Occasionally - and it is occasionally - you get to do something, go somewhere, or meet someone that genuinely inspires, humbles, or excites you. Last week I was privileged (an over-used word, but the right one) to do all three when I was given a special ‘insiders’ tour of the International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBRRC) in Fairfield, California with good friend and birding stalwart Jack Cole.

Our host for the day - which was split into two parts: a tour of the Centre (which is really a working hospital) and a ‘release’ of seven Double-crested Cormorants - was Nancy “5 cent tour” Mix (photo left), a seven-year volunteer at the IBRRC, whose passion and commitment to the Center and the birds it looks after lights up rooms and fills even jaded cynics like myself with the feeling that perhaps things aren’t quite as hopeless as I thought (and, who, incidentally had driven in on her day off just to show me round - for which I will be forever grateful). Much of what is written below comes from what Nancy told us, but I would like to make it absolutely clear that the interpretations and emotional responses to her words are mine. As Nancy stressed many times she and the other Centre staff remain separate from the politics that inevitably come with animal rescue and rehabilitation - especially where birds and the oil industry is involved. No-one at the Centre played the ‘blame-game’, and in fact Nancy went out of her way to acknowledge the help the IBRRC has had from Chevron, which put up half the money to buy the Fairfield Centre itself.

I’ve already written a short post (with much of the text courtesy of IBRRC’s Laurie Pyne) about the history and values of the IBRRC, but for those who don’t have time to visit that page here’s a brief re-cap. Set up in 1971 after the horrendous ‘Oregon Standard’ spill that dumped over 900,000 gallons of toxic crude oil into the waters around San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, the IBRRC began as a volunteer organisation with little experience or expertise (of 7,000 birds treated in that spill just 300 survived). It is now recognised as the world’s leading authority on the treatment and rehabilitation of oiled birds, and has worked on oiled bird rehabilitation efforts in over 200 oil spills in 11 states, seven different countries and two U.S. territories. And, as Nancy explained to Jack and I, they’re learning continually: to quote the IBRRC website the IBRRC has “…attained a 78% release rate of King Eiders on the extremely remote Pribilof Islands, 100% release rate of White Pelicans in Louisiana, a 96% release rate of Common Coots in congested and polluted Southern California [and] the rehabilitation of 19,500 African Penguins in South Africa”.

Inside…

…outside

To maintain their expertise in rehabilitation skills (ie keep themselves ‘ready to respond’) IBRRC operates two state of the art aquatic bird rehabilitation centres in California. The centre in Fairfield which we visited serves the San Francisco Bay area, whilst Southern California (in effect the Los Angeles area) is covered by the San Pedro centre. Should a spill occur oiled birds are literally transported in cars, SUVs, and whatever else is at hand to the centres, where treatment begins immediately. Training is continual, expertise is continually refined, and staff and volunteers are ready to start work 24 hours a day (Fairfield’s remarkable and highly-focussed Rehabilitation Manager, Michelle Bellizzi, is contactable by cellphone at all times).

Which of course means that in recognition of this vital work the IBRRC is funded to the hilt and manned with appropriately compensated full-time staff? Hardly. The Fairfield Centre is partly-funded by the Oiled Wildlife Care Network (a “statewide collective of trained wildlife care providers, regulatory agencies, academic institutions and wildlife organizations that works to rescue and rehabilitate oiled wildlife in California”), but it does depend to a large extent on donations and contributions. The recession is destabilising all areas of the economy of course and the ‘third sector’ (the voluntary and/or non-profit sector) is not immune: through no fault of their own the IBRRC has just lost $300,000 of annual funding and is implementing cost-saving measures across the board. There are just three full-time staff at Fairfield, and everyone else you see buzzing about, caring for sick or injured birds, are volunteers. IBRRC could most certainly do with your help if you’re wondering…

Does this belt-tightening mean that the care given to the birds will be impacted? Not if remarkable people like Michelle, Marie, Laurie, Nancy, Monty, Cheryl, Sandy, Vicki, Jazzie, Monica, Yvonne and Tony (apologies if I’ve missed anyone out!) have any say in the matter (and thanks to the training they’re given they are very knowledgeable people and do have quite a say!).

Michelle Belizzi (in the grey cap) leads the morning briefing

Monty Merrick, experienced re-habber goes through the case studies

Cheryl Reynolds (of martinezbeavers.org) and Jazzie tend to an injured Pacific Loon

In fact one of the things that really strikes you is the fantastic care given to ALL the birds that arrive at Fairfield. There hasn’t been an oil spill in the Bay Area recently (which means that while I wasn’t getting action-packed photographs of staff frantically working to save dying birds and much of the cleaning equipment was standing idle, I wasn’t faced with the utterly piteous, blackened victims that oil spills are so good at creating either) and the birds in care were mostly the victims of discarded fishing-line (the fine line wraps around the birds and can literally cut them to the bone), hunting, domestic cat attacks, of humans removing nesting herons and cormorants from utility poles or from near buildings…in fact from what Nancy was saying there really is probably is no such thing as a ‘typical’ temporary resident at Fairfield.

The Centre’s interior and exterior holding cages, tanks and aviaries, at the time of our visit, therefore contained a range of non-oiled birds from young Snowy Egrets and Black-crowned Night Herons to Double-crested Cormorants and Brown Pelicans, a Pacific Loon, Canada Geese, two Ne-Ne (abandoned collection birds not wild ones, nay-nay) and - even - a domestic duck.

I say ‘even’ quite deliberately, as I know there will be birders reading this who will say that if funds are tight they shouldn’t be spent on ‘domestic ducks’ (or Canada Geese which are often considered ‘pests’
when they gather in flocks in public parks or on golf courses etc) but on ‘real’ or more threatened wild birds. Nancy certainly wouldn’t give any time to an argument like that: a bird that needs help is a bird that needs help (my words, not hers) and it doesn’t matter what the species is or its abundance. It’s perhaps a point worth debating - but not now (this post is going to be long enough as it is). For what it’s worth though my own opinion is that yes, every bird in a situation like this counts, and that if the Fairfield Centre’s Hospital discriminated against an individual animal because it wasn’t judged to be ‘worth’ as much as another they’d be on morally suspect ground. I’m not sure I’d have always thought like that I admit, but I do now, and it’s for similar reasons that I went vegetarian six years ago, and why I dislike hunting so intensely, but, as I say, we can debate that later (he says, setting up the debate)…

Juvenile Snowy and Cattle Egrets

Juvenile Black-crowned Night herons

Pacific Loon, placed in freshwater tank to check buoyancy and feather waterproofing

So the care given at Fairfield (and I have no doubt at other rescue centres around the world) is on a ‘need’ basis - if the animal needs it, it will be given.

And that care is exceptional. It’s obvious from the moment you arrive and notice how quietly staff move around and how detailed the morning briefing is (I’ve no idea what all the codes mean in the photos below, but every bird has its own ‘case notes’ and individual treatment worked out). It’s obvious from the fact that the public are normally kept separate from the birds, and the way it was made clear that Jack and I were very welcome but that if we got in the way or disturbed any of the birds that welcome would be withdrawn. It’s obvious too from the way the birds are handled: there’s a great deal of care to avoid imprinting (Nancy told us a great story about the withdrawal of black, all-in-one ‘costumes’ worn by staff looking after very young cormorants on the off-chance that the birds might later decide to approach muslim women wearing burkhas!); there’s no eye contact if at all possible as it stresses the birds; and there’s no allowances made for bloggers to get photographs if it will mean a bird gets cold or frightened in any way.

Michelle Belizzi hand-feeding a juvenile Least Tern

The photograph above illustrates exactly what I mean. I’ve no doubt at all that a good photo of a species which combines ‘cuteness’ with rarity (the Californian form of Least Tern Sternula antillarum browni is listed as Endangered in North America) would make a good ‘poster bird’ for the work of the Centre, and I’d have been more than happy to provide any copies IBRRC could have used - but Michelle absolutely wouldn’t let me get closer or move the yellow cloth (which I later found out held a heating pad) to get a better photo. The bird’s welfare was her only priority, and I for one have no objection or problem with that (in fact I’d have been disappointed if she’d stood to one side and let me click away while the tiny tern either cooled down or became stressed - which I have to say I wouldn’t have done anyway, but you know what I mean).

That’s not to say that I wasn’t given every chance and help to take photographs where possible (a promotional post needs images after all), and I was allowed into the larger aviaries to get clear shots provided that I was in there only briefly, moved slowly, and the birds showed no sign of stress. Where there was any doubt (and some juveniles and the adults of some species like Surf Scoters are very sensitive to what’s going on around them) I quite rightly wasn’t allowed to get close…

…and when I did I had to be prepared to move quickly! I was given permission to photograph Monty feeding a rather reluctant Brown Pelican as the series below shows. I was however warned to stand by the door and get ready to jump aside when Monty needed to make his exit. Not only do pelicans have weapons for bills (the hook on the end of the bill can easily rip open human skin), they are also quite prepared to vomit back up a smelly soup of partly-digested fish and stomach juices over anyone who gets in their way (and as much as I love birds there are limits to what I’ll wear on a two-hour car journey back home)…

Run, Monty, run…

Of course, while Jack and I were having fun watching a fish being pushed down a pelican’s throat, or getting close-up views of young Least Terns and Night Herons there was a great deal of hard work being done all around us by some very dedicated, very serious people (who I’m sure were having fun too, just not as much fun). And all that hard work is for one reason and one reason only: to get a fully fit bird back into the wild as quickly as possible.

In the second part of this story I’ll tell you about being allowed to help Nancy release seven Double-crested Cormorants into the waters below the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a lovely few minutes and really put into perspective why Nancy and the others have given up so much of their spare time and energy to help the IBRRC repair and rehabilitate birds that many other people would have simply ignored or left to die…

For more information on the IBRRC go to

• The IBRRC website at http://www.ibrrc.org/index.html
• The IBRRC blog at http://intbirdrescue.blogspot.com/
• IBRRC on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/International-Bird-Rescue-Research-Center/110165288744
• The excellent Amber Coakley of The Birder’s Lounge visited IBRRC’s San Pedro Centre and wrote a great blog about her visit at My visit to the International Bird Rescue Research Center. Well worth checking out.

Additionally, the 10th International ‘Effects of Oil on Wildlife Conference’ - which promises to be an outstanding event - will be held in the enchanting city of Tallinn, Estonia the week of 5-9 October 2009: the scientific programme will take place from 4-8 October, with optional side events organised on Monday, 5 October and Friday, 9 October.

The event’s website is at http://www.eowconference09.org/