Birds and mushrooms
May. 20th, 2022 05:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calissa
Well, where to start?
I'm currently doing my first solo shift on the phones for the local wildlife volunteers. People call to report native wildlife in distress. It's my job to direct them to vets or volunteer carers, or to organise transport for the animal to the same. There's a lot to learn and I am feeling very nervous about doing this on my own for the first time.
Winter is a relatively quiet time for calls, which is both a blessing and a curse for training. On one hand, I'm less likely to be flooded with calls, making it less pressure. On the other hand, that can also make it hard to get enough experience.
There are limitations on what the organisation will do. Feral animals are handled by the state rangers, as are kangaroos, wallabies and adult wombats. These last few are just too big and unpredictable for volunteers. While volunteers will capture and care for the larger species of possums, removal from roof cavities gets referred to commercial handlers. I think snake removals do as well; it's really not the time of year for that to be an issue.
Mostly, what we seem to get are birds. Halfway through my shift now and I've had just two calls. One was a probable male blackbird which had flown into a window and stunned itself. It recovered and flew off while I was on the call. The other was a rosella found very sitting very still by a footpath and which passed away while I was on the call. I don't mind all the birds, though, since I'm already pretty decent at identifying species.
Moving from the animal kingdom to the fungi kingdom, we're having a record year for mushrooms. The La Nina weather patterns have brought a lot of rain and there have been mushrooms popping up everywhere. A lot have been poisonous species, such as Death Caps and the Fly Agaric pictured above. Not ideal, but the latter are very pretty. I keep thinking the fairies must be having a bumper year.
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Date: 2022-05-20 12:37 pm (UTC)And wow, what a fungus. I have never seen anything like that in real life.
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Date: 2022-05-20 05:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-20 09:51 pm (UTC)And what an interesting volunteer job. I can very much understand being nervous. I hope it continues to go well, or as well as such things can. I imagine the calls like the second on are hard. [hugs]
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Date: 2022-05-20 10:03 pm (UTC)* Or not so small in the case of the juvenile carrion crow she pictured a week or two ago.
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Date: 2022-05-23 05:34 am (UTC)I have certainly learned a lot so far.
Isn't it amazing? Exactly like the stereotypical mushroom. I have a few more photos that are a little less perfect that I might share later.
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Date: 2022-05-23 05:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-23 05:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-23 05:42 am (UTC)I just looked up the carrion crow and they seem about on par with our sulphur-crested cockatoos. Such big birds! I imagine your friend had her hands well and truly full.
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Date: 2022-05-23 03:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-24 05:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-29 05:25 pm (UTC)Thank you for showing us the fly agaric, that is super cool. I love mushrooms so much.
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Date: 2022-05-31 03:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-31 05:49 am (UTC)Unfortunately not. It was still with inexperienced members of the public when it died. We do have a few bird illnesses doing the rounds at the moment, but none I know of that are affecting rosellas.