The joys of being a wildlife carer

Often when we tell people we're wildlife carers they say, "Oh wow, I'd love to do that."

People have an image of it being all about bottle feeding baby kangaroos or hand feeding baby birds, of having little possums sitting on your shoulder, or your head, maybe even hand raising a huge Wedgetailed Eagle, then seeing it being released back into the wild.

Okay, that is a big part of it. we've bottle fed kangaroos, we often have a little possum climbing all over us and he even sits on the top of Donna's head like a Daniel Boone hat. Right now we have three of the cutest little Tawny Frogmouth chicks that, when they beg for food, sound like the Three Stooges in the scene where they're all snoring. And how many people can say they've held a pelican?

What people don't usually see is the less enjoyable parts of being a carer, the cage cleaning, the deaths, the bites and scratches, being peed and pooed on.

On the way home from picking up the Tawnies yesterday we got a call to pick up a baby crow. The crow had probably been out of the nest a couple of days and was very undernourished. It had a bit of gapeworm and it did a very runny poo just after we put it into a basket.

Being a couple of old soaks and because the pub was on our way home, we decided we'd drop in quickly and get some wine. Two minutes later we got back in the car and were hit by the foulest smell imaginable and both blamed the poor crow. We drove home with all the windows open.

When we got home and went to transfer the Tawnies from their basket to a cage we found the crow wasn't the guilty party. All I can say is, I wish I had telescopic arms, because once we'd transferred them to the cage we both had it on our fingers and under our finger nails. I couldn't get it far enough away from my nose. This isn't your standard bird poo that just washes off under running water either. This was sticky, meaning I had to rub it off with my other hand... gag, gag. It also meant the little birds bum needed to be washed. I put on rubber gloves for that.

For all that though, we still love being carers. Even when something like this happens.



Donna wondered why her back suddenly got nice and warm.