THROUGH THESE DOORS

Some of the more memorable animals to come through our doors in the second quarter of 1996 were:

• A road-killed mother opossum with nine healthy babies in her pouch.
• A fledgling Red-tailed Hawk, down on a school playground.
• An adult Mourning Dove, found in the aviary at the San Francisco Zoo. No one knows how long it had lived there.
• An adult mallard duck that had been mauled by a raccoon.
• A nest of baby bushtits, cut down by a curious child.
• An adult Alligator Lizard-covered with ticks. Ick!
• A single baby duckling that had just walked into a store in downtown Palo Alto.

• A severely dehydrated and emaciated gopher snake.
• Six baby mallard ducks, stuck in a storm drain with no mom in sight.
• Two juvenile opossums-one found in a laundry tub, the other in the sink of a restaurant.
• Nine fledgling pigeons rescued from the street under the overpass on Oregon Expressway in Palo Alto.
• A baby barn owl found in a bale of hay.
• A slightly concussed-and confused-7-week-old Eastern Gray Squirrel that had climbed up the pant leg of a very surprised Los Altos man.