Temperature is currently 91 degrees Fahrenheit. I’ve just finished your typical day at CROW. I work in the baby bird room with all the little birdies that have been abandoned, injured, misplaced, or just without a home. They are cute little nuggets but needy and must be hand fed once every hour. It’s a big responsibility and not always a happy one. More often then not, the birds don’t always make it. Coming in every morning, I am always worried to see what birds have gone during the night when I am not around. It’s disappointing and discouraging, but as the clinic nurses always say, you can’t blame yourself. Sometimes I agree, but other times I wonder if my impact on the birds is actually more harmful then people may say to be. There’s rarely a way to know why the bird dies so you just have to accept it and keep feeding. This has definitely been one of the challenges for me here at CROW.
Along with that, I have only been on 2 rescues so far: one for geese who were in a hospital parking lot and one for a hadeda (one of the smelliest birds I have ever come across). The rescue mission for the geese was an interesting experience. A family of geese needed to be removed from the parking lot, a mom, dad, and 9 little babies. Our plan was to catch the babies first and lure the mom and dad into a corner so they could be easily trapped. After we caught the babies, we were able to catch the mom, but the dad had gotten away and flown across the street. Fun fact: geese mate for life, so you can’t separate the mom and dad from each other or else they have a high chance of dying off. So after about another 30 minutes of waiting to see if the dad was going to fly back to his wife and babies, he never did and we released the mother and took all of their babies. This was a very difficult concept to wrap my head around. All the way home I had to sit with the babies and listen to them cry for their mother. It was heartbreaking and again, it made me question what justifies us to do this…especially because they were all healthy and fine and now they will be locked up in our aviary enclosure for a couple years until they are old enough to be released. Furthermore who knows how successful they will be out in the wild if they know nothing else but a cage, a small pond, developer pellets, and some cut grass.
Besides from the work aspect at CROW, my off days have been wonderful and relaxing. South Africa has the most beautiful beaches I have ever been to and Durban’s landscape is mountainous, green, and vast. Balito Bay has been my favorite so far, tucked off in a nice area out of Durban, with little people and a cool swimming pool built right off the coast of the bay. This past week me and 2 other volunteers went on a hike in the valley of a thousand hills. We got lost for 30 minutes and went down the completely wrong trail, but it led us to an awesome abandoned tree house. Once we finally found our way and made it to the top, the view was breathtaking looking over a dam and endless mountaintop. Every time I am able to get out of CROW and see other things, I am always so grateful. My mind is reset from the repetitive days of work and I can catch up with loved ones back home who never fail to lift my spirits.
One month in and going strong. It has definitely been a different experience from my first semester, but it’s interesting to have that contrast. Being here has certainly furthered my desire to travel and continue my adventures in new places.
-Jessie H