We have been so fortunate to have had a busy summer. Lots of guests visiting the Bed and Breakfast and also lots of animals needing rescue. So, here goes the update!
Dr. Eric Sher and his daughter Ali came to visit The Toucan Rescue Ranch for the second time. When they were here the first time Dr. Eric asked if I needed anything....(of course!!) so when he said he was coming down I asked him if it was possible to find a microscope. His contacts at the various hospitals in San Francisco came up with this wonderful scope and he donated it to us!
We are now able to look at samples right on site to determine if our birds and animals have parasites (very common in toucans). This donation has literally saved lives. Along with this one as well:
Yes, computer donations!! Colleen Melloy and her daughter were so kind to donate funds to be used specifically for computers! With the help of another guest who did some online shopping for us we were able to buy a laptop, and a desktop with her generous donation. This also enabled us to purchase an ipad. With the ipad I can take photos into the microscope and send them directly to the vet who looks at them with her iphone and says, yes, it's a parasite start treatment! No more waiting for the vet to visit, sending samples to the lab and waiting for results...this has truly saved lives of our birds and we are so thankful for these kind donations.
Meet Poppy, she is a yellow headed amazon, a real talker. She came into our program from a very caring family who wanted the best for their bird. They are coming back to visit her soon and I know they will be impressed with her progress.
Coco came in also from a family who had raised her and were concerned when she stopped eating...with a little observation we were able to determine the cause. Poor Coco had her bottom tooth growing into her nose. It had also knocked out the top teeth, and the children of the house had given her a poodle cut on the fur of her tail!
I quickly trimmed the tooth and she is eating fine, hair is growing back and when she gets her teeth back in we will try a slow release here on the property.
Another successful Release!! White tailed kite.
We had several windy days and this kite fell in between two houses in a small neighborhood nearby, he was here for several days recuperating and then we were able to release him down at the creek.
Juvenile collared aracari came in from the Caribbean, flew into someones house! We quickly put another bird in his cage so that he would feel at home and settle in, it worked!
Little Mikey and little no name, are now out in a large flight with the older Tropical Screech owls getting along just fine.
With all the visitors, we had a lovely trio of teachers from Tenn. They were here on a biodiversity grant in Costa Rica. Math and Science and biodiversity were the hot topics of discussion, so they spent 3 days with us filming, watching the day to day operations of the Ranch and also the farm! We found this juvenile three toed sloth very low on the branch and she did not even want to wake up with people all around her. They obtained great footage, sloths, howler monkeys and we even took the Sarapiqui River trip with them and filmed on the river....here are some shots from that trip.
Our guests children all volunteering with sloth food preparation!
Prince our barred hawk caught another snake! We had a few minutes of panic, when we realised the snake was some sort of coral, but after we calmed down and remembered the rhyme, we figured out it was only a false coral and let him polish him off!!
Good friends Charles and Janie, our longest staying guests, 18 days!!! They became good friends, and we look forward to their next visit.
My family managed to all get together for a great reunion for my mother's 80th birthday!!
We had some old friends of theirs come to visit, hired a festive band and we all had a great time!
Here are some photos, my brother, his wife and three beautiful daughters, my sister came with her lovely daughter and my parents.
Baby Hanna slept during the party and sucks her fingers, just like Georgie!
Little three toed Andy after having a bath with vet Janet!
Take a look at this Sat. morning video!
Famous Father Jorge who runs a rescue home for hundreds of children came to visit with the head of the central valley Minaet/Sinac Jorge Hernandez. We had a whole group of folks here from the father's office...they would like to have the children care for some animals to encourage responsibility, understanding and love. Our first meeting of which I assume will be many :)
Biologist Landon Jones who is studying wild toucans in turrialba has come up several times with a volunteer who is here now to do seed retention trials with our toucans. By feeding them seeds and timing the duration of when the seed is regurgitated back up, they can determine the extent and role of toucans in the Rain forest with seed dispersal! This very dedicated young biologist feeds the toucans the seeds starting at 5:30am and sits in front of their enclosures for hours on end documenting everything...now I thought that I was patient.... this is beyond patience!!
Speaking of toucans....of course we have some new little ones. The ones in the top picture came in a week ago and just opened their eyes. A storm hit the tree where they were nesting and the tree fell down. A concerned farmer called the Minae office and they went to pick them up and drove them 4 hours to us. The second little one with feathers is once again one of the skinniest toucans I have received, has several health concerns because of the lack of food, was a bird destined for the black market pet trade....very sad.....speaking of which. This policeman showed up here today with these little song birds, also trapped heavily here in the rain forest by our house. We released one right here, but the others have been in captivity for years.
We are interested in building a large flight for all these song birds to get them out of their little tiny trap cages, it is really horrible, and very sad.
Our great friend and supporter Jerry Jennings, of Emerald Forest Bird Gardens.
http://www.emeraldforestbirds.com/, made a very generous donation for this series of 6 flight cages for breeding toucan pairs, we are almost done with the construction. They have walls up so that they are not fighting with the other males. We still have to finish the enclosures and decorate with all natural vines and bromeliads from the farm!
Thank you Jerry for all your support and concern for the welfare for our toucans!
One of our recent guests, Terumi writes a blog, she had this great idea for fund raising, so take a look!
Finally, I am so happy to report that we are now a 501c3 non profit organization in the United States...still working on the paperwork for Costa Rica. This is an honor to have received this as it is becoming more difficult to obtain, especially in a foreign country since 911. This will help us with donations, and possible grants.
If you would like to contribute to our efforts please use the paypal feature on the website www.toucanrescueranch.com or please send a check to:
Terrie Velasquez
Secretary, Toucan Rescue Ranch
5974 Shadow Park Dr.
Reno, NV 89523
Some days I wish I was a sloth!
Thanks for all your support, people were writing to me asking if everything was OK since I had not posted a blog!!! Yes, Thank God, everything is fine...off to feed babies....
Oh, and next month several film graduates are coming to stay with us to film a documentary!
Should be interesting, will keep you posted.
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