Mystic Aquarium

Well, I started my day by checking the chicks in ICU. Guess what? I couldn’t find 614. We looked behind the dryer and he wasn't there. I finally found him loose in ICU behind one of the crates with a kelp gull. Not only him but three other chicks…he has now recruited more chicks to in in his very naughty habit of escaping. I want to take him home.

Today I worked in pen 10 with the big birds. It was a very tough day. Those big birds really got the best of me. They were so strong and bit me to death! They were so hard to restrain, so hard to force feed and just difficult overall. They exhausted me! I really didn't get to know anyone because they just were mad that I had to handle them. It's for their own good, but of course they don't realize that and are happy to give a nice bite whenever they can.

Later in the afternoon Nola asked if I could help to admit several new chicks from Stony Point. There were enough people helping so I could go to help. I've never admitted birds so Romy and Nola had to explain what my job would be. I had to get a chick from the box and put it on the scale for a weight so that it could be assigned a pen/area to go to. Then Romy would look for any marks, bites and feather loss and perform a dehydration test. Once that was done, if the chicks are over one kilogram, they would give me a deworming pill to put down its throat, tube darrows, put bands on its wings, give flea powder and score it's level of demeanor. We had eight chicks and one adult with stomach and leg injuries. Everything went very well until the adult. Most of all its processing went well until I got bit.  Then Nola asked me where the bird was bleeding from…I told her it was my blood from my finger and not the birds.

At the end of the day we were a bit behind in some of the areas so I made darrows for tomorrow’s morning feedings. After that I helped Naomi clean her outside pen from where the ICU chicks had been.

Tonight SANCCOB had its AGM (annual general meeting) which we were invited to. It was extremely informative and they listed all the duties of the staff. They also shared the roles of all the staff, the 2011 finance results and birds admitted, and had a guest speaker about conservation. It was an awesome night!