From the Local Paper

It takes a very special kind of person to do these good works.

Lois Moss first started rescuing wildlife about 18 years ago, after her husband had a stroke and she was looking for a new pastime he would enjoy.

He died not long after, but Moss continued taking in injured or orphaned animals every year.

From about March to October, she spends nearly every waking hour caring for primarily birds, occasionally other animals.

When baby birds start falling from nests in the spring, they bring them to this 80-year-old woman nicknamed The Bird Lady.

When a bird flies into a window and is too stunned to move, they bring it to The Bird Lady.

The newborns go on a heating pad in the spare bedroom. She uses a dropper to feed them a mixture of canned dog food, applesauce, eggs, turkey mash and vitamin powder. Every hour.

Birds eagerly open their mouths, and squirrels (which her daughter, Gail the Squirrel Lady, rescues) wrap their tiny paws around the dropper. Bunnies — they’re not so easy to feed.

Possum formula is much more complicated, and they’re not as grateful.

“Even when they’re little, they’ll open their mouth and hiss at you,” Gail says.

The older birds go in a cage in the garage until they’re ready to be released into the wild.

During the quiet before the storms that will bring birds to Lois’s modest little ranch home, the only sound in her living room is the kitchen clock that chimes bird sounds, and the one tenant, a ringneck dove, softly cooing in the basement.

Lois and Gail are part of the nonprofit volunteer Wildlife Rescue Team, which takes squirrels, bunnies, possums, raccoons, minks, bobcats, wolves, foxes, beavers, woodchucks —- even a hedgehog.

Over the years, Lois has had ducks, turkeys, geese, pheasant, crows — all kinds of birds. She takes in hundreds every year; she’s liable to have 30 to 40 on any given day during the busy season.