Burds

This morning I reported to the breakroom, pulled out the volunteer sign-in notebook and signed in right underneath my entry from last week. Some keepers came in who I hadn't met before so I introduced myself. "Oh, you're the one who couldn't handle the elephant barn!" Yep, that's me. Cool. Everyone came in and they had another conversation about animals, then the mammal keepers left to start their husbandry. They didn't even ask me if I would be working with them today! Fine, I was planning on working with the birds anyways. So I asked the bird people if I could work with them. So, I was Travis's helper for the day. He asked me if I was afraid of birds. I said "not yet..."

We started out in the food room. He asked me if I was afraid of bugs. Come on! What is this, if I can't handle working in a room filled with elephant pee and droppings, now I'm supposed to be afraid of everything?! No, I'm not afraid of bugs! Well, my job was to separate the meal worms from the crumpled newspaper. It was easy, I just had to unfold the newspaper and shake it, and all the little yellow worms fell into the bucket (except the dozen or so that landed on the counter, the floor, or me). While I was busy concentrating on that, Travis was cutting chicks in half and picking out nice mice and gerbils. The birds also eat long skinny fish. Once the plates were prepared, I sprinkled worms on them like cheese, and we loaded up the wheelbarrow.

We walked over to the flamingo / waterfowl area and Travis scared away the wild ducks then dumped the food in the water or in their feeding bowls. The flamingos don't eat shrimp, they eat pellets of Flamingo Diet. The six peacocks were hanging around, showing off their tails. I met a goose that was nesting and lots of different kinds of ducks. Then we wheeled some food over to Pod C. This is an indoor (warm) area where there's a room where birds fly around freely. There's a fake stream in there and some real and fake trees. The visitors can walk through the room on a bridge. Travis turned on the overhead sprinklers to rinse off the room. Meanwhile, I got to meet Pancho. He's a big green parrot who sleeps in a cage in the back room, but spends the day in the big room with the other birds. He's very friendly - He can whistle and say Hello. Pancho had pooped on a step in his cage so Travis got two paper towels and cleaned it up. That's all the poop I saw all day. Then Travis turned off the sprinklers and put Pancho in the big room.

So, Travis wheeled the food around to some more birds. I met some hornbills and some yellow birds. We went into the education room to feed Bob the dove. Travis told me that he used to hunt doves a lot, but since he's met Bob, he's not as interested. I also met Einstein the owl. He was really cool. Travis put four dead mice in his jacket pocket and went into Einstein's cage. Einstein flew onto his arm and ate the mice head-first as Travis fed him. I met a buzzard named Homer, another hornbill named Lucille, a bunch of chickens and a spastic roadrunner. Lucille was funny, she like buttons and zippers.

Well, I'd met all the birds and it was 10:30. We went and looked at some of the other animals. The monkeys have a baby that's kinda cute for a monkey. The jaguars were up and moving around. Travis said that they're only awake for 4 hours a day. Our backs were leaning on the glass of their cage and they came up behind us, stood up, and started pawing on the glass, about the level of our shoulders. Cool! I asked Travis if that's a trick that they learned (like a massage or something) but he said "No, they're just trying to kill us." Oh. right.

We went to the concession stand and Travis bought (guess what) some animal crackers! Then we went back to the big bird room to drain and refill the stream. While I was standing there, hanging out with Pancho, some visitors came walking through on the bridge. They didn't ask me anything, but Pancho said hello to them anyways. It was kinda awkward just standing there, in the exhibit. Travis was under the bridge working on the stream so it looked like I was just hanging out in the exhibit by myself.

I went ahead and left early. I wasn't filthy or exhausted. I had touched some worms and some crickets and some birds, but that's it. So, if you want to walk around the zoo and meet the birds, volunteer with the bird keepers.

I spelled birds wrong in the title because all the bird food buckets are labeled "BURDS."