#cranepost

Saved a magpie today - I was on my way into school when I saw a magpie alarm calling over and over again on a lawn by campus, and when I looked closer I saw there was another magpie lying at its feet and struggling to get up. He couldn’t stand or fly, there wasn’t any blood, and his limbs seemed intact with strong foot grip, so I figured he was either ill, poisoned, or suffering neurological trauma.

I ended up spending the morning trying to figure out how best to help the poor bird, as I got some bad info from one of the ornithologists on campus who pronounced that there were unfortunately no non-profit bird rescues in the country and then offered to mercy-kill him and feed him to one of their rehab raptors. Luckily, I ended up speaking to the lunch lady in the cafeteria about it and she was better informed! Turns out there IS a bird rescue in Norway, and though I had to take the magpie down there myself (albeit not far), the guy even offered to pay my train ticket (which I didn’t accept and I have a month ticket anyway) and was incredibly grateful that I’d brought the bird.

He called later and gave me an update, letting me know that it was in fact not illness or poison but that someone had actually shot the poor bird with a bb gun! Aside from the cruelty (and illegality), this also shocked me since there hadn’t appeared to have been any blood. The good news, however, is that they simply removed the bullet and then he was evidently much better right away. As of the last update, he was already well enough to be out in the aviary and flying, even just a couple hours afterward, and they’re expecting he’ll be released within a week or so to rejoin his flock.

That’s right - it’s meeeeeee! c:

Now I will be able to live in my own home for at least two years without having to move back and forth like I’ve been doing, and also get healthcare and have a bank account and part time job. Oh, and of course - daily access to birds!! And probably like 90% less moping lol.

I haven’t heard from the other university I applied to yet, but I’m kind of leaning toward choosing NMBU (same university, but with the Norwegian acronym), where I was accepted for the Ecology masters program. I applied to both molecular biology and ecology at the University of Oslo, but I think I might just love field work too much to do something sensible like choose microbiology, and I hear that the ecology program may be better at NMBU (albeit both farther away and with fewer language course options).