Spring is turning to summer, and the demands of the Baby Bird Program (BBP) are intensifying. At the hub of the activity is the Baby Bird Room (BBR), a “nursery” or “orphanage” for altricial birds, who grow quickly but hatch unfeathered, with closed eyes, and unable to self-feed. (Precocial birds, such as ducks and shorebirds, grow slowly but hatch with feathers, open eyes, and an ability to self-feed. They are housed elsewhere at the PWC clinic.)

Baby birds are brought to PWC for a variety of reasons, says BBP Lead (trainer) Sharon Blakely. Among them are “nests destroyed by tree trimming, gusty winds, cat attacks, [and] separation from parents.” Although “bird napping” by well-intentioned people is definitely a problem, Volunteer Coordinator Brook Segall assures us that the PWC Hotline volunteers are good at triage, advising callers to distinguish normal, healthy, unorphaned baby birds from those who are truly in need of care. Also, she says, “We work really hard as a team to renest” the babies whenever possible.

To a volunteer new to the program, the BBR “can seem overwhelming, with all the many, many mouths to feed, the medications to give, the baskets to clean, the food to distribute,” says longtime BBP Rehabilitation Technician Melinda Alvarado. Some experienced volunteers, willing to take on any other task at the clinic, are known to say, “but please—not the BBR!” A four-hour shift in the BBR is challenging, demanding, and intense – but also very rewarding.

How the babies are housed, how often they are fed, and what they are fed depends both on their age and species. Birds of different ages – hatchlings, nestlings, and fledglings – require specific housing, as they graduate from an incubator, to a knit-cap “nest” of the right size inside a basket, to a reptarium with a perch (also of the right size), foliage, and more space to stretch growing wings.

The birds’ age also determines how often they need to be fed – from every 15 minutes for hatchlings in incubators to 30-45 minutes for nestlings in baskets to 1-2 hours for fledglings. The intensity of this schedule is often the daunting part for people new to the BBR. At the height of the season, says longtime volunteer Elena Keeling, “there are so many birds to feed that by the time you finish one round, you need to start the next.” Adding to the challenge is the variety of diets, each appropriate to the category of bird (seed eaters, nectar eaters, insectivores, and omnivores). What “keeps pandemonium away,” though, explains Clinic Director Vann Masvidal, is a strict feeding schedule and careful record keeping.

When babies are able to feed themselves, they graduate to transitional aviaries outside, with more space and less contact with humans, and from there to larger aviaries, with yet more space to practice flying, self-feeding, and dealing with other birds – all in preparation for release.

BBP leads and volunteers work through the season with basic principles in mind: be flexible, because protocols change, and above all, keep the birds both safe and wild.

If these folks seem to share a secret, it is that, as Blakely puts it, “the challenges . . . are offset by the joys,” one of which is the satisfaction of making a real difference, like the boy on the beach with the starfish. A bonus, Keeling says, is that the focused, repetitive feedings don’t allow “time to think about anything else; it clears your mind like meditation.” Alvarado sums it up well: there is “something special going on” in the Baby Bird Program, and new volunteers are welcome!