Heroic sisters are for the birds

McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) - Cindy Embree and Christine Lewis have been known to make quacking noises en route to bird emergencies.

They keep nets, boxes and blankets in their cars at all times. If such a thing existed, they say they'd have a siren that sounded like a honking goose.

The twin sisters are Boise's dynamic duo of avian rescue. People who encounter lost, sick or injured birds call the Ruth Melichar Bird Center; the center calls Embree and Lewis. Volunteers who pay all of their own expenses, including gas, they'll go virtually anywhere at any time to help a bird in trouble.

"There are other people who will pick up a bird if it's in a box or not hard to catch," center co-director Kellyn Little said. "These two will do just about anything." Rescuing baby ducks stranded in freeway traffic, for example. (Lewis did that when she was six months pregnant.) Or spending half a day working to net a bird caught in an industrial drain.

They have an understanding with their employers: The birds come first.

"They're usually pretty good about it," said Embree, an office manager at a law firm. "And if not, they're going to have to find a new office manager. Saving these birds is my passion." The sisters, who are 39, have saved more than 200 birds so far this year.

A partial list includes: ducks, geese, quail, owls, hawks, osprey, robins, starlings, finches, sparrows, swallows, crows, blackbirds and a Western Grebe.

Ill or injured wild birds Embree and Lewis save are treated at the center, and, if possible, returned to the wild. They also rescue domestic birds and help find homes for them.

"People get baby ducks at Easter for their kids, but they grow up in a month," Embree said. "They get messy, so the people take them to the parks thinking they'll be fine there, which they aren't. They can't fly, dogs get them, and they don't know how to forage." Don't even talk to them about feeding ducks in the park.

"It's the worst thing you can do," Embree said.

"There's no nutrition in popcorn or white bread or the other junk people give them. It fills them up, but they end up malnourished and get angel wings (wings that won't fold back).

"People think the wing is broken, but it's a result of malnutrition. Wild ducks that get it from being fed in the parks can't fly south with their families." Domestic ducks left in parks are easy prey for wild ducks.

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"They gang rape the females because their own males don't protect them," Lewis said. "We've seen females who have lost a lot of their feathers from it." The two only half jokingly say that the more they see of humans, the more they like birds. People shoot birds with dart guns and nail guns, run over them in their vehicles, tape their wings so they can't fly and sic their hunting dogs on them.

Anglers have inadvertently harmed birds. Many of the sisters' rescue missions are to ParkCenter Pond in Boise, Idaho, where birds are tangled in fishing line or snagged by hooks and lures.

"We had a goose with a fishing line wrapped around its bill and a duck with a bass lure with three hooks caught in its upper leg," Embree said. "It had to be put down.

"We don't have anything against fishing, but some people just take their line off and toss it. The right thing to do is take it home or throw it away. Don't leave it lying around." The good news is that successful rescues outnumber the horror stories. That keeps the dynamic duo on the road to birds in distress as far away as Nampa and Caldwell, Idaho. They've released more than 200 wild birds at a waterfowl refuge near Montour in Gem County, Idaho.

"We went there as a birthday gift to ourselves the first time," Embree said. "Now we can't stay away." Their devotion to the birds they rescue runs deep enough that Lewis has kept five of them as pets _ ducks named Turnip, Daisy, Gracie and Quacker, and a chicken named Gabby.

"I guess you could say it gives us warm, fuzzy feelings to do this," Embree said. "It's a good feeling to know we're making a difference in these birds' lives."

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© 2008, The Idaho Statesman (Boise, Idaho).