Guest Post by Suzie Gilbert

Hello my fellow bloggers, I am very excited today to introduce you to Suzie Gilbert. If you missed the review of Flyaway go here. Thank you Suzie for joining us today.
Judy



Hi, I'm the author of "Flyaway" and Judy's fellow bird fan .... it was such a pleasure to have my book reviewed on The Road To Here, and to be able to look through Judy's gorgeous photos. Such nice responses, and I do hope those of you who read it like my book. It's a universal theme - we all juggle so much in our busy lives, it's just that many of the balls I have in the air happen to have feathers. I would certainly never have predicted how my life would turn out!


One of my favorite stories that didn't make it into the book is about the bird pictured below. I had a call a few summers ago from a woman who said her son had rescued a big white bird, and the bird was hurt, and could they bring her to me? She didn't know what kind of a bird it was. I figured it was a gull or a swan. I opened the box and there, collapsed in the box, was a Great Egret. They are dazzling, breathtaking, extremely shy birds, and I had never had one in rehab.

As it turned out, the boy, whose name was Nate, had been sitting on a park bench, watching the egret stalk fish along the edge of a pond. All of a sudden something started towing the bird across the water and, then, slowly, pulling it beneath the surface. Nate ran to the edge of the pond and discovered that a huge snapping turtle had the bird by the foot. Now, I've seen grown men run away from snapping turtles - and with good reason! But this 16-year-old boy jumped into the water, and, I kid you not, wrestled the egret away from the snapping turtle. Then he rushed back to shore and stood there, dripping wet, wondering what to do - because once you've got a hold of a Great Egret, what do you do with it? (Answer: you call your mother on your cellphone, then you bring the bird to me.)

Egrets have four toes, three pointing forward and the fourth, the hallux, pointing backward; the turtle had severed the egret's hallux as cleanly as if he'd used a carving knife. The wound was brand new and the egret was otherwise in good health, so my job was to make sure the fragile, stress-prone creature survived captivity while her foot healed, and then to get her back home as quickly as possible. Each day I changed her bandage, brought her fresh fish, and tiptoed out of the clinic.

Eight days later she was ready to go. Normally I release shy birds with minimal fanfare, but this time I called Nate. "Would you like to release your bird?" I asked him.

He met me at the pond. He opened the crate door and the egret rushed out, a slender blizzard of white feathers, and launched herself into the air. She extended her wings, rose higher and higher, circled once, twice, and was gone. Nate turned to me with a huge grin.

"That was awesome!" he said.

"So are you," I replied.


Judy has asked me if I would do a question/answer post, and yes, I sure will ... so if anyone has any questions or observations about the birds or the wildlife in your area, or if you're wondering what could possibly have been going through my head when I started stashing herons in my bathroom and owls in the guest room ... ask away! I'd be happy to answer them.