World Bird Sanctuary: Signs of Summer

Friday, July 2, 2010

Signs of Summer

“Back when I was an intern…”

“Once upon a time, back when I WAS an intern….”, that phrase prefaced many stories that were told to us by the WBS employee who was then “house mom” in the building where we resided. Sometimes the stories were raucously funny; other times they ended in warnings of what not to do in a situation. We often teased her about these tales, asking her out of nowhere if we could have “story time.” She usually laughed, told us to shut up, and to stop making her feel old…all in a friendly way, of course.

My intern year

The Sanctuary happily takes new interns at any time of year. However, as many of them are college students, we get the greatest density of interns during their summer break from school. When this seasonal influx starts, I often think about those early moments and some of those stories. I also tend to revisit my first week here and how overwhelming it was.

I remember being greeted at the locked gate by a dirty, sweaty gal with big, humid-weather hair and clomping boots (this was my “house mom”). As she swung open the gate, letting me into the compound and led me down the winding, wooded road, I thought, “What am I getting myself into?” By the end of the week, I had been to a newsletter folding (full of very loud people whose names I couldn’t keep straight), almost been reduced to gagging while cutting up a table of chickens, and many other new, exciting things that kind of blur together now. Back in those early days, as I lay in my little bed, listening to the albino Great Horned Owl hooting on the other side of my wall, and my feet aching like never before, I thought, ”What have I gotten myself into?”

Almost 6 years later, a lot of my internship is kind of blurred in my memory. There are moments that stand out, of course, good and bad. It’s important to remember how overwhelming it can be, to be learning so much so quickly, and to be expected to use that information pretty much right away. Our new interns are currently in that place.

A group of interns who have learned to handle birds and are almost at the end of their internship

Every summer our staff is challenged with teaching these new people the smartest, safest, best ways to do every detail at the Sanctuary. I know I have sometimes struggled with how to teach in an efficient, but thorough way, so no one feels lost or thrown to the wolves…or raptors, as the case may be. Inevitably, though, there are those instances where you catch someone new standing in the middle of a room, looking glassy-eyed like they had a tornado blow unceremoniously around them and move on. The “tornado” in question is usually a WBS staff naturalist getting ready for a program in my department. I admit, the “tornado” has been me on occasion! It’s also important to remember what this time was like, because being an intern is also supposed to be FUN, not just hard work. I want to do my very best to make the fun happen as well.

An intern talking to a group of youngsters and letting them get a "close look"

Our internship program, like our volunteer program, is absolutely vital to the healthy functioning of the World Bird Sanctuary. Particularly in the summer, we are able to do maintenance and groundskeeping tasks that we simply don’t have the hands for at other times of the year. We can do more shows and educate more people because of the extra bird handlers we have available in the form of the interns. It’s an exciting time, and I’d like to personally welcome all of our new interns to the Sanctuary.

One of our summer interns taking part in our Birds In Concert series

Ask lots of questions, learn lots of cool things and ask us to tell stories (we happily will!). Admittedly, many of us are pretty loud—I’m now one of those people—you’ll get used to it, I promise. And, yes, you even get used to the cutting up of dead things. We are grateful you are here. Our crazy life is now yours…at least for a little while!