Mountainaire Avian Rescue Society  

My Mars Moments

Oh boy, now let’s talk about an experience. Just two months ago, I was just arriving at MARS only trying to locate where it was on my way through to Campbell River. This was before my internship actually started. Let me tell you about the excitement that would last for another 7 more weeks. That day I saw for the first time an adult Northern Fur Seal, big teeth, as well as had to step up the plate to help in the vet clinic to help cauterize a robin’s leg. Needless to say, that was only the beginning of things to come.

As being the first time with any actual experience with handling live wild fauna, it was great. At first, I would honestly say that I was a little uneasy with handling these animals but there were times when you would just have to grab a bird to either give it meds or feed it. Eventually it would just become second nature. Some of my favourites for handling I would have to say would have been the seal pups, the cedar waxwing and the smaller owls. It was always a relief as well when you got to release a bird. But some of the relief comes from just the fact that the animal is able to be on its own and out of our care. The releases are not some glorified thing; they just get out of the cage and fly away. I thought that it would be some sort of movie like release but a lot of it is just hype.

The actual work and its experience were greatly demanding. I can remember my first actual day there. The first thing I did was to scrub cages. They have to get done and for any new volunteer or intern, you have to start at the bottom and work you way up. But with the interns I found, the learning curve is extremely steep so you learn to do a bunch of different things really fast. In a matter of days, you can be expected to not only scrub cages and do laundry, but feed baby birds as well as tube feed, as well as handle a wide range of birds and even mammals. In the end, I can say that I had greatly diversified in some things that I have never done before such as clean rain gutters, landscaping with an axe and saw, transplanting saplings to use for the larger cages like Global and the Fish and Wildlife Cage, a bit of carpentry work, identifying and tagging wildlife trees and even pouring concrete for the up and coming swan cage. Some of this work happened when there was at least Lanaye and I but I found when she was gone, the workload picked up greatly. Instead of two people there to do a lot of the work load, not including Maj and the handful of volunteers that would come, there would be just I there so a heads-up to future interns, there is a lot of independent, isolated working when you are there especially during the phone book delivery season. Arrrrrr, those phone books. It may be different for others but during my last few weeks, I would be getting up in the AM, get a bit of the feeding done and then make my way up to Campbell River to deliver some 300+ phonebooks only to go back and do some more work back at the centre. Don’t be expected to put for days up to 14-16 hr days. These were not always high demanding days though. It is fortunate enough that phonebook deliver falls around raptor season at the centre so feeding birds ever 15-20 minutes is not expected to happen. I have found that a great deal of stress comes from the mental side of things in that these bird's lives are now your responsibility and that the next day will revolve around what happened the day before.

I would be lying if I were to say that the people who work at/for the centre did not make my stay any more enjoyable. Maj is great to work with. Everything that I know about wildlife handling and rehab, I owe all to her. I found that she was easy to get along with. There were times there when I thought I was going to have a "personality difference" with Maj, but I had to realize that there is nothing that I wouldn't do that she can't do. Those were the times of the greatest stress for me and I would just have to go take a breather. As far as I can say for Maj who does this 365 days a year, that is phenomenal and dedicated. Two months for myself was a long period and you being able to do that for ten more, I would just sit and ask myself, "how does she do it?" Keith was great to be around. From the days of driving to Campbell River listening to the Olympic report to just talking about anything, he could always strike up a good conversation. He could sound a little gruff at times, especially around phone book time, but he is someone who just wants to get stuff done and as quickly as possible but to make sure that it is all done right. While I am on the phone book deal, I was wondering if Barb was able to catch up or is she going to have to hand that trophy over. Just kidding. Barb and I would tackle some of the longest phone book routes but there were days when I would do other routes without her so in the end, I would antagonize to see if she was going to catch up. All in good humour. In terms of the volunteers that would come and help at the centre, their company and help were always appreciated. From working with Sandy, Val, the Lynda/Linda's, Michelle, and Trevor, I would have to say that it is great to work with them and I think that I came out of there with some really great friends. And Sandy, I would like to thank you for the game of golf but I am still a little disappointed about no photo credit, just kidding. I would also like to thank Norm for my first helicopter flight. That was great. I will never forget that. And I would be disappointed in myself if I never mentioned Dixie or Reuben. It was so nice to have them around. I will remember the hot July days of me and Reuben lying under the apple tree together. In case you did not know, Dixie and Reuben are their dogs, it was nice to have dogs around again I would have to say.

I was always asked to keep a mind open on how to improve the centre. I had made suggestions that put a white board outside each and every cage to document each case as well as the "cleanliness" of each cage. Each white board would have the individual patient, what type of meds they need, feeding schedule as well as other information such as the last time a cage was cleaned and so on. Another idea I had was to give each individual their own notebook to take notes about individual cases and then at the end of a day, put all that stuff into a log book just so that those observations for the day are going to be unbiased from a previous observer. One last suggestion would be to start a spreadsheet on the computer with each individual species to figure out what each species likes in their cage. Record what was used and what wasn't and eventually, it would maybe make the birds stay a little better by having preferred items such as toys and perches and select types of branches for example. And one thing that would be great if it were at all feasible would to build a little kitchen off the side of the workshop just to separate ourselves from the working atmosphere when it was time to settle down for the night.

I would like to thank Maj, Keith and everyone else who gave me this opportunity to work along side of them. There is so much that I learned from this experience and the experience alone was priceless. I came away with a wealth of knowledge that is definitely unattainable through bookwork and hopefully this will lead into a bright, positive career future for myself. I would highly suggest to people to at least try this if you were going to get into a field of dealing with animals. As I said, there are skills here that I learned that I will never learn anywhere else and the memories that I have of my summer of 2004 will be very long lasting. Thanks again to Mountainaire Avian Rescue Society for making this experience possible.

Steve Bordeleau