother and brother only a few days later! We wish the family well!!

A young coyote pup, who was separated from his family, was brought to the clinic by one of our volunteers.  The volunteer is trying to locate the family and hopefully we’ll be able to reunite this little guy with his family.

Every spring the bird house on my garage is occupied by a pair of Black-capped Chickadees.  Three years ago we installed a small camera inside and have been keeping an eye on the birds’ nesting habits each spring. This week, two orphaned infant chickadees were brought into the WRC, and since they were roughly the same age as the chicks in my birdhouse, I put them into the nest (when the parents weren’t looking) with their new family. Since we have the camera hooked up to the t.v. we were able to observe the parents feeding their two new children just like the others in the nest. Black-capped Chickadees are one of the more difficult species to raise in captivity so this was a very happy ending…or beginning, from the baby chickadees’ perspective!

Yesterday I released 5 Canada goslings into a new family at a small lake in Hugo. The wonderful thing about adult Canada Geese is that they are great at taking in young that aren’t their own, even if they have their own babies. Mallards and other types of waterfowl are not this flexible about accepting other young, and will actually harm the new babies. That is why we keep them at WRC in our waterfowl nursery until their adult feathers are in and they can fly. We try to foster out Canada goslings as soon as we can after they are admitted.

This particular family only had one gosling of their own that was about a week old. The new 5 took off into the water, one of the adults swam over honking, and the young quickly lined up and followed him/her to the other adult and their baby. They all proceeded to swim off into the sunset!

Is it true that blonds have more fun?  This spring, for the first time in our new building, three “blond” ducklings were admitted to the Waterfowl Nursery.  The first one came in with six other mallards – all of which were normal colors.  The other two came in with seven other normally-colored mallard ducklings.

Are they just a color variant, like black Eastern Grey Squirrels?  They are not albino – their eyes are pigmented normally.  Are they hybrids, with a domestic duck in their genetic make-up? It will be very interesting to see how these ducklings turn out.

Yesterday was one of those days that makes me so thankful my career path has brought me to WRC.  The ability to combine a passion for wildlife with my professional skills is incredibly rewarding.

The wildlife portion of my job became hands-on yesterday when we received 5 bluebird eggs that were just in the process of hatching (we do not incubate eggs).  Three hatched prior to our Noon staff meeting and we knew we needed to find a wild foster parent for them.  As insectivores, bluebirds are incredibly difficult to raise in our Avian Nursery – they eat as many as 1,000 bugs a day! 

In the past, we’ve successfully fostered them out on monitored bluebird trails, so as soon as the staff meeting ended, I was on the phone to see who had newly hatched bluebirds.

After locating a gentleman in Northfield, I headed out the door with four newly hatched bluebirds (the 5th egg was still intact).  As I pulled the box from the trunk of my car, the 5th egg began hatching.  I captured a short video of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT3mSi498T8

And it never did clear that last bit of egg from its head.  I removed it before placing it in the foster nestbox.

Since we don’t want to overwork the parent bluebirds, we divided the nestlings into 3 different boxes, all on a trail monitored by a recent college grad for a Carleton biology professor.  They’re in good hands and back in the wild.  Many thanks to everyone in Rice County for their help, especially John and Simeon!

Hope you enjoy the video and photos…

2 of the tiny nestlings:

Simeon placing nestlings in one box:

Simeon and John at second nestbox: