Monday, July 13, 2009

OMG A POST?! Return to the clinic

Hey so this will probably be my last post since I am woefully incapable of posting regularly post-clinic (no pun intended). Anyway I visited the clinic a few weeks ago and I thought it would be nice to show some before and after pictures of the animals. It was a really nice visit and I plan on going down one more time before I disappear into Vermont. So, without further ado, my babies

Oscar Then:

And Now!:

Raccoon Number One Then:

And Now!:

Charlie Then:

And Now!:

And with new girlfriend, Lucy:


Apparently Oscar is aptly named since he is quite grouchy and is the boss in the new and awesome flight cage for owls. Henry has adorable and hilarious uneven antlers:And is thoroughly enjoying his wheel chair. He apparently greets visitors at the door now :)

Charlie is just the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. When he first saw me he ran around the cage in circles for like 20 minutes and yipped. Here is a video of the second time I came up to the cage:



I also got to see several babies that we didn't have when I was there, including a baby woodchuck, wood duck, turkey(ahhhh it begins again!) and a little Ternie (laughing gull)! The laughing gull was super sassy which was AMAZING.

Also here is a baby blue jay who was begging for food every time someone walked past. SO CUTE!




I missed the animals more than I realized :(

Bye for now (forEVER?!)

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Missing my babies :(

So I'm not going to say I miss the poop...or the 6am mornings...or the demanding physical labor...but man do I miss those animals. At the moment I feel really antsy because I'm used to being on the move 12 hours a day...but I also have slept from 12 midnight to 12 noon for the past 3 days. I am the sleeping MASTER. I know that sounds a little excessive but it was amazing so I refused to feel ashamed. I think I will keep up this blog because it has been nice to look back at the stuff I have been doing and because at UVM I'm going to be just as (if not more) unreachable to most of my friends and family. Anyway, I found a bunch of OLD OLD Wildlife in Crisis pictures up in the apartment before I left and I downloaded them onto my computer (with Dara's permission). I though I would share some of the cool ones of animals I didn't see and pictures of the clinic from way back when:

Old School WIC:

Baby bluebirds = ridiculousness
The juvenile bald eagle raised and released from WIC:
Why if you throw shit on the ground and leave it there you are seriously not my friend:
Adorableness

I am actually planning on going back to WIC for a visit in early June so stay posted for adorable baby pictures and an update on Charlie and Henry! Also I will be in Maine and camping in the next few weeks and will attempt to remember my camera. Later!

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Ok so I lied, THIS is the last post

Today

Henry

Got

WHEELS!!!!He LOVES them and he was way less freaked out than I thought when we put him in. He seemed so much more comfortable than he is in the tub :) It was an awesome way to end my internship.

Aaaaand also here is a sleepy owl:

alright, see you all in the real world!

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

LAST POST AT WIC!!

Hey everyone! Thursday is my last day here so this will be a somewhat long post to catch you up on my life and post adorable pictures :) Sooo first order of business:

1. THE TURKEYS ARE GONE! Let me back up. We got a call a little over a week ago from a woman being harassed by a turkey in her yard. Dara saw the number and realized it was someone right down the road from us...sure enough...it was one of our turkeys. They apparently have been branching out in their harassment practices, only now it is landing them in trouble. Sooo, in order to keep them off animal contols radar and from becoming turkey dinners, they have both been sent to a farm. No, not the "farm" where old dogs go, an actual farm. Anyway, farewell turkeys! I will miss your 5 am tap on my skylight....wait no I won't...Enjoy the farm!


2. MORE BABIES. At our highest count there were 25 bunnies...omg. Currently we also have 2 baby raccoons (fuzzball 1 and 2!), a baby possum who looks like an alien, and 3 baby squirrels...OMG PICTURES:


3. About how Charlie 3 weeks ago:


Became Charlie now!I LOVE THIS ANIMAL SO MUCH! Anyway here is another quick video of him

Aaaaand last order of business

4. I am going to be working this summer at a nature camp but hanging out in Maine a lot so I will attempt to take more naturey pictures and also I plan to visit the clinic a few times....should I continue to update this blog?

Anyway, for those of you who I will see soon; See you soon!

THE END




?

Friday, April 24, 2009

FINE

Alright you perfectionists, NO, 21 minus 2 does not equal 18....but I'm not actually sure where my math/version of reality went wrong because we currently do have 18...hm. And also here is what happens to your arms when you let baby foxes play with them:


But it's ok because he is just so damn cute.
Guess how I took the picture :) go ahead, guess! Aaaaand here is another bunch of cute pictures of Charlie (sure, from LOST):

Thursday, April 23, 2009

SO MANY BUNNIES

So I haven't posted in a while and here is why:

Last Thursday:

4 Bunnies
Last Friday

Two more bunnies (mixed in with previous bunnies):Last weekend while I was away

10 more bunnies:


This Tuesday

1 more bunny:

This Wednesday

5 more bunnies:

In total we have received 21 bunnies, but two died so now we only have EIGHTEEN BABY BUNNIES 0_o

Apparently this is normal for this time of year. Did you know that bunnies reproduce like.....bunnies?!

Anyway, that has kept us on our toes. Daphne (who is a boy) has now been dubbed Charlie the Fox and is still the cutest thing that ever happened. Here is some more video proof (note the move to the bigger cage and his adorable playfulness/eating my hands):

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

BABIES and Daphne is a boy...

So when it rains it pours and we got a baby great horned owl and a littler of 4 baby bunnies this week...although during peak baby season I hear there is a line out the door of people with babies every day. Anyway, if you didn't know, baby great horned owls look like muppets and like if you pushed them just a very little bit they would fall over:His name is Oscar I decided today. Aaaaaand here are baby bunnies so cute that it hurts:


I was thinking Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter (or is that too cliche?). Plus I think that's just tempting the fates for one to kick the bucket and thus leave an incomplete set, and I don't really want to have to tell people that Peter Rabbit died....Anyway, in other news: Daphne is a boy! I had a sneaking suspicion and I guess Dara must have rushed when we got him in. Melissa (another awesome volunteer and ex-intern) had come by to bring Delilah for babysitting while she is on vacation and she was holding "Daphne" while I was on the phone. I was on the phone forever with a woman asking if it was normal for deer to lie down sometimes (it is indeed) and Melissa wrote something on a post-it and put it in front of me. Thinking it would say something like "Sorry I gotta go, bye!" I read it. It said "Daphne has a penis". I then laughed accidentally to the annoyance of the woman on the phone. Anyway, Dara double checked and the fox is indeed a boy and thus in need of a new name. Any suggestions? Marissa has suggested Alphie along with the idea that the babies be named alphabetically as they arrive which I like...although I just wrecked it with Oscar....hm. Anyway, leave suggestions and also watch this video of "Daphne" being horrifically cute.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

It is officially baby season!! and Henry is a Red Sox fan

On Thursday we got our first baby!! AND it was the baby animal I was most hoping to get to see: A fox kit :) It is the cutest thing I have ever seen. But pictures speak louder than words:

Sorry the quality isn't so great. My camera hasn't really been the same since Henry licked it. Anyway to make things even more ridiculously cute she also makes this little sad cry when she is hungry:



The replying squawk is the seagull behind me. I don't know what they are saying to each other but I think something is lost in translation.

More updates on her and pictures to come! I'm thinking she looks like a Daphne (my mom actually suggested that). Anyway I will close with a cute video of Henry so he knows I still love him best.


Sunday, April 5, 2009

The Trouble with Gooses

Hello everyone, today was 62 degrees and it was officially too hot for me...but the animals are enjoying it. I can finally open my skylight too which is night because currently I can hear spring peepers outside....and raccoons fighting (mating?). Last week I went to Drew Thursday to speak at the grad school panel which was fun, and after Emily and I went out for drinks with Fox and Windfelder (our two favorite Drew professors) and the other graduate student Drew alum. We also got to see Windfelder's baby Maggie earlier in the day and she is still the most adorable baby I think I have ever seen :) EW I just officially found the first tick of the season on my arm! Anyway, here are some more animal photos:

Wild Turkey at dawn
Can you find 3 turkeys?*
Our lovely volunteer Marissa and Henry (I hope it's ok to post this Marisa!)
Delicious
*just kidding there are only 2 turkeys

Oh and also to make the title make sense I have a brief story; We had two geese come in from a woman who takes our geese that were having some motor skill problems. One stayed with us and the other (a domestic goose which we had no room for) went to the vet office that we work with a lot. Anyway, to make a long story short the geese got better and the domestic one was dropped off to us after being at the vet for a week or so. The first morning we had him I put him in a bucket to bathe. The bucket happened to be next to the other goose's cage. Goose number 1 went...."honk?" uppon seeing goose number 2 in the bucket. Goose number 2 went "HONK?!" uppon seeing Goos Number 1. Then they honked joyously at each other for a good 5 minutes. It was adorable. I had no idea geese would recognize each other like that. Here is Goose 2:



and a video of goose 1 in the bucket from a few days before:



I am aware the bucket is pathetically small for them, but it is generally used for the ducks aaand they are now back to their home with our goose and pigeon woman with a pond and a lot of land so they only had a few days of bucket bathing. That's all for now!

Monday, March 30, 2009

Lies!

So I said I would post over the weekend and I didn't, however, I have some good excuses. 1. I was busy having fun with Meghan and Sarah and then later busy dealing with health insurance, UVM, and filling out stuff for my summer job. 2. I am having issues loading pictures for some reason, aaaand 3. I'm lazy! Here is a brief review of my life in recent weeks. I will post more later! Maybe!

1. Last weekend was AWESOME with Mary and Laura and Russ (and Delilah, Laura's sassy guinea pig). We went to Reading Terminal Market, South Street, got lost a while, and coolest of all; Eastern State Penitentiary!! Here are a few pictures of how cool and spooky it was:
The tour was good and very interesting, but since it was 2 in the afternoon, not very scary. Also you may notice the last picture is actually of Laura and Mary and me wearing silly hats. I also had a ridiculous time attempting to be on time to a movie with John (friend met through Casey like 3 years ago) and then again the next day. The first time I was late was due to my inability to read my GPS, and the second time was due to Russ forgetting he had set his GPS to pedestrian (um why does it say we will arrive in 10 hours?). Soooo I blame all tardiness on technology. Anyway, on to my only other major news:

2. I CAN GO TO UVM!!! Yay, it's official! I just got word that I am all set with a Teachers Assistantship and a Research Assistanship which should cover me. So now I have a summer job and I'm going into graduate school.....now the part where I need to freak out and get a ton of shit organized and done...but still yaaaaay!

Last bit of news: My last day is officially (it's in the calendar! In pen!) May 8th. I am staying an extra week to have some more time training the new girl who is coming the very end of April. Anyway, after that I will be heading to Philly for a few days to see my Laura again (Mary you are invited, if you see this please make contact with the outside world when you get a chance). And on my way back I was planning on seeing anyone else who wants to see me before I disappear into Vermont. OH ALSO OMG WTF BBQ. This summer in Maine, all my Drew people (and Meg and Sarah) are invited to my cabin for a crazzzzy weekend. If you are reading this and you are from Drew, this means you!!

OH ALSO ALSO, we found out that Eastern State Penitentiary will let in groups of people at night to do ghost hunts/investigations, which is so cool! So if you enjoy ghosties, let me know and maybe we can set something up sometime. We are thinking a group of around 15 to 20, because otherwise it would be prohibitively expensive...BUT SO COOL. Anyway, that's it for now.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

UVM why do you tease me so?

So I will do a longer post about last weekends wonderful adventures next weekend when I have some time. Right now though, I will briefly tell you why I am currently not a happy camper. I got a cryptic email on monday from a woman at UVM telling me to call her ASAP. Thinking to myself "haha, they are going to be like, JK, you didn't actually get in!" Which would be funny if it weren't close to what happened. I finally reached the woman who had left her office, but very nicely gave me her home number. I called and said it was Cori and the woman on the other end answere "YAAAAY!" which was a bit of a surprise. She informed me that she has been feeling aweful about this and apparently it woke her up thinking about it at 3am last night, but that they may have "jumped the gun" on letting me know I was admitted. Apparently they really want me in the program (she stressed this part which was nice but did not make up for the next part) however, because Dr. Donovan (my prospective adviser) is technically working for Vermont Fish and Wildlife, her students have to have 100% funding for her to take them. So far they have only been able to piece together a TAship and one other thing for me which will not completely cover me. There are other things in the works and that is not to say I WON'T get 100% funding, but just that they don't actually know for sure yet....bbbuut I was accepted!......WHAT?! So anyway, now I have to wait and see how everything plays out before I can do my little happy dance. I'll give you details as I know them, but in the mean time this calls for some serious turkey taunting:


Thursday, March 19, 2009

My Day: by Cori Brauer Age 23

So tonight I am driving down to Philly with Mary to visit Laura and I am super excited. I woke up this morning thinking "ok, today will be a nice easy day. Marissa is coming to help out and she is an awesome volunteer, we have 2 fewer animals than yesterday, etc, just have to stay conscious until I get to Philadelphia". Anyway, the morning was indeed very easy. I successfully convinced a veterinary clinic we work with to treat a goose with lead poisoning instead of handing it over to us (it would have to have its blood chelated to remove the lead which is rather expensive). theeen someone called in and brought us a possum in rough shape that looked like a car had run over it's tail....then right after than a woman I had never met basically ran in and handed me a goose without working legs. It turned out to be a woman who I have spoken with over the phone who awesomely takes all our pigeons and doves and ducks....but in return aparently we sometimes get surprise geese. The goose is nice anyway. Just kind of took the situation in stride and then daintily started sipping water and went to sleep. Anyway, I'm sure I will post next week about my crazy weekend in Philly seeing ghosts and Naaaarnia. That will make more sense when I explain where we are going...which I will....next week.....ooooo a cliffhanger! Stay tuned folks! Also here is a series of pictures I don't think I ever posted of Sarah being slowly covered in blankets when she and Meghan came to visit:


THE END