The Official Houston Zoo Blog

…or try to assemble bird holding cages for that matter.

We left on Saturday morning at around 9:30 AM and got into Saipan 9 PM on Sunday – I missed a whole day somewhere.  The total flight time was a little over 17 hours; but if you include our lay-overs we traveled for a little over 24 hours.  That explains where my day went to except for a few hours… but I am pretty sure I left those hours somewhere west of Hawaii.

Most of the participants in this field work are from other AZA zoos; many of us took the same flight from Houston to Saipan.  Currently there are people from over 10 zoos across the US;  including Memphis Zoo, Sedgwick County Zoo, St. Louis Zoo, North Carolina Zoo, Honolulu Zoo, Toledo Zoo, Louisville Zoo, and of course the Houston Zoo.  The flight took us from Houston to Honolulu  to Guam to Saipan.

This is all I saw of Hawaii, but it's a great view for an airport terminal!

Today we spent the bulk of the day getting ready for the birds.  The Summer Holiday Hotel is where we are staying; they have generously allowed us use of one of their rooms for the bird holding area.  It is great.  Generally the birds are kept in a small outdoor holding area at the Department of Fish and Wildlife. This time around the bird holding room is more of a ‘wing’ (yes, pun intended).  We have a room for the birds, a kitchen area, a nook for the vet staff, and a lot of shelf space for storage.  And best of all we have air conditioning.

The old holding room

The new and improved bird room, courtesy of the Summer Holiday Hotel.

We made a morning stop of the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Here the permits were stamped and we gathered all the supplies that are stored in this area for the year.  We ended up filling the backs of both the vehicles (twice) and a Fish and Wildlife truck bed with supplies.

Supplies for collecting and housing birds in Saipan.

Once we got back, it was time to set up the bird room.  Everyone worked together to set up the crates (it apparently takes 3 bird curators and 1 vet to figure out how to assemble the first crate) and the holding racks as well as prep the kitchen.  Then we took a quick shopping trip to get some final supplies.

How many bird experts does it take to assemble 60 crates? We plead the fifth!

Now that this is all set-up – we just have to start to scout the land for the netting.

Just add birds!

Want to know more?  Read the entire series, here!

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