Oh how everyone loves the corny titles, but I did complete a few things this w
eek. Once again I only worked three days, though in three days i did quite a bit. Monday started off pretty fun, in the since I got signed off on the Turkey Vulture, but it wasn't in the traditional sense. Usually Lara, Leonora, or Brandon comes where ever with you or you bring the animal to them and do your presentation. Well, Lara was busy at the moment and I wanted to do my presentation for her so I could us the Turkey bird for my Ed talk that I had to do in like 20 minutes. Lara looked at me and was like "How confident are you with the information?" and I told her pretty confident. In the end I did my presentation for Lara during my Ed talk. It went surprisingly well, everyone was amazing when Turk showed them his 6 foot wingspan, and then when he decided to jump off my glove when I was walking back to the Aviary. Now mind you, I was holding this bird out on my arm for almost 20 minutes, and he ways a bit more than 4 pounds. 4 pounds get heavier by the minute the more you hold it out.
Saturday was another fun day, my main task consisting of handling the animals. I was able to handle the birds, the mammals, some of the turtles, and the animals in the ed building. Which also meant playing with the ferret and "Mr. Man Hands" as I like to call the Opossum. After handling I went roving with Andre and Tim for my last hour. I was very proud of myself when I took the Turkey Vulture on a 15-20 minute walk, with a few stops, around the Zoo. He gets so heavy, but being that I think only 3 people not including myself are signed off on him, he doesn't get out of his mew very much. He rarely ever gets to get walked around the Zoo, so it was almost enrichment for him to be out and about, getting to see the rest of the world around him.
After I took Turkey out, Andre had to do his ed talk, then the three of us went and grabbed an Owl and went for another round around the Zoo. I took the Barred Owl, Tim took the Red Screech Owl, and Andre took the Great Horned Owl. All of the birds were very well behaved and attracted a lot of people. On our last round we took out the Bearded Dragon, Box Turtle, and Corn Snake. Roving has to be my second favorite thing to do, because not only are you enriching the animal by giving it fresh air and a change of scenery but your able to bring an animal out to the public and allow them to get up close.
eek. Once again I only worked three days, though in three days i did quite a bit. Monday started off pretty fun, in the since I got signed off on the Turkey Vulture, but it wasn't in the traditional sense. Usually Lara, Leonora, or Brandon comes where ever with you or you bring the animal to them and do your presentation. Well, Lara was busy at the moment and I wanted to do my presentation for her so I could us the Turkey bird for my Ed talk that I had to do in like 20 minutes. Lara looked at me and was like "How confident are you with the information?" and I told her pretty confident. In the end I did my presentation for Lara during my Ed talk. It went surprisingly well, everyone was amazing when Turk showed them his 6 foot wingspan, and then when he decided to jump off my glove when I was walking back to the Aviary. Now mind you, I was holding this bird out on my arm for almost 20 minutes, and he ways a bit more than 4 pounds. 4 pounds get heavier by the minute the more you hold it out.
After my talk I wasted I little time with Brandon and one of the keepers as we played with the barcode scanner Brandon had on his phone. It worked surprisingly well in our gift shop, only failing on one or two items. After a little bit of fun, Brandon and I walked off to the other end of the Zoo to get the boards to prepare for Tuesday night. We ran into the grounds keeper who gave us a ride on the Gator after he talked our ear off for 10 minutes or so. After bringing the board to the other end of the zoo I went on to do my last task of handling animals in the Aviary. I think working with the birds has to be my favorite part of my job.
Tuesday I had to be into work at 5:30 having no clue as to what or where I was going, only that I was suppose to be roving with an animal. Apparently it was an event that goes on all over the eastern shore, and I'm guessing the rest of the US called National Night Out. All we had to do was bring some animals out and have a poster set up. Nicole, one of the docents, and I walked around with the Ball Python and the Red Screech Owl while 3 of the other docents stayed with the board and the Box Turtle. It wasn't as busy as I thought it was going to be. It was funny seeing all of the big burly Cops and Fire Fighters kind of back away as they saw the Ball Python. We even had one Cop pass by as put his hand on his holster the minute he noticed the Python. Another funny moment was when ever the Screech Owl would see a dog he would stand as talk as he could and scrunch up. It was so cute and funny at the same time.
Around 8pm we started to pack up, getting all the animal settled in their carriers and packing the board up. Brandon stayed the whole time and said that we could just drive through the Zoo. It sucked because I didn't bring my Jeep this day, but instead my moms Cobalt. So we had fun shoving 4 people, 3 animals, and a cart in this itty bitty car. But at the same time it was awesome driving my car through the zoo at night and hearing all of the animals wide awake.
Saturday was another fun day, my main task consisting of handling the animals. I was able to handle the birds, the mammals, some of the turtles, and the animals in the ed building. Which also meant playing with the ferret and "Mr. Man Hands" as I like to call the Opossum. After handling I went roving with Andre and Tim for my last hour. I was very proud of myself when I took the Turkey Vulture on a 15-20 minute walk, with a few stops, around the Zoo. He gets so heavy, but being that I think only 3 people not including myself are signed off on him, he doesn't get out of his mew very much. He rarely ever gets to get walked around the Zoo, so it was almost enrichment for him to be out and about, getting to see the rest of the world around him.
After I took Turkey out, Andre had to do his ed talk, then the three of us went and grabbed an Owl and went for another round around the Zoo. I took the Barred Owl, Tim took the Red Screech Owl, and Andre took the Great Horned Owl. All of the birds were very well behaved and attracted a lot of people. On our last round we took out the Bearded Dragon, Box Turtle, and Corn Snake. Roving has to be my second favorite thing to do, because not only are you enriching the animal by giving it fresh air and a change of scenery but your able to bring an animal out to the public and allow them to get up close.It's sad that my time at the Salisbury Zoo is coming to a close, two weeks remaining. I have no clue what I'm doing this week, but my last week I'm helping Lara with ZooCamp. I'm going to miss all of the animals and all of the people I have met along the way this summer. But learning all the work that people put into bring people and animals together that normally wouldn't be in the same place is a huge pay off this summer. The many reactions I've seem come from people is so rewarding, regardless if it is negative or positive. Who knows, maybe you can change the negative just by educating them.
Now I'm going to leave you with three more pictures from when we went roving with the Owls,
- Heather =)
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