They grow up so quickly...

Two weeks ago when I started we had a flock of 8 baby geese, following around an adult geese (not their mother, but they assumed she was... It was cute). Saturday morning I did the usual rounds of feeding all the birds on the hill - and the geese have grown so much! Just last week they all still had fuzzy yellowish heads, and now 5 of them have the standard canadian geese markings showing up. And they are as tall almost as their "mom". They do still follow her around in a tight pack, trying to avoid me.
Here are some pictures I've borrowed from another blog (http://neighborhoodnature.wordpress.com) Showing some baby geese at 4, 5, and 7 weeks of age. You can see the head markings starting to appear, and by week 7 they look just like smaller adults.




We also have a plethora of baby mallards. When they see you reach in to exchange their food/water, they all huddle together as close as possible, almost standing on each other. Its pretty adorable...
Here's a video stolen off youtube of some ducklings:

We also have a few wood ducks, and a lot of big raptors and crows. A lot of the older crows have graduated to the hill, where they are in large enclosures. And I am getting better, but I still keep having flashbacks to hitchcocks "the birds" when I walk into a room with 5 crows, and they start flying overhead.
I've gotten to do some medications for some of our baby birds - and it is so nice! they all gape - which means you wave a syringe in front of them, and they open up their mouths looking for food. You can just squirt it in. I wish we could teach the raccoons to gape!
Up on the hill we have a room with 4 or 5 young jays in it. The rehabbers have confirmed they all have learned how to feed themselves - yet when you walk in one chases me around, and keeps landing in front of me and opening his mouth. Lazy little guy, says he's prefer having the food squirted into his mouth, so he doesn't have to bend down. Its pretty cute.

One more bird story - in the ward we have a crow we've nicknamed "creepy crow". In general we don't name the animals... This guy has bilateral paresis, so hes partially paralyzed. In the ward they are in little cages with a sheet over the door so they don't get stressed out by seeing us. However Creepy crow always finds his way to a corner of the door that is somehow not covered, and spends his time watching us. Sometimes snacking on mealworms (like popcorn) just watching! I've never seen another animal in the ward do that...

On a less "cute" note - I had my first experience at Paws that made me want to cry. I've seen plenty of animals put to sleep, or come in dead, w/ broken bones exposed and sticking out wings or legs. Somehow that I can tolerate, and blame on life... But we had a squirrel get brought in who was hit by a car - and he was a little bloody, and just lying in the box gasping clinging to life. His chest was filling up with fluids making it hard for him to breath. Needless to say he didn't make it - but seeing him lying there fighting death was so sad. And it reminded me of all the animals daily who get hit by cars and just left on the side of the road assumed dead - who languish there stunned and in pain as life slowly leaves them. Its hard knowing how much pain we cause animals with our highly advanced lifestyles. But at least I'm helping a few of the animals get back on their feet.