Diva Crows
This summer finds me interning at Diva Crows, a small songbird rehabilitation organization located in Alexandria, Virginia. I’m going to use this post to share a typical day for me as an intern with this organization.
My day usually starts at around 11 AM, though sometimes I come in earlier to help when there is no one available in the early morning to feed the babies…birds that is! There is always one other intern there with me in the morning, and we begin by cleaning all of the cages and feeding any hatchlings, nestlings, or juveniles that we have in the bird room currently. We use doggy pee pads in all of our cages so they’re pretty quick and easy to change out. Once all of that is done we start with feeding.
Birds require a lot of food prep, so we set out dishes for every cage and go down the line adding each ingredient. We have a nutritional guide that we work from for all our birds. For example, a juvenile blue jay will get safflower and sunflower seeds, peanuts or other nutmeats, chopped-up fruit, softened dog kibble, insects (usually mealworms), and crushed suet. This is supplemented with calcium powder.
While that food is being prepared, one of us will begin to do the same care for our educational birds. We have seven birds that live in a separate building from our rehab birds that are essential partners in our educational programs. These birds are not releasable due to injury or other medical conditions, so they are permanent residents at the facility. Once we’re done with that, we usually have to feed the babies again. Hatchlings and nestlings get fed every 45 minutes, and juveniles every hour. Juveniles and adults are the only ones to get food put out in dishes, everyone else is fed using syringes and a special homemade formula or using tongs.
Once all of this work is done, one of us will prep food for our educational birds. While this is happening, I’ll usually start cleaning, and this is when our director, Katherine, typically arrives.
Sometimes we’ll have new birds that will need to be examined and processed. We usually receive them via calls from private citizens or we’ll get in overflow from another private rehabilitator or the Wildlife Rescue League. One of us will look over each individual bird as another starts the paperwork. We write down their species, the name of the person or organization that found them, and where they were found, which is important for release later.
Then we’ll note what caused them to be taken in. This can range from being orphaned, to injury, and or showing signs of mental problems (which we refer to as ‘neuro’). If there are multiple birds of the same species going into the same cage, we will put a colored band around their leg in order to more easily identify them for weight tracking, which will also get noted on the sheet. Once all of this is done the bird is placed into a sanitized cage with their sheet posted on the outside for easy notetaking.
The rest of our day is spent cleaning, organizing, and feeding the birds. We will also flight test and release those that are ready around this time. Just recently I got to release an adult crow that had been caught in a glue trap, which was very satisfying for me as I had a large role in its recovery. All birds are released back in or around the area where they were found. We end our day at around 3pm and everything gets handed off to either Katherine or the other staff.