^^^mington resident Stephanie 

 Pflieger has a different outlook. 

 Describing herself as a staunch Republi- 

 can with a "conservative outlook on the 

 environment," Pflieger began rehabili- 

 tating eight years ago in Norfolk, Va., 

 when her husband was stationed in the 

 Navy. 



"He was out to sea all the time, and 

 the kids were little," she says. "They 

 kept bringing me these birds, saying, 

 'Look at this bird, Mom. We have to 

 save it.' It started out with a robin." 



She figures she's rescued about 

 1 ,000 birds by now. 



"I've actually been working with 

 animals since I was a kid; I think you'll 

 find that to be true of most rehabbers," 

 says Pflieger, holding a green heron in a 

 towel in her lap. "We've all got a little 

 bit of Elly May Clampett in us." 



The heron, which has a splayed 

 knee joint, gulps down a few cigar 

 minnows from Wal-Mart. Tomorrow, 

 Pflieger will see if her veterinarian can 

 fix the malformed leg. 



"Get me a grackle please," she calls 

 to her son, who promptly brings a black 

 bird to the kitchen table. "Open up your 



beak, you," she says, inserting a piece of 

 moistened cat food in the boat-tailed 

 grackle 's beak. 



On the tabletop, a dish of meal 

 worms, a few mole crabs gathered from 

 the beach and a box of hand-feeding 

 formula keep company with her coffee 

 cup. 



Pflieger has a full house today: 31 

 birds, her specialty, and a rabbit. The 

 flowered placemats on her dining room 

 table are obscured by pet carriers. Boxes 

 and carriers line the floor. The inhabit- 

 ants include four baby clapper rails or 

 "marsh hens," a mockingbird, willets 

 and a few doves. Closest to her is an 

 orphaned swallow, only a few days old, 

 which sits on a heating pad inside a 

 cardboard box on the floor. 



Pflieger believes that human 

 habitats and livelihoods will always 

 come first. 



"Yet I believe that we have no right 

 to abuse these animals," she says. Her 

 obligation to an injured animal, she 

 says, begins when God cast her eyes 

 upon it. And if it's unreleasable, but can 

 eat on its own and breed, she'll care for 

 it until its dying day. 



Through the sliding glass door, she 

 keeps an eye on one of her permanent 

 patients that's on a backyard pass. 

 Buster, a seagull with a broken wing, is 

 eyeing the swimming pool. Before the 

 pool was chlorinated this spring, it 

 temporarily housed a loon whose leg 

 had been gashed by a bluefish. The bird, 

 which arrived emaciated and suffering 

 from a severely infected wound, made a 

 stunning recovery that surprised even 

 Pflieger. 



"To me there's no more gratifying 

 and rewarding feeling in the world than 

 to take a bird or animal that you've 

 nurtured and taken care of and worried 

 about and see it develop and then 

 release it," she says. 



A 



1\1 twilight in Watha, Victoria 

 Meshaw Hucks wades through thigh- 

 high grass in back of her black-shuttered 

 cottage. In a clear plastic bag she carries 

 a Neapolitan assortment of dead mice to 

 her charges in three backyard pens — 

 two barred owls, two red-tailed hawks 

 and a great homed owl. 



She puts on thick suede gloves and 

 enters two owl pens. A hard afternoon 

 rain has dissolved into a drizzle, and the 

 wet birds look finicky as she doles out a 

 handful of rodents on each perch. 



"When I first got into rehabbing, I 

 had to get someone else to kill my mice 

 for me," she says, adding she's accus- 

 tomed to it now. "It's all part of the 

 circle." 



The barred owls pop their beaks. 

 The great homed owl turns its head 

 sharply, fixing catlike eyes on the new 

 visitor. 



"Their eyes are so large in their 

 heads; they don't have any muscles 

 there. That's why they have to turn their 

 heads like that," she explains. "They can 

 turn their heads 340 degrees." 



Hucks is in awe of great-homed 

 owls, often called tigers of the night. 

 "They have really strong talons." 



She points to the big owl's tail. 

 "Their feathers on the end are tattered so 

 they don't make any sound when they 

 fly," she says. "That helps with their 

 night hunting. 



A shelter volunteer tube feeds an orphan opossum. 



1 8 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1994 



