Brandon Keim: “Even in a city famed for its oddities, New York’s Wild Bird Fund is an unusual place. To wit: one morning in April, while sitting in their Upper West Side waiting room, it dawned on me that I wasn’t alone. Perched on a chair, motionless in front of a life-sized photograph of a turkey vulture, was a large black-and-white guinea fowl. The turkey vulture had been nicknamed Stanley. The guinea fowl, who’d been let out to stretch her wings, didn’t yet have a name. Both were among the roughly 10,000 feathered patients—snowy egrets and starlings, peregrine falcons and pigeons—delivered to the Wild Bird Fund since its founding in 2001.

“Any animal that’s picked up is in really bad shape,” said Rita McMahon, the Wild Bird Fund’s founder. “Half the animals brought in for rehab die, or are euthanized. But the other half go free. And they probably would have died if they hadn’t come here.”

McMahon founded the Wild Bird Fund after rescuing an injured Canada goose alongside Interstate 684 and learning there was nowhere in the city to take him. New York is full of veterinarians, of course, but none wanted to deal with wild animals. At first she ran the operation from her apartment. “I didn’t have any idea,” she said. “I just started doing it.”Recent patients included a Virginia rail and a woodcock. For now, aside from a yellow-bellied sapsucker and dark-eyed junco in intensive care, both victims of window collisions, it was mostly pigeons. Medical care for lowly pigeons might seem a bit much, but it was hard to begrudge after hearing their tales. ..Upstairs it was time for the waterfowl to take their daily swim in the wave pool. Without it, their feathers lose their natural waterproofing, and their feet dry out and become infected. Sometimes a loon comes through; they’re allowed to dive for goldfish. Mute swans are frequent guests. The males are renowned for their antagonism towards men, and only accept care from the hospital’s women helpers. On this day the waterfowl included two Canada geese, three herring gulls and a mallard. Under the care of volunteer Esther Koslow they took their laps, then gathered in the waiting room, preening quietly.”