Construction Update!

Jou Jou, Kinkajou's Enclosure is finally done!!! It's been very busy here, we don't have many guests in the Bed and Breakfast now, as it is green season, but we are always busy with the animals! Jou Jou was very shy about her new enclosure, at first she had to smell everything, then hide in her box, then come out for her favorite banana, then she got comfortable with me sitting on a wooden stump for an hour playing with her and she is now a happy camper. The first night out she had a stand off with the whistling ducks, they surrounded her cage and she was paceing back and forth, then the ducks got bored and left her alone. She did get a few minor sores on her feet from the cement, but we have fixed that now by adding hay to the bottom of the enclosure. We still need to decorate it with bromeliads from the farm...I'm sure she will love to destroy them!




Charley the Scarlet macaw is now staying out all the time!! She is loving being outside and as you can see, although she is severly handicapped she enjoyed taking her first rainbath!



Our little terror Georgie has been enjoying the sunny days and now can reach out to the almond trees we planted next to the outside climbing gym and can have a snack when he wants!

Please consider a donation to the Teresa fund!! Teresa mottled owl was dropped off here about a week ago, friday night. I was just settling down to dinner and TV (I know it's a bad habit, but relaxing) and I received a phone call from La Condessa hotel in San Rafael. They had our brochure and were trying to identify an owl that their driver had picked up on the side of the road. They said the wing was "bad" and they wondered if they could bring her down. So, I said, yes and at 9pm they arrived with Theresa, a juvenile mottled owl. She was in shock and not feeling very well with her broken wing. She was very dehydrated and in pain. I gave her electrolytes, pain medication, antibiotics, and basic first aide treatment for the wing, it was not severly mangled like the other wings I have seen, but the point of the bone was sticking out. The next morning I was trying to figure out what to do with the broken wing, I thought maybe it could be saved.

I had had a visit from the vet who works at the downtown zoo just a few weeks ago. He was telling me about starting a Raptor Foundation and about the various surgeries he has performed (bone grafts, pins, complicated orthopedic surgeries) to save wings. My first thought was to call him and see what he could do for Teresa. I have a vet on staff now, but she does not do orthopedic surgery like this, so for us it was the consideration of a "double expense". After talking it over with my vet, we decided to take her into the zoo and meet the orthopedic surgeon. He said it would be complicated, but gave her a 50% chance of recovering the wing.

We have so many owls with amputated wings that we felt that if we can give Teresa a chance of keeping the wing we needed to do this for her well being. So, a very long surgery ensued and she is now back with us. She has two internal pins, a outside fixator for the pins and a small bone graft. In two months we will know if she will regain use of the wing...it's going to be a long wait.....and of course expensive...so please consider a Teresa donation to the Toucan Rescue Ranch!!! She will need another surgery to remove the pins once the wing has healed.

My good friend Carol has volunteered to give Teresa flying lessons if and when we get to this point!! She will need to have daily exercise in hopes of release...but for now we are in intensive post opps.

Coco and Lulu are now weaned and in a small cage learning to eat fruits on their own, they had a few setbacks, but are now doing really well.

Millie, Milo and Georgie love hibiscus flowers and we have planted an entire hedge of them so that we are sure there are no chemicals on them!! Yummy treat!

I took this photo of Jorge helping with the construction of Issy's enclosure...note his constant companion and supervisor Josie the goose!

The enclosure will be completed this next week. Very exciting!

Isadora Issy, and I had a fun play afternoon in Jou Jou's enclosure. Before we moved Jou Jou in, I took Issy over there to see her reaction and to start getting her used to being away from the porch. For the first five min. she would not let go of me, but after some coaxing and encouraging she would leave me for a few seconds, and 10 min. later she was having fun exploring. I think she will love her new huge enclosure. It is 8x7 meters. We are going to have a decorating party when it is complete!!

Still trying to get the perfect photo!! Here is the Scintillant, smallest hummer in CR in our front yard!

Our good friend Rita, from Casa Bella Rita Bed and Breakfast donated this display case for our store! Now we have eveything in one place and it looks great on the porch.

Thank You Rita!!

The official greeters, the ducks have taken over the railings.

Tico Times Article! Quilla is famous!

Quilla is a famous porcupine! She made the front cover of The Tico Times! They came to visit and spend an afternoon with us and wrote a wonderful article about the work that we are doing with the Rescue Program and the Bed and Breakfast it was so much fun to see the article and receive the huge surprise that Quilla was on the cover! We have had many calls and e-mails as a result of the article, so we are very pleased.

Indoor Rainforest at the California Academy of Sciences.

A few days after the article came out we were scheduled to be in San Francisco for my father's 80th Birthday party! We had a very nice family reunion and although the weather was cold and raining, made the rounds to all the famous restaurants and had a great time. We even were able to tour the California Academy of Sciences, where my mother is a docent and see their indoor rainforest and large aquariums.

One of the highlights of the SF trip was to schedule an extra day to finally meet Jenny Papka and her friend who run Native Bird Connections nativebirds.org in Walnut Creek. Jenny has been helping me with the owls for several years now and we finally met! It was great to see the birds in their care, the set up, how they are organized, the enclosures and tour the property! She does an incredible job with all the animals, and conducts great educational programs...she even has a few snakes she uses in the programs. Very brave!

We are so appreciative of her help with our owls...there are days I am e-mailing her morning and afternoon reports when a new owl comes into our program. Below are some of the lovely creatures she is caring for. We cannot decide on any favorite, they are all beautiful!

On our way home we stoped by The Dallas World Aquarium and Zoo. They also have been great help and I am frequently calling or e-mailing their veterinarian. They have helped me with baby toucans, diets and even my dogs! Their toucan collection is probably the largest in the world. They are constantly expanding and have an incredible collection of birds, fish and animals! Below are some
highlights of the very quick layover in Dallas.

Baby penguin born at the aquarium, baby monkey and a jaguar enjoying an ice block of frozen fish!



Back home now...I really missed everyone! It's a sunny day, all the birds are outside and the aracaris are bathing. I took a few minutes to walk down to our creek to see if I could find the little pygmy owl I had seen before I left, and sure enough he was there, with a mate!! I found two holes in logs where they might be nesting....so, I will have to keep a close watch on them...of course I am hoping that one of these owls is the little one I released a few months ago.

Aracaris bathing!

Jou Jou keeps growing!

Introducing Gandhi-Mottled Owl

We have 11 Owls living here with us. Each is unique and has an interesting story to tell. Our most recent refugee is a Mottled Owl that was bought into my vets office with a very bad wing. Someone found him hanging in bobbed wired and his wing was severely eaten by some animal. No telling how long he had been hanging there, but fortunately they got him down and to the vets office. He was so weak when he arrived he was sitting on the bottom of the cage and I had to prop him up with a stuffed teddy bear. We started treatment right away with antibiotics and anti-inflammatory and lots and lots of fluids. He did really well and the second night got his appetite back and has responded well to our treatments. The wing did not appear to be broken, so we tried to give it a chance to survive...however after several days we realized that he had no feeling in the wing and it was drying up and needed to be amputated. So, off to the vets again for the surgery. He survived the surgery well and is making progress. We now have to set him up in a larger cage with several perches at different distances apart so that he can begin his physical therapy of hopping and learning to balance with just one wing. We named him Gandhi, he has such a peaceful demeanor.

We have another owl with similar history and so we now have a routine when this happens. Hopefully once he is doing better we can adapt him to the other Mottled owls and he can live with them and have some company. Socrates has only one wing and his wife Delphi, came in as a tiny baby.

I never envisioned myself taking care of owls, but after I gained the trust of our Fish and Wildlife officers, (first with parrots and toucans) whenever they would find any type of bird they would call me...so after hearing from several other sources..."no we don't take baby owls, they just die...or, no we don't want an owl with only one wing" I decided to learn all I could about owls. Fortunately I have help from a wonderful lady named Jenny Papka who rescues raptors in the states and she helps with every owl that comes in. Please help support her efforts as well. Check them out at http://www.nativebirds.org/ I am now known for caring for owls as well, but I can tell you that it is always with Jenny's help that these owls make it! Thanks Jenny!