Since I am nearing the end of my internship, I felt the urge to take as many pictures of our patients as possible so here are some of them below:
I see you too. These guys and girls will be moving to an outdoor enclosure soon, one step closer to being released into the wild.
They no longer fit in their igloo.
Opossum pile! There are 6 opossums here, can you find them all?
I was cleaning her tail when she decided to explore the camera.
You caught me, I am eating yes.
An eastern gray squirrel enjoying its newly replenished food.
If you could only hear them when they eat, they make kind of a grrrrrrr sound in intervals.
A cedar waxwing, a really neat looking songbird. This little guy likes to perch on the zipper of the enclosure while he gets fed.
Here are all 6 of them, one is hiding in there somewhere. They have an awesome face mask coloration and then yellow tipped tail feathers which are kind of hard to see in this picture.
One of the other interns, also named Sarah, cleaning a grosbeak. The grosbeak was attacked by a blue jay, they are one of the bigger birds of the songbird group.
Mr. Fox, red fox that is, who was released yesterday!
King of his hill.
Enjoying the sunlight on his log.
Daphne was talking to me.
I disturbed her from her sleep, once again she is talking to me. She likes to bob her head and stretch her neck forward when she is excited or talking, like she is doing here.
I saw a muskrat for the first time this week, we had one that was admitted because it was caught in a window well. See below:
Webbed foot of the muskrat along with its muscular tail. Muskrats are avid swimmers and only urinate and defecate in water so he was provided with a "litter pan" full of water.
That is what a muskrat looks like from the front, they are very good jumpers.
My babies, these are a few of the raccoons that we raised from babies. They are now outside and ready for release any day.
One curious raccoon, until you try to touch him and then he acts like a raccoon.
Enjoying his dinner. Raccoons have a funny way of chewing, their jaw is not very flexible.
They are getting to be pretty big.
Exploring one of their toys. They love climbing, naturally.
One of our smaller great horned owls believe it or not. His cage is getting cleaned and he is given fresh food and water while one of us holds him. I say "him" because in the raptor world males are usually smaller than females as adults.
On my last set of days off I was fortunate enough to get the chance to visit some of my relatives up in Green Bay. My cousin Melissa came to get me and we drove back to Green Bay where we had lunch with my great Aunt Suzie and uncle Tom Englebert. I haven't seen them in years, it was great to get to see them again especially when I am this close.
Tom and Suzie at Kroll's.
Meliss and I with Lambeau Field in the background.
Then Melissa took me to Lambeau Field, home of the Pack! Now I am not much of a football fan but even I have to admit that place was impressive and outrageously gigantic, unlike anything I have ever seen.
The golden or should I say green gates to Lambeau Field.
Packer training center, right across from the stadium.
We went home to meet Snoopy and Woodstock, her two shih tzu dogs. I met her husband Roger as well, a very nice guy. Melissa and I took a trip out to a local zoo called the NEW Zoo. It was quite chilly that day but I enjoyed the animals. It was a lot more unrestricted in terms of the animals' enclosures, they looked like they were free to move around more than in a traditional zoo. We got to feed their giraffes too!
Melissa feeding the shy giraffe who will only allow you to pet her while she is eating, she needs a bribe.
Gorgeous white pelican, we normally have brown ones in south Texas. I LOVE PELICANS!
This one is for Sis, a beautiful snow leaopard. In the same cat family as her white tiger.
A burrowing owl who is a little cold at the moment. I LOVE OWLS TOO!!
A confused bald eagle.
Once we got home we had homemade lasagna (big THAK YOU to Aunt Suzie for her delicious food contribution!) with salad and tea, yummmmmmm :) Then for desert we went to Culver's to buy an ice cream cake and stopped at Seroogey's chocolate store on the way. Melissa and Roger were literally like kids in a candy store, they were picking out things I should get to take with me, "do you like this? then you need to take one, Oh you like caramel? then you need one of these, You need a meltaway bar, but you can't just take one so take a few different kinds" haha, it was a lot of fun needless to say. Unfortunately I had to come back the next day because I had work the day after. Even though my stay was short I really had a fantastic time. It's not every day that I get to hang out with my cousins, kind of hard to find them since I don't have any first cousins. Thanks Roger and Melissa for welcoming me into your home and treating me like royalty!!!
This week's days off don't consist of many excitng adventures: laundry, bank, grocery stores, cooking, writing letters, etc. Linda wanted to venture in her backyard yesterday when she got home from work so I tagged along right before it got dark. Her "backyard" by the way is all woods so we took a little hike and found the trails that the landlord's son uses for hunting.
One of the few good things about cold weather is that it means fall is here. I am here just long enough to see the fall colors come in.
Great shot of the moon when we emerged from the woods.
Did I also mention that it is getting COLD up here already!!! We are in the 40s and 50s at night and reach the 70s during the day most recently. We had a thunderstorm roll through with hail so when I went to work at 9am there was ice on my windshield much to my surprise. I am from SOUTH Texas, not NORTH Texas, I miss the heat. It is a good thing I am getting out of here soon. I don't think I could function in snow and ice on a regular basis.
Ice on my windshield!
My exciting days off have concluded with making homemade guacamole (mhmmmmm) and watching the season premieres of my favorite shows, good enough for me.
