What do you do for a living?
I get social security.
What would you be doing if you weren’t doing that?
Enjoying my golden years.
What do you do in your free time?
I don’t have a lot of free time. Well, now I do, and if you come to my yard you’ll see what I do. I have a huge beautiful hard and I take care of it, pretty much. There’s always something here—the seabirds are coming [soon]. I talk on the phone. I’m the person who’s on the phone. There’s all kinds of things you do with the volunteers.
What brought you to Santa Cruz?
I liked it here in the ’70s. I used to live in Pacific Grove. I taught preschool. When I retired, I decided to come here. I have four daughters. Two of them lived here. And then a third came and I thought, I’m in the right place.
Name something you’re excited about.
Well, this is the nicest thing I’ve done with my life is these animals. I knew nothing about any birds or anything. My granddaughters are twins. I got into it more for them. Then I really got into it. You have every kind of emotion here, because it’s really nice when you put time into raising them and open your hand and they fly, and then other times you have to choose whether they live or die. And that’s very hard.
The nicest thing about working here is the people who bring [the animals] in. It’s the best part of human nature and it does them good. And you realize every human has the best part of human nature and the worst part, and the best part is what comes in here.
The only thing I don’t like in the summertime is I get so tired. And you have to feed them every half hour. When you have 60 baby birds, you cannot feed them every half hour—you just go round and round to little open mouths. And then know what your dreams are I nthe wintertime? Little birds with open mouths. And then in the wintertime you get a little depressed! And then you think, ‘The birds that were in my hand are now in South America.’
Name a pet peeve.
There are all kinds of things people do. You can read it in the newspapers. This guy they executed last night, I read about that. And I was so bummed.
People risk their lives to save animals. This big guy came in with tattoos, he came in with two little pigeons in his hands. I said, ‘Where were they?’ He said, ‘They fell off the 41st Avenue highway overpass.’ I said, ‘How did you get them?’ He said, ‘I stopped.’ And then I find out he’s a Hells Angel. Here this guy stopped to pick up two baby pigeons. Never mind how bad people are, they do have the good in them. That’s one of the tings I like about this, and it’s the reason I’ve stayed with it.
Favorite birds?
The swallow. There’s a barn sallow and a cliff swallow. The barn, some go all the way to the tip of Argentina for the summertime. Come back in March and April and build little mud nests. I swear, they must have radar. Other birds bang into the window, and these fly right over you, they never run into you. And so many people wash them down. It’s a $15,000 fine or six months in jail. There was a guy years ago from Caltrans and he washed down seven swallows nests and Fish and Game caught him and he had to pay a fine and he had to work or do time, and he came and did the bird room for me.
They hose them down with the power hose. And that really bugs me. I’d like to take them and hose them!
And every once in a while we get birds that are shot by beebee guns. I tell Fish and Game, but they never catch them. You always find out about it after the fact. You can’t catch them. Years ago on the Westside, that big building near Antonelli Pond? This guy brought me part of a nest and a bunch of dead birds and we went to the district attorney and they got fined for that. Now it’s given to UC and they do not let them do it anymore. In fact the Vice President of UC works with me as a volunteer. Allison Galloway. I get hawks and birds and she has huge flight cages on her property. She had a daughter who used to help me with bird season on Saturdays and when she was through I’d see this person mopping the floor. At that time she was provost, and I’d say, ‘Here you are, mopping the floor!’ She’s wonderful.
Do you have a personal connection with the birds?
No. We try not to. The main thing with birds is we try to keep it as wild as possible. We keep it and present it with food. Then let them out and do it themselves. In fact they’re slightly retarded compared to those raised with parents. We do not name them, we do not hold them. I let them go in my yard. Mostly what they eat? Cat food. When I let them go, they come back weeks and weeks until they learn there are better things than cat food. It’s what we call a soft release.
Same thing with mammals up in the mountains. They’ll come back for food. They leave the cages open and they’ll come back and eat and then leave. Soft release.
What would you like people to know about wild birds?
Most birds build in trees. They start nesting in the middle of March through the end of August. And if people would not cut down trees or branches—at least look and see! We get so many little hatchlings that have just hatched out and are still in their nests, and we save a few, but they’re very difficult to save. But I wish they could have some kind of ruling—at least look before you cut them down.
What else?
I started 20 years ago. Now I have 50 volunteers and we have all kinds of people helping us, from the sheriff to the Capitola police. All kinds of people take care of them. We have drivers who take the seabirds to the International Bird Rescue. It’s built up. I started in my house. Then I took my garage and made a big space. We have home rehab. We don’t have a center. We’re home rehab. And I have many, many people who take these birds and mammals and do it in their homes. I stabilize them here and we do the babies here. The hummingbirds we have to feed every 15 minutes,14 hours a day. We start at 7 and feed all the babies, all the mammals. We do that through 11:30. We do about 2,000 wild animals.
