city wildlife – Page 3 – Urban Bestiary

Kinglet’s Quick Escape

It is Easter Sunday, and my one-year anniversary at the wildlife centre. It’s become an important part of my life and a highlight of my week. But it is such a strange time there now, due to Covid 19, with much fewer animals in care than normal, as they are being fostered, cared for elsewhere, or released if safe to do so.

I was sad and disappointed to see that little Leontes is gone. I am glad to know that he is in good care, but I am truly saddened that I will not likely see him ever again. He will probably be released rather than returning to the centre. The snakes are gone into foster care, too. But I am happy to see Hashbrown and be able to care for the remaining bats, opossums, a very clean coyote, raccoons including a very funny little girl who should be more afraid of humans, a too-sweet skunk, a very calm gull, and other animal patients.

More small songbirds are coming in now, too: a robin, blue jay, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, juncos, sparrows, as well as a starling, and the mourning doves and pigeons as always.

Recently I’ve been able to hold a very laid-back gull, a gorgeous yellow-bellied sapsucker who is sadly in really rough shape (a small woodpecker with a beautiful bright red head, who looooves eating her orange slices despite a fractured beak and other injuries), and a tiny dark-eyed junco (a beautiful little fluffy rich slate-grey songbird), with no problem at all, for medication and treatments.

A little kinglet outsmarted me, though! Super tiny little fluffball of a bird with gorgeous yellow and orange head cap.

This one was my first in months – I had not handled songbirds since last autumn. And she escaped!

Two tiny kinglets had just arrived at the centre earlier on Sunday, and it was time for them to get oral medications, tiny droplets at a time. I was with staff member H, and when ready, I reached in under the fabric cover, into the terrarium to gently capture the first one. Which is very difficult when there are two in an enclosure, that is not big but big enough for them to fly from one end to the other, and to hide under their branches.

I should have taken out the branches. Didn’t think of that at the time. I did grasp one little kinglet, but I was being far too gentle, and it got out of my hand. It was still in the enclosure.

I then tried using the fabric cover as a scoop to push the birds into one area of the enclosure where I can then more easily grasp it. This works very well when there is one bird in the enclosure but is tricky when there are two or more together.

So I used the fabric, and had both kinglets in the far end of the terrarium. As I reached in to bring one out, it escaped and started flying around the room!

“Ruby-crowned Kinglets are fast-moving but quiet little birds…” says AllAboutBirds.com and that’s very true. Especially the part about fast.

We immediately turned off the lights, but of course escaped birds always go as high as possible toward the ceiling and fly back and forth from one end of the room to the other. Staff member H and I grabbed our nets and tried to carefully capture it. (In the meantime, the other kinglet was still under the fabric, in the enclosure.)

Staff member H netted it expertly after a few minutes. Tired little bird. I reached in, too-gently trying to grasp it, and it escaped again!

H netted it again and I covered her net with mine. I reached in and gently, firmly, grasped it in my hand, removed it from the net, and turned it around in my hand, so its head was between my index and middle fingers with my hand loosely fisted around the tiny bird. It is SO tiny and SO fragile! Among the smallest of the songbirds who come in for care, at about 3 inches tall and weighing about ¼ of an ounce… much smaller than a warbler or a chickadee.

But once securely in my hand I held it no problem, and H gave it 3 different oral medications, before I put it back with the other kinglet in the terrarium. Certainly not final sign-off worthy work, but I feel blessed to have had the experience and practice handling tiny songbirds again.

Bringing Milksnake Her Easter Dinner

At the end of the day, I discovered that the gorgeous milk snake had shed!

I was able to remove the shed skin in one perfect piece, head to tail. And place it gently in-tact in a large Ziploc bag that I labelled with her patient number and the date on it.

Everyone has been waiting for her to shed. Which is not surprising as her wounds heal. She is the only snake who has not been placed in foster care while staffing is reduced due to Covid19, because she has been healing from some significant wounds on her belly. I noticed about 3 weeks ago that her eyes were starting to get cloudy – a sign of preparing to shed.

The beautiful snake was hiding under the large rock in her enclosure as I removed the shed skin. I let staff member J know, and since snakes don’t eat much before shedding, I was asked to bring her a little feast of a variety of small foods. Well no problem – except for the earthworms from outside.

I grabbed a fork from the kitchen and first went out the back door and into the ditch area to look for worms. I promptly stepped deeply into muck, covering my right shoe and pant hem. Ugh. No worms.

Then I went over the road to the farther ditch to dig and look under garbage in the wet ditch. No worms.

I have no idea where to find worms. On my way back into the centre, taking a route back that appeared drier, I slipped into the deep muck. Covered my left shoe. Ugh.

Ok, so wiped my feet as well as I could on the grass, then on the door mat, I went inside and went to the room where the dirty kennel cabs and waterfowl mats are hosed down. I hosed down my shoes and pants. Soaking wet shoes and socks now. Still no worms. I know nothing about wild worms.

So I went out the front door, to the park-like area in front of the building. Dug my fork into the grass. No worms. Dug into the slope of the planted area, covered in leaves. No worms. But there was a nice surprise: as I was returning to the TWC I noticed a groundhog looking at me!

A groundhog has made a home in the planted mound, in the park-like space in front of the Centre. What a treat to see her looking at me looking at her looking at me. Then back in to the Centre. I asked A if she knew where to find worms. Nope. I asked T. Good thing I asked T! She told me where to look. It was outside of course but could not be any closer or easier. I found two small wild earthworms. Thank goodness!

The milksnake’s post-shed Easter Sunday feast was complete and placed in a tiny dish in front of her, for her to enjoy.

Our Wild Neighbours

In the café of a trendy boutique hotel, my friend Tim and I were talking about books we had recently read. In reference to one, Tim, who grew up in a beautiful natural environment outside the city, commented that we can enjoy our city even more when we notice and appreciate the wildlife that is all around us.

Standing at a bus stop in east end Toronto on my way to work that day, I had heard exuberant calls of at least 4 different kinds of birds. Or maybe it’s different sounds from one or two different kinds of birds, I don’t know – but their peeps and yips and whistles were uplifting on a cold grey morning.

Yesterday morning my local racoon came for a neighbourly visit, which was a treat since she usually comes by at night to see if she can scrounge some tasty bits from the garbage. Squirrels scamper through our yard frequently throughout the day, though I see my little black-furred friends (and one grey one) mostly in the early morning before I go to work. And for the last couple of months a very vocal cardinal couple have been stopping for a visit in our front yard every few days.

I have no idea who else may be passing through when I am at work during the days and many evenings.

raccoon visitor on my back porch (she’s looking into the house…hmmm…)

A few months ago, I spoke with an awesome 12-year-old girl named Adara, and her mom Kendra, about growing up in the city – with wildlife. Adara has watched at least three generations of falcons in her schoolyard and in her own back yard. “Two years ago, there were babies everywhere… you couldn’t wake up any morning without hearing falcons” Adara told me. “We don’t see them as much now, but they are still around.”

One of the raptors liked to roost in the tree right outside of Adara’s bedroom. The falcon would sit in the fork of the tall tree, where it could oversee back yards across the neighbourhood. Adara said, “One morning I woke up and I was like, huh, that’s a nice thing to wake up to! He would have come up to here [Adara karate-hand points to just below her knee] almost, at that time. And he stayed in that tree for about a year. He left around the time that the third generation of babies were born… there was six babies at one point constantly flying around.” So, their whole east-end Toronto neighbourhood was watching baby falcons.

Adara facing the window where a falcon lived right outside

Opossums, raccoons, and other wild neighbours have been seen in Adara and Kendra’s yard, as well as coyotes in a nearby urban park. There’s also a skunk that has a regular route through the yard. “It has a ritual,” Adara says, “it comes up from between the two houses at about 11ish, wanders around the front yard for a bit, and then goes back down the driveway.” Kendra and her husband taught Adara that when the skunk is there, to be still and don’t surprise it – it will paw around the yard happily and everyone will be ok. Adara rolls her eyes as she describes the teenagers who scream and shout out when they see the skunk, and says, “really, you are across the road and you are fine.”

In the intro to Wild City, A Guide to Nature in Urban Ontario, Doug Bennett and Tim Tiner write, “Cities are commonly thought of as being outside of nature, and certainly there is no landscape more altered and intensely dominated by humans. … Certain native species, such as squirrels, crows, blue jays and raccoons, have learned to prosper in the new human-structured environment. Many others persist in the less-disturbed, protected or neglected spaces within cities. Their number and diversity may not rival that found in the near-pristine wilderness or even in the rural countryside, but for more than 80 percent of us in Ontario who live in urban environs, it’s the nature most immediate to us in our everyday lives.”

Mid-week last week (on March 4), the Government of Ontario made an announcement with the headline: Ontario Helping Communities Protect Species at Risk. Minister Jeff Yurek (Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks) announced that the government will again be investing to support projects by non-profit organizations, Indigenous communities, and other groups through the Species at Risk Stewardship Program. Up to $4.5 million in 2020-21. The program is designed to improve the status of species at risk and their habitats by supporting stewardship, protection, and recovery, as well as funding scientific research, outreach, and other activities that inspire and enable people to become involved in species at risk stewardship.

Ontario is home to more than 30,000 species of plants, insects, fish and wildlife. 243 species are listed on the Species at Risk in Ontario List, including some of my favourite critters: salamanders, owls, fox, woodpeckers, swallows and warblers, little bats, snakes, quite a few species of fish, dragonflies, voles, as well as animals I didn’t know we have in Ontario and others I had never heard of. The full species at risk list is online here.

In Our Wild Calling (one of the books that my friend Tim and I were discussing in the café), Richard Louv writes, “Here’s an additional possibility: As climate change and urbanization continue to move wild animals out of traditional habitats and into cities, multiple species will come into closer contact. If our species can devise new rules for living peacefully with other animals, and create additional natural habitat in cities, urban biodiversity will increase, and our species loneliness may be reduced. Creating that new compact will be key to our survival, beginning with our mental health.”