It’s amazing how quickly time gets away from a person. Just a couple months ago I had all the time in the world to sit and write about what was new and exciting here. Now, however, I seem to barely be able to check my phone messages during the day. But…it’s a good thing!
We are currently up to fifteen volunteers for the program, which is exactly what I was hoping for. They are all wonderful people who are very excited about being a part of such an amazing organization (which I assure you has very little to do with me and EVERYTHING to do with the birds, and I’m okay with that). The difficulty for me comes with scheduling time to get everyone trained while still being able to still work with the birds myself as well as do the boring parts of my job (like paperwork and computer stuff). Fortunately for me, I have amazing and patient birds and very smart, quick-learning volunteers. Most of them are already skilled and comfortable enough to bring the birds to presentations for the public and I have very little “babysitting” to do.
The most pressing goal for me now is to get the birds into the schools for programs with kids. While it seems so simple to do since the birds and volunteers are already comfortable with public presentations, there’s actually a whole lot to it.
Taking the birds “on the road” means we first have to get them comfortable in their travel boxes. Depending on the bird, this can be a quick process or a very long and slow one. Once the bird is comfortable going in and out of the box, they need to learn to be comfortable traveling in the box. We’ll start with walking around, then start placing the box in a vehicle and driving very short distances and increasing the drive time with each journey. The next step is to move the birds in their boxes on carts. Hopefully, after becoming accustomed to traveling in a vehicle, the cart will be easy. The noise of traveling over tile can sometimes be startling, though. Once we’ve accomplished that, we’ll be ready for outreach programs!
Wish me luck!
