What changed in one year

In Ostoja Wildlife Rehabilitation Center

This story was written in a wildlife rehabilitation center called Pomorski Ośrodek Rehabilitacji Dzikich Zwierząt „Ostoja”. You can donate here to support Ostoja. The site is in Polish, but you can use the Google Translate browser plugin.

If you follow me on Medium for more than a year, you may remember the Ostoja story series. Lots of birds, lots of hedgehogs, lots of photos.

This year I’m in Ostoja for just one week instead of two, but I hope to continue the not-yet-a-tradition of focusing on writing more than usual while I’m here.

After I stepped on the platform of Kartuzy train station and got picked up by one of Ostoja’s full time employees, the first thing I heard was “You wouldn’t guess how many things have changed since the last year!”

Martens. A year ago, Ostoja could not legally take care of martens, but it's one of the things that changed. Photo by me.

Instead of a camper, volunteers sleep in a lot nicer cabins (to the right). Photo by me.

Swifts now have different feeding times. Photo by me.

There's an extra "summer" cage for birds almost ready to be released. Currently it's occupied by storks. Photo by me.

The lake at the back wasn't favoured too much by wildlife, but it seems to be now a hanging out place for one grey heron. Photo by me.

First on the list were the personnel changes. Some people changed jobs, some people are on maternity leaves. This caused the need for more volunteers during the summer for extra help, which then caused the cozy but small camper to be replaced by cabins where 4 volunteers could sleep and not just 2.

There’s also an extra sink outside, making it easier to clean bowls for animals in outside cages.

This year is apparently a swift year. Last year was a hedgehog year, a day without a new hedgehog admitted to Ostoja was a weird day, but 2024 is definitely about swifts. This from the caretaker’s perspective is absolutely tiring, as feeding swifts is not for the faint of heart — and now there’s a lot of swifts to feed.

The cage used for test flights before releasing birds into the wild broke, and even though the fundraiser was a success, there are delays during the construction process.

And all the cherries from the cherry tree mysteriously disappeared!

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