How Long Is A Life

                                           
                                                                HOW LONG IS A LIFE?

                                                                            2/2/2021

A humming bird’s lifespan is only a few years.  A Swainson’s Hawk’s lifespan maybe 8-20 years.  An eagle might live 20-25 years.  Large birds that spend a great deal of their life over the ocean such as the albatross may live 30-50 years.  When birds enter this world they only have a 50-50 chance at best of reaching their first birthday.

 

Twenty years ago I began a long and intermittent journey to become a licensed wildlife rehabber.  I volunteered at a zoo, fish and game, wildlife rehab centers, and became a Certified Veterinary Technician.  And yet the permit eluded me.  Finally several months ago I achieved my goal.  At first I think I was in disbelief.  And then the birds began coming in.  It was late fall, a time when most of the patients were young birds struggling to make it in the world and those who were having difficulties during migration.  Birds must navigate not only distance but weather, cars, lack of food, poisoning, domestic cats, wind turbines, predators, power line poles and glass windows to name a few.  So in a short time I was over whelmed. 

 

My first patient was a juvenile Swainson’s Hawk with a broken ulna (wing).  He looked healthy otherwise so the vet and I decided to give it a chance.  We medicated, bandaged, fed and conditioned him for 6 weeks as he continued to improve.  I was extremely nervous that his recovery wouldn’t be in time to catch the migration south.  Swainson’s hawks travel from the northwest United States and Canada to Central and South America, many wintering in the fields of Argentina eating dragonflies- 6000 miles away.  If I couldn’t get him ready in time, he would have to winter with me, a prospect I wasn’t excited about because I have no outside facilities. 

 

As I worked with Little Grasshopper (We try not to name our patients and get too attached but I couldn’t resist.)  other birds came and went.  There was a Swainsons, Merlin, Kestrel, a couple Coopers’s Hawks, a couple Red-tailed Hawks, and a Great Horned Owl.  The Bald Eagle was a heart breaker.  It was my first eagle and because I’m not permitted for eagles I tried to stabilize it with fluids and get it to another rehab facility.  Unfortunately she didn’t make the trip.  I can only speculate what caused her death but my best guess is internal damage from getting caught in a big wind storm or lead poisoning from eating at a gut pile (left overs from a hunting kill with lead ammunition).  Whatever the cause, her death was depressing.  But they all take a toll on you.

 

Little Grasshopper was my hope.  On the day I released him I found a field where I had seen Swainsons hunting with some tall trees nearby for perching.  I lofted him in the air and watched as he flew low over the field and soared up into the top of a tall tree.  The fact that I had a bird in my hands that traveled all the way to Argentina leaves me awestruck.  It’s so hard to believe.  But I have hope.  Hope that he made it out of Pocatello. Hope that he didn’t get hit by a car or starved or lost or …….  Do I know that he made it?  No not really.  But I sure hope he did!  My hope went with him when I lofted him in the air that day last Fall and watched him make his maiden flight over the fields and up to the top of a tall tree.  My hope went with him as I watched the birds’ migratory paths on the internet and know that most have made it to Central and South America.  My hope stays with him as he eats dragonflies in the fields.  And my hope returns with him next spring as he comes back to the north and maybe even Pocatello.  That’s the way hope is.  It hovers around and comes and goes and flies on the wings of our lives even when we don’t know for sure it’s the same bird – the same hope we sent out.  Hope is when we loft our lives into the world and strive to come home again.

So as Little Grasshopper begins his life in the wilderness, I begin my life as a wildlife rehabber.  It is extremely difficult.  It took an incredibly long time.  In that time, seven generations of hummingbirds came and went.  One or two generations of hawks.  A lifetime for an eagle.  The albatross sits and watches still.  Yet many young birds never made their first birthday. 

Why do I care?  What difference does it make in the great scheme of things?  It makes a difference to me. And hopefully to the birds I can give a second chance.  Especially those birds affected by human actions – estimated to be 80 per cent or more of those animals that end up in rehab.  I hope that I can be a voice for those that don’t have a voice.  A voice in the wilderness for those in the wilderness.  And I hope and wait for Little Grasshopper to return home.