Rehabilitation of other wild birds It is an unfortunate fact that most baby wild birds do not do well in human care. Their diet is an extremely specialised balance of essential salts, sugars, protein and fats . Much is known about parrot health and nutrition as they are a pet the world-over, and raptor diets are pretty straight-forward, but a small species of insect eater for instance makes a very tricky patient indeed. We are fortunate in that one of our good friends is a retired vet and we often seek his advice on diet and feed.  We do our best, and we have several tried and tested recipes, but generally about 50% do not make it.   What to do if you find a baby bird Our advice (and that of many animal societies throughout the world) is to leave a baby bird where you find it. Although it may appear vulnerable and abandoned, often a parent is nearby, watching and feeding it. If it has lots of feathers it is probably near to fledged and ready to leave the nest. Leave it alone for an hour or so in case the parent is around. If you can, put it onto lower branches of a nearby bush which would provide a safe haven before it attempts to fly again. If it only has a few feathers, its nest is probably nearby and this is by far the best place for it if you can find it. Only remove the bird if you are absolutely positive it will not make it without help.

Two of our 'wild' babies

	Owl Rehabilitation Programme
Almost fledged Barn Owl	Background: Before our involvement with the Forestry Department, we had no idea owls were such a problem with Belizeans - barn owls particularly. They are known locally as 'devil birds' and myths about them have been handed down through the generations from as far back as the Ancient Maya (the Maya god of the dead, Mictlantecuhtli was often depicted with a barn owl), and many Mesoamerican cultures consider the barn owl a symbol of death and destruction.   City dwelling barn owls like to live in attics and roof-spaces. They smell awful and sound worse - hissing and spitting like a bucket of angry snakes: we can totally understand anyone not wanting to have them above their bedroom at night. It's better to block holes in the eaves of a house and prevent the birds nesting in the first place than to try to clear them out after they have settled in.   Through our education programme we will try to dispell any myths surrounding these magnificent creatures, and explain how they keep our cities free of vermin - not a bad trade-off for a few weeks of discomfort during nesting season.	One of our flock 'just visiting'
Ferruginous Pygmy Owl	Our Method:   Healthy young owls take well to hand feeding (with gloves and great care!). They thrive on a mix of raw chicken, beef shavings and a small amount of liver. As with all of the birds at the Centre, wild or domestic, they eat better than we do. As the owls get older we introduce ground bones and increase the size of the meat pieces to encourage them to use their claws.  Eventually they learn to help themselves from selection platters which is when we breathe a sigh of relief - no more midnight feeds.   The Centre's owl facility is situated about as far from the parrots as it can get  - understandably the parrots are not comfortable with raptors in the vicinity.  It's a concrete building with two slatted walls for access and a high shelf supporting a large wooden nest box. As soon as the birds are able to feed themselves with the meat we provide, they go into this room. With confidence they will start to explore, and eventually come and go through the slats into the outside world.   Like the parrots, they now have security, food and freedom. It's their choice.	Owl House (with two owls on the top of the nest box)

Our Parrot Facilities
As well as the playroom (aka our living room), we have 9 large isolation cages which we use to observe new arrivals to assess their abilities and condition. Depending on flight ability, the birds will graduate onto one of the secondary enclosures which have only low-level perches for the poor pilots, or those with adequate flight skills will go into the primary aviary. This encloses 6 mature trees with a flight-path some 30 feet above the ground at the apex. There's a ground-level drinking pool, various feed and water stations and several food-source plants. We rotate the feeding places to encourage exploration and mobility and also distribute local fruits and seeds throughout the trees.
 
Once in the large aviary, the birds will remain for anything from 6 months to 2 years depending on the degree of mental trauma and physical disability.
 
Come time for release, the birds are allowed to exit through one of the three release doors. The doors have feeding platforms either side of them so that once outside the security of the aviary, the bird has a familiar spot to come back to for food. The upper level station is some 20 feet above ground: it's just visible, top right, on the pictured east-facing front of the aviary. The second door is around 15 feet up, on the north side, and the third at eye level on the western side of the aviary. The doors operate manually and remain closed for the majority of the time: the birds are not free to pass back and forth, although some of them would like to be! 
 
So far, no absolute text-book pattern for release from the aviary has become apparent. Some birds stay for a while, whereas others only for a few days before venturing further afield. Recently, we have been trying to release the birds in pairs or groups, as they tend to adapt better than the single releases.
 
Fitting the birds with transmitters is not an option for us at this stage, but as of November 2009 we intend to start banding all of our releases.

Our method: from cage to sky...

Step 4 - Release	Step 5 - Rehabilitation
The trick here is to really know the birds. Is a particular bird ready? Have they bonded with another and is this bird also ready? Will they trust us enough to come back if they need to? Are they strong enough ? Is it the right time of year to join a flock? So many factors to consider...	They stick around, they leave for a while, they come back for food, they leave again, they even come back with friends... It is then you know they are truly rehabilitated.

Step 1 - Liberation	Step 2 - Repair	Step 3 - The Great Outdoors
The bird is removed from the confines of a closed cage. The 'playroom'  has various arrangements of sticks and branches attached to open cages where they develop vital co-ordination and climbing skills.	The birds spend time growing back some of their wing feathers and getting to know how to deal with many different foods.	Once we are confident that they can negotiate a real tree, feed themselves and float gracefully to the floor in the event of a fall, they are ready for the aviary. By this point, despite appalling experiences of humans, the birds have learned to trust us. Note: this doesn't mean they like us, but they know we won't harm them especially as we usually come bearing gifts of food.

 
Parrot Rehabilitation Programme
 

• Wild parrots can live from 40-90 years and a pair may produce up to 72 offspring during their lifetime

• Captive parrots in Belize usually die within 5 years and produce no offspring

• Every year nest robbers cause the death of hundreds of chicks, damage nest sites and displace breeding populations

• Every bird returned to the wild augments future breeding populations

 
Can any parrot be rehabilitated? Honestly - we don't know. Some respond immediately to the call of the wild, others require a little more time. Some are engrained with 'humanisms', particularly vocalisation, others identify particularly with children. It is our experience that captive birds eventually revert to being wild, but time is the key.
We have not yet found an indigenous bird that has not responded to our programme.
 
Why not just 'let them out'? Almost all of the parrots come to us with varying degrees of agoraphobia. They are unlikely to have experienced life without bars, have never encountered trees or leaves, and simply looking up at an unbroken sky can be a new and amazing experience. The wings are usually badly clipped so they have no flight ability or experience. They have limited dexterity and climbing skills, and are clumsy with food that requires opening or manipulation. Almost every bird we encounter has been isolated for many months or years; psychological torture for such a tactile, gregarious creature.
A creature with no social skills, no feeding skills, no flight skills and no instincts for self-preservation cannot simply be let loose in the wild.