Do wash your hands between caring for each bird because many of Tri-State’s patients are infected with contagious diseases such as Giardia or Finch Eye. Don’t put food in a Red-Tail Hawk’s cage without using tongs since they are food aggressive and will fly at you to take the food directly out of your hand. Do reuse food if the bird doesn’t eat all of it overnight because at a non-profit organization saving food=saving valuable money. Don’t forget to hangup the hoses when not in use as the water in them may freeze and make them difficult to use the next the day.
These are just a few of the many important do’s and don’ts I have learned in my first four days volunteering at Tri-State. However, each day I am asking fewer and fewer questions and I seem to be falling into a daily routine. I arrive at 8 in the morning, get briefed on the birds in house at the volunteer meeting, work outside and take care of the birds for however long that takes, and then do any tasks the supervisor of the day needs done until 3, which is when the PM bird feeding begins. In a normal day, I probably care for about five birds or so by myself and then work with other volunteers to take care of the cages containing more than one bird. Currently, there are around 30 birds in house including three Bald Eagles and eight Red-Tailed Hawks. Below is a picture of a Red-Tailed Hawk.
Watching birds like these hawks soar in the flight cages to build-up muscle strength in their wings again has been incredible so far. The chance to not only get up close and personal with these birds, but to actually assist in their recovery by putting medicine in their food and such, has been one I won’t forget. Although cutting open a dead mouse’s stomach and filling it with medicine isn’t most peoples idea of fun or interesting, there is something serene for me in this “gross” action. I find peace in the fact that my volunteer work is helping to save the birds at Tri-States lives, and I am eagerly looking forward to continuing my work throughout the next week and a half.
We have ten chicks right now and they are adorable! They’ve been eating multiple bowls of feed a day and are growing rapidly!
After CAS, we made our way to a casual coffee shop interview with Pete Kauhanen, who works with the SF Estuary Institute, where we’ll be visiting later in the week. He talked about his initiative, Green Plan-It, which maps areas by bio retention level. What interested me most, however, was not his work San Francisco, but in Australia. Pete lived with a semi-nomadic tribe that uses a method called “fire-stick farming” to clear land of harmful underbrush for hunting. It’s the older women of the tribe who have the responsibilities of fire starting and hunting, mostly for lizards. These small, controlled fires help prevent raging wildfires that would be prevalent if not for this strategy. In the past these tribes were pushed away, but recent initiatives by the Australian government have included the co-management of national land with indigenous tribes. This symbiotic relationship is not only much more respectful to the tribes, but also prevents wildfires and helps to maintain park safety and health. The controlled fires also encourage biodiversity by creating sub-environments within a giant area, which are differentiated by the levels of foliage growth after a burn. This example shows us how we can benefit socially, environmentally, and even economically (less recourses went to massive fire forces), when we work cohesively and respectfully with indigenous people. Pete, Lily, and I discussed possibilities for relationships like these with the National Park Service in the U.S, but failed to draw any conclusions on the potential. Pete said that the tribe he lived in is being featured on the first episode of Cook, a new show on Netflix that Lily and I are about to watch. Goodnight Blog!
I learned only 10 minutes into the workday that Matt will be in California for the entire week, so I will not be working with him for now. I began my actual workday messing around with the types of code statements that I will be using, called queries, which allow me to analyze data. The project that I have been assigned is to analyze data from a couple of locations across the United States that IONX is using to test its new sensor system. I will be analyzing the data that the sensors give us and developing code, or queries, that can analyze the data quickly for any errors. Using computer programs to analyze the data is much quicker and easier than manually combing through thousands of entries to find errors. Today I began writing the queries with my coworker, Trevor. Trevor is the youngest person at IONX at only 23 years old. He and I are working well together where we have been talking a lot about other interests that we both share. He is teaching me some of the necessary steps needed to develop programs. I look forward to developing my computer coding skills with Trevor.
Afterwards, we went about our daily chores and got ready for breakfast. On top of getting ready for breakfast, Sam prepared some wonderful Banana bread inside the solar oven for T. Paula’s birthday. I’m very excited to eat some of that later tonight.
Westtown Senior Projects' Blog 