Poor little thing

Yesterday afternoon, Tom came in the house and dumped a 5-gallon bucket with a small black bird in it next to me.  I picked the bird up, realized it was covered with oil, and found out that Tulio had found the poor little thing fallen into a pan of used motor oil.  Knowing I'm a softy, he picked it up and had Tom bring it to me.  I called Nikki of Belize Bird Rescue, who called Dr. Isabelle of the Belize Wildlife & Referral Clinic and had her call me.  Dr. Isabelle recommended that I get the little bird into the clinic, but with our flood problems up here, I didn't have a car.  M was planning to go to town this morning, so she was going to take it, but then we had more rain last night and the road really washed out.

BWRC called me and told me that some of the conservation guys from Blancaneaux and Hidden Valley were heading down for an outreach program, so I called them and they picked up the little bird and took him to the clinic.

So, I only had to take care of him for one night, but I was happy to try to help.  I tried to wash some of the oil off him.  It would have been very satisfying to just keep scrubbing until he was clean, but I found that after wiping him for a few minutes, he would start to shake, so I would have to wrap him up for a little while to dry and get warm.  I am really hoping the good people at BWRC can get the oil off of him before it does too much damage.