Thank you Black Bear Bakery, David Feldman and those of you who braved the wind and rain to visit the bakery on the 24th.  The donation we received will help us feed those hungry migratory birds and the nestlings coming our way.  This week we have several migratory birds in that do love their mealworms.  Check out the face book page for some pictures of recent arrivals, including a phoebe, swamp sparrow, northern waterthrush and dickcissel.

The first baby at WBR wasn't quite what we expected. Hoping for nesting chimney swifts, we went out to our chimney swift tower to clean it out and get ready for the arrival of chimney swifts. Opening up the trap door at the bottom we discovered a mass of wet and dry leaves along with other nesting material.  Along with the material, out fell a very scared baby squirrel! An adult squirrel scurried away in the neighboring trees and turned to see what was happening. 

With help from one of our volunteers who also volunteers at Wildlife Center of Missouri, we gathered the nesting material, stuffed it in an old bluebird box (didn't have a squirrel box around) and attached it to a tree next to the tower - and then we waited.

Unfortunately mother did not return to move the baby so after a few hours we got him out of his new nest and brought him inside to warm back up. After being wrapped in a warm towel, Lois took him to the wildlife center. The word is the young squirrel will join others his age after getting some extra fluids and being checked out for injuries. Mom was probably young, maybe her first litter, thus only one baby instead of four or five. She may not have had an extra nest close by as many squirrels do.

Missouri Wildlife Center often send birds brought in to their clinic to us, but we rarely have squirrels from our back yard to send to them. Fortunately we both have volunteers that are willing to go an extra mile to help the wildlife in need.

note: the tree branches are about 5 feet away from the tower. We also trimmed a larger branch that was a good jumping off platform!

Eagle Scouts have helped WBR with various projects for many years. One of the first projects was caging designed for our Big Bend facility. This cage gave many of our birds the space to grow. Soon we had a aviary project designed for us by a Girl Scout as her Gold Award. Watching all these scouts going through the process - designing, getting approval, leading work groups and finishing these projects, reinforced my belief that there are a lot of talented and dedicated young people willing to help their community.

Boy Scouts celebrate their 100 year anniversary this year, and Girl Scouts their 98th. Thought you might like to see what they’ve done for us.

1995 - John Kerber – Cage unit

1996 - Kara Elliot – (Gold Award) – Crestwood Park Aviary

1998 - Mario Gallagher – storage shed & perches for Big Bend site

1998 - Timothy Stecher – addition to Park Aviary

2004 - Andy Spencer – Cage unit

2007 - Ryan Holstad – moved Park Aviary to Midland location

2008 - David Bean – Flight cage

2009 - Ed Theobold - Landscaping the backyard of Wild Bird Rehabilitation

An article on Live Science describes a recent study of a creature called Microraptor gui. The research shows evidence that dinosaurs in some cases lived in trees. This strengthens the connection between birds and dinosaurs. Microraptor which lived about 120 million years ago, had feathers that were probably used for flight. Its feathers near its hind legs were nearly seven inches long. The researching scientist thought it to be unlikely the bird was even able to manuver on the ground at all because of those hind leg feathers. What is most likely according to researchers is that these dinosaurs leapt from the trees into flight.

I'm sure you have noticed our brand new web site design. Kudos to Mike Pisula and all his work donating his design talent. He recently moved to the Saint Louis area from Chicago, and works a day job doing search engine marketing. He graduated from Western Illinois University with majors in Graphic Communication and Fine Arts. If you are interested in his logo, graphic, or web design services you can call 314.632.6347 or visit harpgraphics.com.