January 2011 Leader Column
Happy New Year to you all from the Recovery Centre Team. This time last year we were over run with Native Pigeons but this year so far has seen the Pigeons flying around like they should be not at the Centre. To give you some idea, we receive about 40 Native Pigeons each year if it’s a busy year we may get 50 Pigeons but by the end of 2010 we had a total of 150 for the year.
So far we have had many calls about the Little Blue Penguins landing on the shore, they are so warn out they just collapse as soon as they get clear of the water, I would like to thank everyone who phoned us when they found a Penguin rather than arrive at the Centre with it, placing them in a safe warm dry place away from the water was the best thing to do. We are still receiving a few calls about them so remember, if you find a Penguin in trouble at the beach it must be kept warm and dry, never put them in something with water in it as this will kill them.
So far we have had a run of baby Moreporks 6 in total, they come to us as balls of grey fluff, one was about 5 days old and still had his eyes shut, he is now flying around the room when we clean his cage and all he wants to do is eat all our other Birds or so he thinks. We have two young one’s in our outside pen that are just about ready to set free again.
The other Birds that are turning up is the small Storm Petrels and the Shearwaters all because of the rough sea conditions. After 3-5 days resting they are ready to go back to the sea, some only need a couple of days rest.
I had two people phone me over Xmas about mice getting into outside Bird cages and eating the Tame Birds seed. They will also try and eat any young chicks, as you know traps or poisons can be bad news around your tame Birds so here is a trick that I use from time to time. Get hold of an old 1 pint glass milk bottle the old ones, put about a table spoon of milk in the bottle and lay it on its side in the cage, the mice will go in to drink the milk and while walking in the milk their feet get wet and when they try to get out of the bottle they cant get any grip on the glass, sometimes you will get 2 or 3 at a time, this way you catch the mice and nothing will happen to your Birds.
Like last year it was great to catch up with visitors that had returned to see us and the Birds, 4 couples were from overseas, it’s nice to know they make a trip from Auckland to us just to catch up with what we are doing.
We will be getting started on our New Surgery again very soon and once it is finished we will be able to help many more injured Birds. I am sorry to say we only do work on Wild Birds not domestic one’s, you can phone us and we may be able to offer some advice, like who to take your Bird to in your area.
If you get a chance visit the Centre and have a look at many other interesting things that the other Clubs are doing as well as the Museum, they have made many new changes and it’s something we should all support and be proud of.
Robert and Robyn Webb
