The RFPS Chronicles

Chapter One · 2014-2015

RFPS Chronicles September 7: Before the Chronicle Had a Name

The first September 7 material we recovered came from 2014.

Three images survived.

The captions did not.

They involve the World Trade Center, including images of the original towers and One World Trade Center. What I wrote with them is gone.

That matters.

It would be easy to look at those images now and write a meaning into them.

We are not going to do that.

The photographs are part of the record.

The missing words are part of the record too.

RFPS Chronicles September 7: The Class of 2015

A year later, September 7 looked completely different.

There were birds everywhere.

Raylin was apparently Dad’s favorite, assuming Dad played favorites.

Pauley was prepared to play. Or bite.

Stormy Grey was ready for the camera.

Magic was striking a pose.

Shazam was staring directly back at us.

It is not a major historical event.

I am glad we have it anyway.

Paperwork tells me what happened. Personality reminds me who was there.

We were not trying to build an archive.
We were just living with birds.
Luckily, some of them posed for the camera.

Chapter Two · 2016

RFPS Chronicles September 7: Tiny Signs That Things Were Getting Better

Sometimes getting better is quiet.

Jojo was growing feathers again.

That sounds like a very small thing until you remember there had been a time when I wondered whether some of those feathers would ever return.

His chest was beginning to fill back in. His little “pantalooms” had grown out. He was living beside the girls, tiny as ever and apparently convinced that size had nothing to do with authority.

Most importantly, the old post says he was happy.

There was no dramatic finish line.

Just new feathers where there had not been any before.

Sometimes getting better is quiet.

Meanwhile, Everyone Else Was Carrying On

Elsewhere on September 7, Pearl Squirrel was checking whether everyone was awake.

Magic was eating.

Kiki was dispensing literature.

Riafiki was outside on a hay bale.

In other words, the rest of the sanctuary had not received the memo that we were having an emotional moment.

Kiki Had Something to Say Too

Kiki’s contribution to September 7 was a quote from The Fault in Our Stars: “The world is not a wish-granting factory.”

Apparently literature was also on the schedule.

Not a miracle.
Not a finish line.
Just something beginning to grow where you had stopped expecting it.

Chapter Three · 2017

Ruffled Feathers September 7 History: When the Community Came Through the Door

September 7, 2017 was busy for an entirely different reason.

We had a photo contest going.

Birds started showing up on the page from everywhere.

Quetzal. Missy. Miracle. Moby. Shadow. Gizmo. Presley. Diamond. Captain Jack Black Beard. Princess Penelope. Rotten.

The rules were probably more complicated than they needed to be.

One like counted as one vote. One comment counted as two. People could vote on multiple birds, and we kept posting entries throughout the day.

It was a little chaotic.

It was also fun.

The Birds People Brought to Us

Looking back now, the names are almost as much fun as the pictures.

It reads less like a contest list and more like attendance at a very strange family reunion.

It meant people wanted to be part of what we were doing.

Animal Rescue Memories: More Than a Winning Picture

At the time, the goal was simple.

Pick a cover photo.

Have some fun.

Give everybody a chance to show off their birds.

Looking back, the contest preserved something else.

It preserved participation.

People were not only watching what RFPS was doing.

They were bringing their own birds into the conversation.

They were voting for each other.

Commenting.

Sharing.

Laughing.

Coming back to see who was ahead.

A rescue organization needs people long before the moment it asks them for help.

Sometimes community begins with something as simple as:

“Look at my bird.”

Somewhere along the way, this had become more than a page about our birds.
Other people were bringing theirs through the door too.
Even if, for the moment, it was only through a photograph.

Chapter Four · 2018

RFPS Chronicles September 7: Teaching Between the Rescue Calls

By 2018, the September 7 posts had developed a rhythm I recognize immediately.

Here is a bird you may never have seen before.

Here is something interesting about it.

Here is Chloe supervising everybody.

Here is Chase.

Here is a joke about salad.

That was pretty much the educational strategy.

The Eurasian Hobby

One September 7 post introduced the Eurasian Hobby, a fast little falcon with long, pointed wings and a talent for catching prey in the air.

The point was not to turn anybody into an ornithologist.

It was simply:

Look at this thing.

Isn’t it incredible?

Meanwhile, Chloe Was on Patrol

Chloe had no interest in cuddling.

She preferred sitting above everybody and monitoring the room.

Tara called her “a little sheriff.”

Honestly, that sounds accurate.

Some Birds Pick Their Person

Chase was happy.

Tara noted that Chase and George were about the only birds who always wanted to be around her.

Everyone else apparently had other appointments.

Plain Old House Salad

And then there was the “plain old house salad” post.

Educational excellence has many forms.

Education can sneak up on people.

It was a day of learning.
Watching.
Laughing.
And noticing.
Sometimes that is enough.

Chapter Five · 2019

RFPS Chronicles September 7: The Owl Before Monday

Surgery was Monday.

September 7 was Saturday.

I knew I could be down for a while afterward, so I said I had better make my last capture count and go out with a bang.

Apparently that meant a Great Horned Owl.

There are easier ways to take it easy before surgery.

I have never been especially good at choosing them.

RFPS Chronicles September 7: The Job Was Not to Win

Great Horned Owls do not need much help looking intimidating.

The size, the eyes, the feet, the talons. Everything about them reminds you that this is not a bird you casually reach for.

The job was not to conquer anything.

It was to get the owl contained safely, keep stress as low as possible, and get it where it needed to go next.

Surgery Monday. The owl needed help Saturday.

Ruffled Feathers September 7 History: The Next Morning

Another September 7 post says a Great Horned Owl captured that day would be taken to Broadbent Wildlife Sanctuary the following morning.

It may have been the same owl.

The surviving record does not give us enough to say that for certain.

So we will not.

Wildlife Rescue Stories: Rescue Was Never One Person Doing Everything

Broadbent was where a lot of our wildlife stories changed hands.

We might do the capture, the overnight care, or the transport.

Then the animal moved into the hands of people whose job was rehabilitation.

That handoff mattered.

Rescue is not one person doing everything.

It never was.

Sometimes the archive gives you the whole story.
Sometimes it gives you one night.
This one gave us the owl before Monday.

Chapter Six · 2019

From “Killer” to Family

Rudy looked like a whole different bird.

In the original post, I joked that he had gone from a “viscous killer” to part of the family.

That was the kind of language we used in quick Facebook posts back then.

What I was really describing was a bird who had stopped responding to us the same way.

He was settling in.

He was learning the routine.

We were learning him.

Fear had less control over the conversation than it used to.

Louie’s Progress Was Quieter

Louie’s update was quieter.

He had been spending time downstairs with the other greys and opening up more.

Then came the part that mattered:

He was stepping up without biting.

Tara called him a good boy.

To somebody scrolling past, that probably looked like a very ordinary sentence.

When you work with parrots, it is not ordinary at all.

Trust is invisible until the animal does something it could not do before.

What a Bite Can Be Saying

Parrots do not have many ways to tell us we have pushed too far.

A bite can come from fear, stress, territorial behavior, overstimulation, confusion, or a warning we failed to notice earlier.

That does not mean every bite has some deep hidden meaning.

It does mean “bad bird” is usually not a very useful place to stop thinking.

They had stopped seeing every approach as something they had to survive.
And somewhere along the way, we stopped seeing them only for what they did when they were afraid.

Chapter Seven · 2020

Ruffled Feathers September 7 History: The Quiet Work of Growing

By 2020, RFPS was starting to look a little more like an organization and a little less like a collection of rescue posts held together by caffeine.

Tara had made a shirt.

There were more projects coming.

She was already looking for a new vendor for the 2021 calendars.

None of that sounds particularly historic.

That is exactly why I like finding it now.

Ruffled Feathers September 7 History: Small Signs We Were Growing

• A shirt with our name on it
• Calendars people expected each year
• People recognizing the birds
• People recognizing us

A shirt here. A calendar there. A name people start remembering.

History is not only built from rescues.
Sometimes it is built from somebody sitting down and saying:I made a shirt.

Chapter Eight · 2024

RFPS Chronicles September 7: The Work Was Still Waiting

Jump ahead four years and September 7 handed us something a little unusual.

An albino squirrel.

I knew exactly what it was.

Everybody following the page did not necessarily get that luxury.

Back then I used to play a little game called “What the Heck Is That?” I would put up a picture of some animal we had encountered and let everybody take their best guess before giving away the answer.

This little white creature made a pretty good contestant.

I wrote that I thought we had escaped with only a slight eye injury and how amazing it was to be blessed enough to see a creature like this, let alone hold and feed it.

Years into wildlife rescue, animals could still stop me in my tracks.

This one certainly did.

Experience Does Not Mean Always Knowing

By then, years of wildlife calls had taught us something the early posts could not have.

Experience does not mean always knowing the answer.

It means getting more comfortable saying:

I need somebody else to look at this.

This needs a veterinarian.

This needs a rehabber.

This animal needs transport.

Or sometimes:

This animal does not need us at all.

The organization changed. The responsibility did not.

September 7 had changed across the years.
So had we.
But the work was still waiting.