Swung by Shaver’s Creek on my way to vaccine number 2. I was largely there by myself so I got to talk to the worker for about an hour about all their animals. They’ve got amazing huge and well built aviaries that make me jealous, but they still don’t make for good photos, but I tried my best.
Starting with the Shortie, I wasn’t even aware they had one. He is pretty new. His pen was mostly blocked by a tarp to give extra privacy while he adjusts to public life. I didn’t even know it was in there and I skipped it, as I thought it was under construction or it was dear departed Pip’s enclosure. The worker pointed it out to me thankfully!
They’re pretty uncommon here, and the only one I’ve seen was one in a museum, stuffed. It was much smaller than my brain was picturing, which is all my fault. My love for them made them larger than life. It reminded me of a more potato shaped football (the American football).
He lost his eye from an injury and he lives here now.
They don’t do any rehab here anymore, so they are just an education center. The upside for them is they get to handle all the animals and be more friendly with them than I do as a rehab volunteer. She showed me pics of their GHO sitting on her lap and she said they take their fancy crane out for daily walks.
This is a Sandhill Crane. It was very big and impressive. I heard it’s very intelligent, though not to corvid levels and very friendly. She said it mostly eats corn and veg type things with the occasional meaty item, which I found surprising.
She also told me they’ve almost lost their rearward toes! They spend so much of their time on the ground or wading that the back toe is now not much more than a stub. Here’s a pic I found online showing it:
The consequence of this is they have lost their ability to perch! So how do they stay safe? They hang out on land snacking during the day, and at night, it wades out into the water and sleeps on one foot.