Last night not long before dusk, Doug brought me a hummingbird, that was on the ground and Doug almost stepped on. It was alert, but the feet were curled and it's wings were rather sprawled. It probably ran into something and knocked itself goofy.
I got out a syringe and some of John's sugar water he feeds the hummingbirds and started to see if it would drink. They have such a high metabolism they have to eat a lot during the daylight hours, and we have no idea how long it had been down.
It didn't take long for it to figure out how to get the syrup out of the syringe, then it keep me busy keeping juice where it could reach it. I never knew how long their tongue is, it's about twice as long as their bill, which is pretty long.
We took the top off the box we put it in, but it never tried to get away. I was hoping this morning it would be able to fly, but no such luck. It hadn't forgotten how to eat though.....!! Ha! I called the Wildlife Rescue Center in Tucson and they said bring it in. Thank goodness, they can't live on sugar water for very long and the special food for them is only available to rehabilitators or rescues.
A few years ago we took a rock squirrel into the Wildlife Center, but it's been awhile. They had one building then, they now have 2 large brick buildings and it looked like they aren't even using the old one. They had a listing of animals they have right now. They have 250 assorted critters, from 3 hummingbirds (they now have four) to desert tortoises, great horned owls, bobcats, even a skunk......!! I'm impressed, taking care of all those different animals that take such different care would be a lot of work. They had 71 desert Gambel quail, I guess people bring in a lot of baby quail in the spring that get separated from their parents.
It was cooler today and we even got a sprinkling of rain, hopefully over the next few days the monsoons will start. We are behind as usual on rain.
A few years ago we took a rock squirrel into the Wildlife Center, but it's been awhile. They had one building then, they now have 2 large brick buildings and it looked like they aren't even using the old one. They had a listing of animals they have right now. They have 250 assorted critters, from 3 hummingbirds (they now have four) to desert tortoises, great horned owls, bobcats, even a skunk......!! I'm impressed, taking care of all those different animals that take such different care would be a lot of work. They had 71 desert Gambel quail, I guess people bring in a lot of baby quail in the spring that get separated from their parents.
It was cooler today and we even got a sprinkling of rain, hopefully over the next few days the monsoons will start. We are behind as usual on rain.
1 comment:
Post a Comment