Happy World Bee Day! 🐝 If you’ve ever been to our facility you may have noticed our hives as you pull onto the property. We have a dedicated volunteer beekeeper who tends and monitors the health of our hives. Some of our bees even get to travel to schools and events as a part of our pollinator program, where we educate the public on the importance of bees to our agriculture and ecosystem. Did you know that one in three bites we eat have been pollinated by a bee? Bees are vital for pollination and save billions of dollars to agricultural communites by pollinating crops. So thank a bee the next time you eat a piece of fruit - or a have a taste of honey, since they are the only insect that produces a food we eat. 🍯 (fb)

We’d like to start this week by thanking the amazing donors and supporters who contribute to our organization. To show our appreciation we’re doing a five part series showing you where your money goes, with a new story each day that your donations have made possible. To kick things off we’d like to introduce you to our newest volunteer. This yet-to-be-named American Robin patient who came in with an injured wing has shown a natural affinity to fostering the juvenile robins in our care. Many of you may remember our last foster Robin Mr. Hannigan. Over the last 7 years OWL received 786 robins and calculating a 69% release rate, (our average), Mr Hannigan fostered 542 of those robins so they could be released back to the wild. He tirelessly fed and "talked" to his charges. Of course, he had the best food that money could buy for his foster family and nice digs to call home. It's extremely important for birds to have foster siblings or in this case a foster parent so they imprint normally. Imprinting is a mirror image of what a young bird sees and hear so they base their sexual and social behavior on that image. Imprinting happens during a critical period of development early in the birds life. It is essential for a bird's survival, as it helps them learn how to behave and vocalize appropriately, identify with other members of their species, and choose mates. It is permanent causing physical changes in the bird's brain structure helping them learn species-specific characteristics so they can find a mate later in life. We provide our robins with a varied and plentiful diet including native fruits, berries, earthworms, insects, seeds and more. We are lucky to welcome another foster bird into our rehabilitation program and are honored to care for and spoil them as they raise generations of robins to come. We’d like to invite you to give us your name suggestions in the comments - we will compile a list and have our volunteers vote on their favorite!🪺 (fb)