an orphaned collared aracari
chick being rehabilitated

so i'm just going to ask that we all just ignore that i skipped blogging about the last 2+ years of my life. they were really pretty awesome years, so if you're interested in them, check my facebook page for pics or just call me up and ask. 

a howler monkey in the rain

moving on to what's happening now... i just got back from having a fabulous time with natalie staples in belize working at casa avian support alliance, a rehabilitation center for sick/orphaned native wildlife of belize! it was an absolutely amazing experience and since i failed to blog about it then, you should check nat's blog to find out all about our day-today craziness as well as the amazing things she's continuing to do out there.

a rufous-tailed hummingbird drinking

i would definitely recommend belize to anyone who is up for an adventure and doesn't mind getting some bug bites along the way. it is definitely the greenest place i've ever been and as a person who loves wildlife (and birds in particular), it was even beyond my expectations. getting to see wild parrots and toucans flying about in their natural habitat and see several species of trogon, motmot and hummingbirds with all of their brilliant colors made it all a surreal experience. i was daily snapped back into reality, though, as natalie and i had to face the actuality that many of these amazing creatures were getting hurt or orphaned due to human encroachment on their habitat. therefore, we took our job seriously and did our best to rehabilitate and re-release all of our patients back into the wild and shed many tears when we realized we could not save them all. 

yucatan banded gecko

while falling head over heals for life in the jungle, i was able to walk in the footprints of an ancient people that once had a thriving civilization right in the middle of it. i have always been passionate about archaeology and anthropology, and actually made a very difficult decision in college to focus on conserving the future rather than studying the ancient past. i am very happy with my decision and know i am doing what i was made for, but i do still have a great respect for all who do what i gave up and i love to indulge in my other interests whenever i can so that i don't go overly crazy (yes it's probably too late for me, i know). being in belize afforded me the opportunity to visit several amazing mayan sites including actun tunichil muknal (a possible sacrificial cave site), el pilar (an unexcavated city), xunantunich (a beautifully excavated city) and cahal pech (another excavated city). i would recommend that anyone going to belize take the time to check out some of these sites, because remembering the past is the key to making a better future.

mayan ruins at xunantunich

so during all of my "adventures" i got to see that life in a "3rd world country" really isn't so bad... in fact i rather liked it. i got to spend a lot of quality time with one of my best friends (dang it i miss you nat!), meet some really awesome new friends, discover a love for the rum and coke, see more new and amazing bird species in a month and a half than i have in the past 2 years, and i never got one botfly larvae.... i think. thank you belize for changing my life for the better and i will certainly be back very very soon. *muah*

guess who gets to go play with these guys?! that's right... hopefully me come next week. updates to come soon.

apparently i've been slacking again on writing on here but i will be updating it soon! i am off to tennessee tomorrow and i'm hoping to have lots of good pics and stories to put up here! i could have had a sweet tale about a wonderful birding trip to see amazing birds i've never seen with bob mccormic (see you made it into my blog despite it all!) but luckily i somehow thought the trip was on sunday when it was really on saturday! thus the pictures you see are of birds that i would love to have had the chance to observe but i totally blew it. go me!!!

in other news, laura and i saw an osprey 2 days ago down at tempe town lake on the south side of the az-202! i wonder if it's the same kid that hung out at our house a while ago. either way, i wish the poor thing good luck in this hot hot weather!

in other other news, laura and i went down to tucson to look at some burrowing owl burrows that are going to unfortunately have to be removed because construction is going in there. it looks like there may actually be babies this time and i'm going to miss it because they're doing the removal when i'm gone. *SIGH*

in the saddest news of the day... i had my first vehicular avian incident. now i think i'm one of the most proactive anti-bird hitting people around. doves, quail and the occasional flicker are constantly flying at my car in an attempt to die but i dodge their every attempt. unfortunately my skills could not save the poor grackle that suddenly swooped down at my car as i went 80mph down the freeway. my braking attempt failed and it is no longer with us. i ask that we all please have a moment of silence for the poor thing. *CRIE*

so today was officially the hottest day of the year as of yet (114 degrees of fun) as well as the first official day of summer! so it was extremely odd when laura and i were driving back from liberty and noticed a large raptor in the tree behind our house and realized it was none other than a juvenile osprey!! poor kid! obviously her parents didn't tell her to migrate back up north for the summer. i don't have high hopes for her survival either (as you can see she's panting up a storm and drooping her wings severely), so we will be keeping a close watch on the poor thing.

in other news, nina and i set a liberty record for the most birds brought into the facility at one time with 170 individuals! this was thanks to our work with transwestern pipeline that is installing a natural gas pipeline throughout the state. despite its elevated level of environmental impact (sigh), they are attempting to comply with the federal migratory species act which protects all native birds within the united states. thus, they are basically pulling all nests in their path and the liberty biologists are helping them with this task and bringing them back to liberty for rehabilitation. so on this trip, 106 nests were pulled, most of which were doves and a little over half were eggs.

during this crazy baby bird flinging event, i had a slight vehicular incident. i apparently didn't properly check my tire positioning on one of the ramps and slipped off on the passenger side. it was quite nerve racking, but luckily it was a lot more embarrassing than anything else and i came out with little more than a slight scratch on my front tire and wheel. ah, the joys of off road driving.

so as always, it's been a busy year here at liberty. babies are everywhere you look and of course many of them are the cutest little things you've ever seen. we have gotten in a lot of mammals this year. unfortunately we don't keep baby mammals at the facility since they need 24 hour care, so most of them go to other rehabbers. the little peccary was one of the cutest things but already wild and nippy. it's amazing how long and razor sharp a 1-week old babys teeth can be! the ground squirrel, on the other hand was as sweet as can be other than the loud crying for food. poor thing. we even got in a kitten that was so tiny and soft that it fell asleep in the palm of my hand! of course we don't take in domestic animals but that doesn't always stop people from dropping them off!

it's also fun when we get in precocial babies. quail and killdeer are some of the funnest examples but we also get in ducklings and goslings from time to time. precocial means they can eat on their own and walk around as soon as they're hatched and dried off. these guys are always cute fuzzy versions of their parents and are nice because we don't have to spend as much time feeding them as the altricial babies.

speeking of altricial babies, we have tons of those as well. some of my favorites are the house finches that come with a fuzzy mohawk as soon as they hatch out of the egg! it's tough to miss-ID those guys. we also get in lots of mockingbirds who grace the orphan care area with their "MEEP" noise. i still laugh every time i hear it despite having heard it a million times. due to our contract with the transwestern pipeline, we've gotten in lots of eggs this year of various species. one of my favorite hatches was of a little towhee that popped up with the top of the egg shell still on its head!

we don't just get little guys in though. we recently got in a nest of hatchling ravens from prescott valley that got caught in a freak snow storm a couple weeks ago. they were completely covered in snow and came in ice cold and sopping wet. unfortunately hypothermia caught up to most of the chicks, but one made it through and is now a big, screaming, blue-eyed, and feathered nestling. he's doing great! we also recently hatched our very first roadrunner from an egg. coincidentally, we got in a 2-week old roadrunner the same day. we let them hang out together a bit to make them feel safe and comfortable. they have the cutest method of begging. i will have to tape it and put it up here.

as i've gotten older i've come to realize that just ignoring your problems won't actually make them go away. that is why i'm asking all 2 of you who read this blog to please help in solving an enormous problem that alaska's polar bears are facing. polar bear populations have declined significantly in the past decade, mostly due to global warming. this warming is causing the loss of important ice habitat which causes prey species to become more scarce pushing polar bears to either starve or drown while attempting to move to a location with more food. if this wasn't bad enough, they're now facing yet another threat to their habitat: arctic oil drilling. our current political administration is stalling on the process of adding polar bears to the endangered species list that they so desperately need to be on because they are trying to set up permits to allow drilling in the arctic which wouldn't be allowed if the polar bears were added to the list as all of the drilling is in their key habitat. of course i am 100% against drilling in alaska for any reason but the plight of the polar bear makes this even more critical to stop. if any of you would be willing to sign this easy petition (it literally only takes 1 minute) and to forward it to anyone you know, that would bring us one step closer to saving these truly unique and beautiful animals, but please hurry as it needs to be done by thursday, may 15th! besides, how can you say no to that face!!

so guess who FINALLY got internet at her new house?! that's right - ME!! now in case you're wondering why this is so important... it's because now i can actually get back to blogging and attempt to catch up on the last year i've missed. attempt being the key word, but at least you'll get to see some cool pictures. just to lay the groundwork for what has happened: i left maui in may, came back to az for a week, and then jetted off to maine to work with seabirds for audubon's project puffin on some of the coastal islands out there, and then made it back to az in september and have been the lead wildlife biologist for the research & conservation (r&c) department of liberty wildlife rehabilitation foundation ever since.

now, although i know most of you have been waiting for maine pics for some time, i think i need to wait on that for a little bit. first i will talk about what i've been doing recently. the r&c department works hard to solve human/wildlife conflicts in a positive manner for wildlife as well as for the humans involved. we work closely with aps and srp, two of the major electrical companies in arizona and we have contracts set up with transwestern pipeline that's laying a natural gas pipeline in arizona as well as freeport mcmoran/phelp's dodge which is one of the world's leaders in copper production plus many more construction companies. it is kind of a strange concept, being aligned with companies that tend to be considered harmful (mostly for good reason) to the environment, but how else can we ever make these companies responsible for their actions and be forced to change to more environmentally friendly practices?! although it may cause my bitterness level to rise, i know that my work here is really important to the wildlife this department is working to save and that's what's really important to me.

so with all that, here's one example of what i do... on monday i performed a nest move of a red-tailed hawk nest that was located on an extremely dangerous utility pole configuration. most raptor nests on poles are located off the electrical componenets and are perfectly safe, but sometimes they are located right in the path of high voltage that can and will cause electrocution and even ignite the entire nest on fire. instances of nests burning and killing all of the young as well as the adults are well documented. thankfully, aps and srp have realized that not only is it morally wrong to be electrocuting wildlife, but it is also illegal under federal law. the migratory species act protects all native birds and prohibits anyone from disturbing, harming, killing, owning, etc. any of these birds. in fact, it is even illegal to have a feather or nest of a native bird. i, for one, am extremely thankful to the government for this law as it is the only thing really holding anyone accountable for their actions involving birds and is the only thing keeping many of our native birds from becoming extinct.

so back to the nest move... we initially investigated this nest at the end of march and discovered, after watching the female's behavior, that she was still sitting on eggs. unfortunately, moving a nest of eggs is not often successful due to the fact that the parents often don't feel too invested in the eggs and will often abandon if disturbed and re-nest in a different location. thankfully, srp was willing to wait until the nest hatched to actually move the old nest. so, they turned off the electricity to the nest pole and put up a platform on another pole nearby that will eventually house the moved nest once the babies hatch. despite what many think, birds will not abandon their homes once they're touched by humans and we have had a 99% success rate with them returning to nests with babies that have been moved a short distance from the original nest location. so, we monitored the nest for the past month awaiting signs that the babies had hatched. finally, at the end of april we saw signs of the female tending to young and scheduled the nest move. it went brilliantly! first i removed the three tiny (3 to 8 day old) chicks from the nest and then moved the intact nest to the new location. we then replaced the chicks into the nest and left the area to monitor the parent's reaction from a distance. after a short time the parents came back looking confused. the male even brought food with him. finally, after about an hour and a half, the female finally built up her confidence to jump into the nest with her young and began feeding them! it was an amazing process to be a part of, especially because after seeing the equipment on the original nest pole we realized an electric surge had taken place at some point and knew that without turning off the power to the pole and moving the nest, it certainly would have gone up in flames!