A: Well, dear readers, it's been another long, hot day here at Second Chance Wildlife Center - the sun is blazing, the humidity is rising, the baby animals are clamoring and I am melting. Britt and I have been looking forward to sharing our news with you all day, though we must admit, partly because the computer is located in the coolest room in the Center.

B: Three cheers for air conditioning. Although we here at SCWC are proud to have our own stream network and marsh within yards of our front door, it makes the already-sticky Maryland humidity that much stickier. But fear not, our courageous staff and volunteers have been braving the July sun to make sure all of our outdoor patients have plenty of fresh food, cool water and opportunity for shade. During this time of year, we try to move our patients through our outdoor caging as quickly as they can adapt. Too much time in an outdoor cage can make any wild animal too pudgy for release. But luckily, those in outdoor cages are being released in a timely fashion, making room for those inside the Center who are ready for the next step.

A: Hopefully, our loyal readers recall the adult female Great Horned owl we talked about a couple weeks ago. For those of you who missed those entries, a quick recap - this sizable raptor was admitted after being hit by a car. Her injuries included blood in the viscous area of one eye, a detached retina in the other, extreme lethargy, dehydration and emaciation. Since then, the bloody eye has completely cleared up and she has been up and about for quite a while now. Though she was refusing to eat food off the ground (preferring instead that we hand feed her), she is now (quite graciously) agreed to feed herself.

B: And does she ever! Never have I seen mice consumed with such gusto. She is now a very respectable weight and has made it quite clear that she is feeling much better. We have moved her into an outdoor flight cage where she will finally be able to spread her wings and work those muscles into shape prior to release. Provided that the weather cooperates, we are looking at a release in the next couple of weeks!

A: It certainly has been a week of good news. We know that you will be as thrilled as we are to find out that the gosling with the luxated knee is not only walking around, but is now housed with another gosling his age! Being a highly social specie, geese often do much better when housed together and we are very pleased to have been able to provide this little fighter with an appropriate buddy.

B: Not that they took to each other right away. After a couple of hours of peeping at each other from across their daytime outdoor enclosure, they finally settled down to nap side-by-side. While this was happening, I interrupted the nap of our smaller snapping turtle. This gentleman has a large crack on the upper right quadrant of his carapace (top shell) and I spent a couple of hours Epoxy-ing four zip-tie brackets to certain junctures of his fracture. After the Epoxy set, I could close the gap, thus allowing the turtle to knit his shell back together over the course of the next few months, which he can do very well back home. He can be released with these brackets in place as he will shed them off during his spring molt. This way, he will heal faster with the reduced stress level he will have once back in his home territory.

A: And finally, the Eastern screech owl I have been working on for many weeks has been released by the person who brought him to us in the first place. We all get an enormous sense of satisfaction when we are able to return a fully recovered animal back into its natural habitat, particularly when the patient in question worked so hard to overcome very serious injuries. We have every confidence that the feisty little guy will be very happy back in his old stomping grounds - we just hope he remembers to avoid cars and dogs in the future!

B: The same can be said of my snapping turtles, once they make their ways back home. Well, the car part, anyway... See you all next week!

Questions? Comments? Email Alicia and Brittany at nut.house.ab@gmail.com. Want to learn more about Second Chance Wildlife Center? Simply go to www.scwc.org.