One week down, one more to go.

The days are dwindling down to none, it's almost time for to make my yearly drive to Maine. This week I ended up working Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. Monday was a a short and easy day. I started off by doing handling for all of the animals, which my buddy Tim helpped me with. It was nice to have my main task of the day be handling. After handling we took the Turkey Vulture roving in the zoo. That bird gets awefully heavy after about 10 minutes! But he was well behaved enough that I could rest my arm on the fence post for a few minutes and Turkey not jump off my glove. My last task was to take out a discovery cart for my last hour. Tim and I took out the Diet and Dentition Cart and set up by the White Tailed Deer, though we really didn't get anyone stopping by. I stayed at the zoo after closing because we were have Brandon's going away party. I was really nice to see everyone from Keepers to Staff to Docents show up to give Brandon a nice shipping off. It was over all successful with the Ed Building being full, many foods being eatten, and many stories being told.

Wednesday I think was my favorite day this week. Over my internship I have gained a love for all of the birds in the Education Department and I love giving Ed talks and presentations with them. Well on that particular morning Kyle and I were scheduled to do a Wildlife Encounter for the Ward museum camp. The best part about it was it was an all bird presentation! I was signed off on more of the birds so I did most of the prestation. We started off with the Broad Winged Hawk, then Kyle presented the Screech Owl, and last we brought out the Turkey Vulture. It was a very hot and humid day but I still enjoyed every moment of it. After the presentation I had a little bit of handling to do then I have Aviary Care. But before I even started Aviary care I gave Turkey bird a chance to run around by the Aviary. I just attached two leashes to Turk and my glove and just let him run around. I was so awesome! Aviary care was aweful, just because of the heat. I gave the birds a nice spray down before I left to cool them off.

Saturday I was literally the only person that could come in, so I was given both all animal care and all of the ed talks. I started off my day by walking Turkey bird again. He hopped around and jumped up on the sandbox, just enjoying the breeze. I then went and started animal care before my Ed talk, which I was only able to get 4 exhibits cleaned. My first ed talk was done with Lucy our Ball Python, we had about 18 people for that one. Soon after the talk I was able to get back to animal care. It took me a little while to get through all 32 some odd tanks in the visitors center. Next I did the Aviary which took me no time. I even took my time and gave the Owls their head scratches. Specs is getting to the point where she really trust me and will bow down for head scratches. Turkey was my next ed talk at 2, which we had twice as many people show up for. He decided he wanted to kick at the glove most of the presentation so he could get a little more streaching room, which also met that I was getting beat in the head by his wings. All 6 feet of his wingspan. Lastly I did animal care in the Ed building. I came to realize that trying to clean out an Opossums cage while holding said Opossum isn't very easy.

It's kinda sad that my internship is ending, but I still have one week left. I'm going to be doing a few activites for Zoo Camp, including an activity that I did at the Project WILD workshop at the school. In my last entry I'll close out my whole experience and talk about what I have really learned.
-Heather