Taking Grades for Teachers

Thinking from

Way Down Inside the Box

Absolutely True Experiences of a Retired Teacher

Turned Wildlife Rehabilitator

Installment One from 2012

     Science teachers, may I have your attention please? 

     I am beginning my 15^th year as a licenses wildlife rehabilitator.  I take in, raise, and release baby songbirds that have lost their parents, their nests, or both.  Sometimes Mother Nature is the culprit and at other times a person is the guilty party.  But what always makes my jaw slam to my chest is the whirlwind of convoluted ignorance that I encounter every year.

     Apparently, some people have no clue as to how the natural world around them works.  For those killjoys who take delight in prophesying that the electronic age will create a human race isolated into individual cocoons, I have a news flash.  A lot of people are already wrapped up.  They call me when they run head-long into another life form and get confused.  Baby birds specifically tend to agitate them.

     I thought it would be helpful to expose this problem—take the Dr. Phil approach, so to speak.  “If you don’t acknowledge it, you can’t fix it.”  I’ll do the acknowledging.  We’ll have to work together to do the fixing!   This is primo blogging material!

    My first babies of the season—5 Carolina wrens—arrived last Friday.  And now, only five days in, I have already had an encounter from the cocoon.  I’ll share the rest as they come in.   Remember, these could be YOUR students as adults.  Some of them probably ARE my former students.  AR–R-R-R-R-R-GH!!

Phone Call: 4/17/12  5:00 p.m. EST

Me:  Hello

Caller:  Hello.  Is this the bird and rabbit pickup?

Me:  No, I do wildlife rehab for songbirds, but I don’t come out and pick up.

Caller:  Well, animal control gave me your number.  I have birds on (Yes!  She said on.) the wall of my house and I don’t know what to do.  There’s a bunch of them.

Me:  Is there a nest attended by adults?

Caller:  I think they have babies up there.  I need to get them down.

Me:  If you will just wait a week or two, maybe even just a few days, they will fly off the nest. 

Caller:  They will?

Me:  Yes.  Baby birds don’t stay in the nest forever.  Just wait and they will leave.

Caller:  OK.  I just wanted to be sure.  Thanks.

Click. . .

Some “Fixing Ideas”

Tell your students:

    In the United States, it is against federal law to disturb an active bird nest.  That means you shouldn’t destroy it, move it, remove the eggs, the babies, or block a parent bird’s access to the nest.  This law applies to all native wild birds.

Ask you students these questions:

  1.  What is the difference between an active bird nest and an inactive nest?

  2.  What type of bird might choose the wall cavity of a house as a place to build a nest?  How might they get into this space?

  3.  What should you do if you discovered that a family of birds is nesting inside the wall of your home?

      

  4.  What can you do to prevent this from happening again?

  5.  In the world of baby birds, what is the difference between a nestling and a fledgling?