It’s time to look back on 2021! Check our blog between Christmas and New Year’s for a variety of stories and memories of 2021 from the staff and volunteers of the Wildlife Center of Virginia.
The highlight of 2021, for me, has been the beginning of my life-changing journey as a rehabilitation extern at the Wildlife Center of Virginia. Within the first few weeks, I had already fallen in love with the world of wildlife medicine and by the end of my three-month externship, I still felt there was so much more for me to learn. I knew I had to apply for the rehabilitation internship program, which just started in December and has already given me a deeper understanding of the work we do here at the WCV! In a year full of incredible “firsts,” there have also been moments that – although smaller in scale – have been particularly memorable and significant.
Going into the externship, I was admittedly concerned about my slight fear of medium to large birds – a fear that I’ve had since childhood, developed after visiting a group of loud and aggressive peacocks at a local wildlife aviary. Fortunately, this wasn’t a problem at the beginning of the externship. I mostly handled songbirds, and my interactions with the raptors were always assisted by trained staff members. However, one day, while happily feeding and weighing the patients in the aviary as usual, I was faced with the true test of my ability to overcome this fear. Perched in Aviary 8 was a patient I had been successfully avoiding up until now … a crow! Despite their smaller size and less powerful beaks and talons, I have always been more frightened by crows than eagles, owls, or hawks. With a racing heart, I gathered up all my courage and used my net to gently secure the crow in the same way I had for countless songbirds before. Now it was time to hold him, the part I was most worried about. To my surprise, this dark bird had an incredibly sunny disposition! He calmly tucked his wings and legs into himself and allowed me to easily hold and weigh him, simply watching me with curiosity (a true gentleman). When I released him back into his enclosure, he flew from my hands and rested on a nearby branch looking back with a look that seemed to wonder if he had just proven that crows are nothing to be afraid of.
My interaction with this specific patient went full circle. When I heard he needed to be captured and put into a container to be released, I excitedly volunteered. Carrying him back to the transporter who would return him to his home in the wild, I quietly thanked the crow for showing me that birds of his size are nothing to be afraid of and that my fear was likely based in the fact that I didn’t know as much about birds as I did about the other animals at the WCV. After this experience, I have tried to learn more about birds, especially crows (which I am now slightly obsessed with), so that I can share this knowledge with others, especially those who may have a fear just like I did!
— Katie Bacall, Wildlife Rehabilitation Intern