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Mary Martin (right) and Lisa Fischer hold a pelican to check it over for injuries as Diana O'Connor (seated) takes notes on the bird's condition. Twenty-one pelicans were kept at Red Oak Nursery after being rescued from rivers.
A pelican flies over Gary Hutt, owner of Red Oak Nursery in Montross, as he tries to keep the birds in one area yesterday morning. Now that the pelicans' health has improved they are being moved to Maryland to receive further treatments.
TOP: Pills to decrease inflammation and increase circulation are cut and divided to give proper portions to the pelicans by stuffing them into fish.
Pelicans are placed two to a crate to make their trip safely
Workers drain a blister on one of the pelican's feet to help relieve the bird's pain and allow |
BY FRANK DELANO
Rescued from icy rivers two weeks ago, two dozen brown pelicans left their temporary refuge at a Westmoreland County greenhouse yesterday and headed north in a U-Haul truck.
Veterinarians and wildlife-rehabilitation experts were on hand in Frederick, Md., to examine the birds and send them on to other sanctuaries for additional treatment and recuperation.
"They need cages big enough to fly in and access to water in larger pools," said Wendy Fox, who was in Maryland coordinating the effort.
Fox is executive director of the Pelican Harbor Seabird Station Inc. in Miami, where the birds may eventually be released.
Wildlife rehabilitator Diana O'Connor of the Wild Bunch Wildlife Rehabilitation Refuge near Warsaw found the first two nearly frozen pelicans by the Rappahannock River at Tappahannock.
O'Connor alerted other friends of wildlife in southern Maryland, who found more distressed birds in the ice of the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay. Many of them appeared to be suffering from hunger and from frostbite to their feet, she said.
All of the birds ended up at a heated greenhouse at Red Oak Nursery near Montross. To deter predators, nursery owners Gary and Janice Hutt circled the greenhouse with an electric fence and sprinkled human hair swept from the floor of a beauty salon.
Those measures, plus a steady diet of fish laced with antibiotics and an occasional shower from the greenhouse irrigation system, worked wonders.
"Getting an unhealthy bird out of a cage is one thing," Gary Hutt said yesterday. "But getting a healthy bird into a cage is quite another thing."
Hutt, his wife, Janice, and three employees corralled the birds, held their beaks shut, folded their wings, tucked their necks and gently stuffed the pelicans into large pet carriers lined with towels and cloth.
Dennis O'Connor showed up in a U-Haul truck with extra cages and 1,000 pounds of frozen herring donated by a Northumberland County seafood processor. A computer programmer for the city of Alexandria, O'Connor was subbing for his wife, Diana, who was at home near Colonial Beach recuperating from a broken shoulder.
The birds soon started on their 150-mile trip. Pelican expert Fox said the healthy birds will be kept in a heated flight cage at Last Chance Wildlife Center Inc. in Thurmont, Md.
Birds needing medical attention will go to Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research Society in Newark, Del. Release of the birds depends on permits issued by various authorities, she said.
Janice Hutt was sorry to see the pelicans leave the greenhouse, which will soon be filled with hollies. She said she hoped to visit the birds up north.
"They were very people-friendly and so easy to train. They'd come around and line up like kindergarten kids when we fed them," she said.
She was especially fond of the one she called Baby.
"He was the weakest one of the bunch and scared to death when he got here. Yesterday, we put fish in a tub of water and he gobbled five at one time."
She peered through the wire door at Baby in a cage with another pelican waiting to be loaded on the U-Haul.
"Cuddle up and stay warm," she said to Baby.
Frank Delano: 804/333-3834
Email: fpdelano@gmail.com
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Once rare visitors to the Chesapeake Bay region, pelicans have been nesting here since 1987 and increasing in numbers, bird experts say.
"The wintering birds we have are mostly inexperienced juveniles, born in the previous breeding season. They can be thought of as 'testing the bounds' of northern wintering range--alas, with their own lives," said Ned Brinkley, editor of the journal North American Birds. "Global climate change is not an even process and so we'll see many such cases of mortality over decades to come," he said. |
