The call of a blue jay in the trees isn’t unusual. But the call of a blue jay that was, until recently, a family member, is. “He was released just yesterday,” Sue Geel told me as she led the way into Lucky Rehabilitation Center in Spencertown, NY. She added, “He comes down for snacks.”
I kept it to myself but one of the sweetest, saddest memories of my childhood involved a rescued baby blue jay. I’m reluctant even to mention it because I don’t want to retraumatize my brother Jamie. He reads this column and bears some responsibility for the ensuing tragedy. We’d found the fledging on the ground in Central Park and took it home. I know what you’re going to say: you’re not supposed to pick up baby birds that fall out of their nests. Let nature work its way. If they were meant to survive they’ll survive. In fact, I raised that concern with Maria Geel, Sue’s daughter and the 21-year-old college student who runs Lucky Rehabilitation. She’ll share her take on rescuing animals from the wild shortly.
But back to my story. We brought the baby blue jay home and within a matter of hours he’d become a full-fledged (no pun intended) member of the family. He’d even join us at dinner, taking bites of food. I recently ran across snapshots of him sitting atop my head, perched on Jamie’s shoulder, even hitching a ride on Skippy, our Boston Terrier’s, back. I suspect that what added to the sense of the miraculous is that my brothers and I had scant previous contact with nature. We were city kids. Yet here was this ostensibly wild creature who seemed to have a much bigger personality than any of the lame canaries we’d owned to that point.
The baby blue jay lighted up our home. I believe our family became nicer to each other. This messenger from the natural world turned us into better people. And then disaster struck. From my mother’s diary dated June 12th, 1968: “The little blue jay bird that the children had found in the park died today,” she wrote. “Jamie didn’t see him and stepped on him by mistake.”
Suffice it to say that such accidents don’t happen at Lucky Rehabilitation under the auspices of Maria who, along with her mother, are licensed wildlife rehabilitators. They take in sick and injured animals from across New York state. Since they opened in 2021 more than a thousand of them have passed through their cages, perches, enclosures, etc. depending on the animals’ needs. Maria said that their success rate in returning animals to the wild is 78% compared to a state average of 40%.
On rare occasions a guest, such as Johnny Cash, a companionable opossum who’d been hit by a car, a train and attacked by multiple dogs, is too old to be released, “We say he’s in hospice,” Maria told me. “He has everyone wrapped around his finger.” And then there’s Wilber, their “problem child” turkey who simply refused to leave after being released and watched her sister get taken by a predator.
The facility, a non-profit that survives on donations and help from volunteers, averages about thirty calls a day during peak season from people reporting critters in need of help. More information about volunteering and donating can be found at Luckyrebab.com
I was especially eager to make the acquaintance of Eddie Fisher, since I don’t believe I’ve ever spotted a fisher, a member of the weasel family, in the wild. My wife and a friend heard the call of one in our woods a few years ago and still talk about it. “It sounds like a woman being murdered,” Maria acknowledged. Eddie was found in someone’s backyard as a baby and his health improved dramatically once he was dewormed. A fearsome hunter — he’s the porcupine’s only natural predator, Maria told me — Eddie was due to be released on state land the day I visited.
The wildlife rehabilitator’s rounds included feeding mice to an Eastern Screech Owl and to a Great Horned Owl who’d been shot in the wing. Maria, an undergraduate at Paul Smiths College, noted the irony of purchasing frozen mice from a rodent provider to feed he owls while rescuing the occasional mouse. “There’s a little bit of a moral, ethical line,” she admitted.
There were currently six fawn in residence, a relatively low number. Last year they released eleven of them. I can understand hunters or just plain homeowners such as myself, whose bumper crop of tiger lilies were devoured in a single June night this year by anti-social deer, wondering why encourage such criminal behavior by saving deer only to have them ravage the underbrush another day?
Maria said that all of her fawns were there because their mothers had been hit by cars. “We’re not trying to intervene in nature,” she explained. “Most of our patients come in because of human harm.” She added that, to the extent possible, the rehabilitators and volunteers try to minimize contact with the animals so they can successfully adapt to the wild once they’re released.
Some of their guests take longer to check out than others. And when they do they often don’t go very far. That blue jay heard calling from the trees when I arrived had returned for a snack before I left. And as they escorted me back to my car Sue Geel, who doesn’t consider herself much of a birder, nonetheless recognized their calls. “Every bird you see fly by,” she told me, “is one of ours.”
Ralph Gardner Junior is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found in the Berkshire Eagle and on Substack.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
