The phone is ringing. It's the weekend, and we're short-staffed at the clinic. Shorter-staffed, actually, since we never have the hands needed to handle the animals coming through the front door. The phone rings again. I barely slept last night, having a full load of babies at home, three rabbits, four squirrels, an opossum and a mouse, all needing to be fed every two hours. Please make that phone stop ringing. I'm kneeling over a fighting Canada goose, trying to hold his wings down with my knees, blocking his long neck with one hand and trying to reach around and give him his morning fluid injection. Some of the sticky, pink oral antibiotic I had already given him dribbles from the tip of his beak onto the back of my gloved hand. The phone is still ringing. I sigh, and wipe the back of my hand on my T-shirt, knowing already that before the day ends I will be filthy. I give the goose a stern look and let him walk around the room, brushing my sweaty hair out of my face with my elbow and grabbing the phone. "New England Wildlife Center - How can I help you?"

Answering the phones and administering treatments were only a small part of my daily work at the clinic. As a non-profit organization, the center relies on unpaid interns as their primary work force. Everyone knew what needed to be done, and we worked together to ensure that it was completed. First thing in the morning, the animals need to have their cages cleaned, and must receive their food, water and medications. Next, food and water need to be taken to all of the patients not housed in the clinic. Animals that are nearly healthy enough to be released are kept in outdoor cages scattered around the property. Constantly throughout the day, the baby mammals need to be fed, new patients need to be admitted and treated, the phones need to be answered, and baby birds need to be fed (every 15 minutes!). Finally it's time to draw up the second round of medications, make sure everyone has clean water, sweep and mop and go home.

However, an intern's work is never done. In addition to being a lab assistant, food-preparer, treatment administrator, patient examiner, phone-answerer and assorted other day jobs, at night I was a mom. Every night I had "babies" that needed care. They were undoubtedly the most challenging and most rewarding part of my job. On any given night my children ranged from bunnies, squirrels, and opossums to mice, birds, and fawns. They all needed to be bottle or syringe-fed every few hours throughout the night. I didn't get a full night's sleep all summer long. Some nights, when the bunnies were especially hard to feed, or it was cold and rainy and I didn't want to walk to the deer shed at 4:00 in the morning, I was very tired of those animals. But I've been away from the clinic for a month now, and I miss their little faces looking to me for survival in the middle of the night.

The clinic entranceway holds several of our permanent residents that are used for education outreach programs throughout the school year. They include Madagascar hissing cockroaches, a Madagascar millipede, a Blue-tongued skunk, and 3-toed box turtles. Next is the baby section, which contains the table on which the baby birds (our busiest section) are kept and a corner for the kennel carriers full of baby mammals (mostly rabbits, squirrels and opossums). This area is next to the exam and surgery areas, which include our medication counter. In the back are Wards A and B, which house our large, ill patients.

Outside are the nature trail (crows, opossum and rock dove pre-release cages), our first outdoor waterfowl pen (swan, duck and geese pre-release), and our outdoor songbird pre-release cage. There are also two pens for ducklings when they are big enough to spend time outside, but too little to be put in the pen with larger ducks (who will trample little ducks). Up the road about half a mile into the woods is the office/intern house.

I was lucky enough to be one of the four interns (out of 75 applicants) allowed a spot in the intern house. The downstairs is filled with offices, and also houses the three week-long camp sessions held every summer. My backyard doubled as our second outdoor waterfowl pen, housing a large mute swan, several Canada geese, a handful of domestic ducks and two roosters. The various cages and buildings around my house were home to the following animals over the 10 weeks of my stay: 5 Red-tailed hawks, 4 fawns, 13 raccoons, countless gulls (Herring, Greater Black-backed and Ring Billed), numerous doves (rock, meat, racing), 6 coyote pups, 2 roosters, 1 turkey vulture, 1 Barred Owl, 1 very angry Great Horned Owl, and finally our beloved pet fox, Foxy. Foxy was domesticated as a pup, and enjoys human attention. I spent about an hour a day sitting in his pen playing with and talking to him. How many college students get to play with a red fox, or keep one as a pet?

This internship allowed me to learn numerous things about careers in wildlife. It taught me the trials of running a non-profit organization, how to effectively deal with the public, and how to manage potential sponsors of the clinic. I learned countless facts about wildlife management, and how to treat injured wildlife and raise orphaned young. I can clean cages and kennels, draw up medications, administer injections, give oral medicines, apply ointments, change bandages, and do other veterinary-type tasks. I know how to handle a large, injured Red-tailed hawk, without hurting the bird or myself. I have been considering a career in nonprofit wildlife medicine, and now I know that I could be truly happy working in this field, and I have a greater awareness of its challenges.