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“Indy” The Western
Grebe Our Holidays Are Never Dull. After
our experience with Barney the Barred Owl you would think all would go
quietly on the Ranch. Well it did until
July 4th, our Country’s Pat
had just started a tour of the Ranch when the telephone rang. A lady who had read the newspaper stories
about Barney had this unknown type of bird sitting on the driveway at her
neighbor’s house and it hadn’t moved for a long time but it seemed
alert. She asked for help. Pat
called in George and our helper Aurora from the outside work and they hurried
into town to see if the bird could be helped and this is what they found:
This
little Western Grebe was hurt and was frying on the driveway. George had Being
a major holiday we could find no one to help the grebe-- who was bleeding and
very stressed. Aurora’s family was
gathering for the holiday and expecting her, and without being able to reach
any veterinarian even on the emergency phone numbers, George took the Grebe
he nicknamed “Indy”, because of the special nature of the day, and had Aurora
hold the Grebe in the box while he drove it to Garrison Minnesota and the
care and attention of Dr. Debbie Eskedahl and the “Wild and Free” wildlife
rehabilitation program. Dr. Deb was
out of reach of her cell phone at a parade, but a technician was at the
hospital feeding the animals and agreed to wait for Indy. En route Dr. Debi called and said she would
hurry back from the parade to take care of Indy. Our
team dropped Indy off and it was clear he had trauma wounds and lacerations;
he was severely dehydrated and might have been shot. Dr. Deb sent our team
home. That
night Dr. Deb called and confirmed the diagnosis. Indy was getting stitched up and fixed
up. Also Dr. Deb said Grebe’s can’t be
kept for long so as soon as he was ready for release he needed to be put back
into the wetlands. Dr,
Deb called the next day to tell us how Indy was doing. She asked if we would like to release Indy
back into our lake, and we were very happy.
She said he would be ready Monday morning. Pat
picked Indy up from the Wild & Free Program and brought him back to the
Ranch. It
was decided that because Indy
came back to us in a cardboard transfer box.
One thing about Grebes—they eat lots of minnows. His box was full of poop that smelled like
dead fish—oooooo did it smell.
Indy let go a long poop stream and almost hit
Then Indy quickly cruised away into the
reeds,
About 20 feet away he turned, raised
the crown on the top of his head and stared with those beady red eyes
directly at George, And another wild creature was returned to freedom by our
Ranch
Indy found freedom and was returned to the
wild on July 8, 2002 onto Lake Belle Taine in Nevis What a cool year it had been! |
