[EBB Sightings] an unusual list -- the birds I personally worked with on the Oiled Wildlife Response

For the past week, I have been working as a volunteer as part of the Oiled Wildlife Response to the San Francisco Bay oil Spill. I've been at the International Bird Rescue Research Center in Cordelia.  I've written extensively about this on my blog, where you can also see photos of some of the birds under care. At this point, over a thousand live oiled birds have been brought in to the center.

I am in the "happiest" part of the center, as I am working in the outdoor pool area. The birds in this part of the facility have been examined by vets, stabilized, washed, rinsed, dried, and are deemed healthy enough to go outside into rehab pools.  For the most part, the birds look quite healthy. All of these birds have "life guards" assigned to them, and if they seem to be having any trouble they are taken out of the pools, and re-assessed.  Several times a day, each bird is examined for waterproofing, and general health.

So, here are the birds that I have personally had contact with. I've ordered them with the birds we see the most of at the top of the list:

Scoters, Surf, White Winged and Black
Eared and Horned Grebe
Western and Clark's Grebe
Scaups, both Greater and Lesser
Common Murre
American Coot
Ruddy Duck

These are the most common birds out in the pools, and the next batch are the odd-balls:

Canada Goose
Swan (not sure what kind, quite a handful to transport!)
Black Turnstone 
Rhinoceros Auklet
Bonaparte's Gull
Mystery Juvenile Gull

There have been a lot of success stories, but perhaps the silliest thing that happened to me was when we were moving Coots, Scaups and Ruddy Ducks out of one enclosure, and into larger seperate pool-aviaries.  These birds had been in a pool-aviary with a couple of gulls and a Black Turnstone.  The Turnstone made us quite nervous, because it could fly, and we had a lot of birds to carry out the door.  I kept my eye on the Turnstone every time I opened the aviary door.  As I was waiting for the other volunteer to hand me the next towel-wrapped bird, the Turnstone alighted on my head.  The sun was behind my back, and I could see a shadow of this bird, perched, looking around, looking around. "Hey Sandra," I said, "You've got to look up.  I have a new hat."  We all marveled at the perching Turnstone, and then I waved my hands a bit to try to encourage the bird to fly off. No luck.  I bent over at the waist, and it just climbed down my back.  Eventually, it relinquished its perch, and we all lamented the fact that there had been nobody nearby with a camera.

How delightful!  

Lisa Lazar
http://howsrobb.blogspot.com/