I mentioned in my previous post about summer school, but studying is not (thankfully) the only thing I have to look forward to.  Beginning the second week of May, I will begin/resume volunteering with Wildlife Rescue (WRA) in Burnaby, where I completed a 2 month full-time internship last summer.  This summer, I will only be volunteering once a week at least, perhaps more, depending on how much time I end up having.  I am really excited to be returning to WRA after almost one year.  My experience there last summer was a huge learning experience; in just the span of 2 months I was able to be involved in the feedings and medication administering to nestlings and fledglings primarily, but to older birds and some mammals as well.  I started to learn how to do in-takes of injured animals, although 2 months was definitely not enough time for me to become comfortable in accurately examining a bird as I had no previous knowledge of avian anatomy or any trauma experience with birds.  It was distressing at times to witness just how many injured birds (most of them ultimately succumbing to their injuries or the stress) would arrive daily at the centre, but also uplifting when an injured or sick animal was able to be released back into the wild, especially when I had a little part in the process.

Something that somewhat surprised me during my internship was how much I came to care about and see the individual personalities of so many of the birds.  I never thought that I would see that in common “pesky” birds such as gulls and pigeons,but they really took me by surprise.  I’m excited to be able to interact again with so many different species of birds, and to hopefully be able to continue with and expand on the skills that I acquired last summer.