Spring is in the air

Spring is in the air, along with the smells and noises of little animals demanding my attention. Busy night, last night. Had a Cedar Wax Wing come in with a wing injury. Had a Downy Woodpecker fledgling come in that was being attacked by squirrels on the ground under a big tree. Had 8 raccoons come in from two different people.....I have 20 now, I am really hoping that the Raccoon surge slows down now.... Black Eye Susie tore out her eye stitches last night, now I can wrestle around with her to keep the socket lubed with antibotic ointment. Sometimes I just wish that they could cooperate just a little bit. No rest for the wicked, while I take my nap every night they are plotting their destruction of our facility...I love coons but I do hope that no more come in. I had a call on 3 other coons last night also but they went to another RVS facility.
I also dealt with a lot of calls yesterday. Got a chipmunk away from a cat and back into the wild. Got a call about a 3 foot wide snapping turtle at Warners Lake on shore dragging fishing lure behind it with hook through the mouth. Got all of the fishing gear off and got her back in the lake. Turtles are on the move, watch for them in the road. I got another snapper picked up out of the road yesterday by a person that didnt want it to get hit. That snapper got released into Looking Glass Pond. A friend of mine sent a photo he took yesterday of a snapper laying eggs in his yard. I will put the photos on the blog, do not touch these turtles if you are trying to help them. They will bite your fingers right off and usually dont let go easily once they get ahold of you. I carry a rubbermaid bin with 2-3 inches of water in it this time of year on the back of my truck. I pick up turtles and relocate them near water without roads, if you toss a turtle out of the road this time of year, it will usually crawl right back onto the road to get where it was going after you leave. I dont like to relocate them but I do so they dont get hit. I try to keep them where they are, just on the other side of the water that they leaving to lay eggs, where there are no roads.

Photos by Paul Taylor Imaging. Thank you, Paul!

Things are busy. Hope to finish the first half of the Raptor Center this weekend. Have to rescue some alpacas on sunday....... I will try to blog about the rest of my day later. It is "Classday" at school and I need to get ready to beat my students in the hotdog eating contest. I plan on winning at the expensive of my gastro intestinal system. Wes