This Week at Liberty
December 2, 2025
Hoots, Howls, and Hollers
Megan Mosby
Executive Director
Celebrating the Volunteer Spirit
As the December page of the calendar surfaces, I am keenly aware of our upcoming weekend celebration, showing appreciation of the 350-400 volunteers who make Liberty Wildlife such a successful organization.
Humble Beginnings
There were just three or four enthusiastic people who assembled to help Dr. Orr carry out the mission to help native wildlife in the early years. She was the “go to” veterinarian in the area and anyone with a wildlife issue found their ways to her little rehab center off the back on the garage in Scottsdale.
When an incident with a great horned owl shot by a man admitting he never would have done it if he’d know how beautiful it was, we were catapulted into the area of educating the public about the beauty and benefits of native wildlife. More volunteers were needed to satisfy the demands for educational programming.
The list of willing and able volunteers grew adding hotline and rescue transport volunteers to the roster. Contact with the utility companies, eager to rectify issues with negative interactions with power equipment and raptors, instituted the Research and Conservation arm of the organization…and the list grew. Finally, for now, the creation of our Non-Eagle Feather Repository, issued a need for yet more volunteer help. I am not sure what is next, but there will undoubtedly be something…We can’t stand still.
Valuable Time
This past year, the Independent Sector from the Do Good Institute and the University of Maryland, estimated that the value of volunteer time per hour was $34.79 an hour. Modestly accounting for the time of all these volunteers at Liberty Wildlife, last year penciled out to about 93,877 hours. Those hours helped us arrive at the estimated value of volunteer time at Liberty Wildlife at about $3,265,980.80…WOW!
Simply put, we couldn’t be the “poetry of mission” without the mechanics of effort. There just isn’t any way to accomplish all that we do without the dedication of all the volunteers now and for the past forty-four years.
Let’s Celebrate
So, this Sunday, December 7, we celebrate the dedication, heart and soul, of all of the volunteers at Liberty Wildlife. We encourage family to join the volunteer to see what the dedication is all about…as if they haven’t heard all about it already. Feasting one’s eyes on the workings of the mission makes a big difference. Seeing fellow volunteers from each day of the week’s teams makes a big difference. The melding of groups, while not totally possible, is attempted at this celebration by bringing everyone together.
Picture a fine tapestry…a total work of art…that has been constructed over the years…at least 44 of them since Dr. Orr’s 1981 incorporation of Liberty Wildlife, and what you see is the critical need of every strand of fabric to complete the whole. You really can’t remove a single one without impacting the whole. Every strand of that work of art is an appreciated and dedicated volunteer. And, it is a gorgeous work in progress.
So, here’s to volunteers—past, present and future. You are the stitch in time, the spice in the mix, the plumbing in the machine, you are the soul of the mission. From the bottom of our hearts…WE THANK YOU AND WE APPRECIATE YOU!
“We have the choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place.” Jane Goodall.
This Week @ Liberty
The intake total for the year is now up to 9040.
I can’t believe we only have four more weeks of 2025! It’s been a whirlwind of a year, and as always around this time, I’m reflecting on the amazing trips I’ve taken, the memories I’ve made, and the goals I need to update (or overhaul, depends on how we’re looking at it) for 2026. And, there have been some not so great moments, too, but that’s being human (and alive, really). Overall, I think 2025 has been a pretty great year. Wishes for Wildlife had an amazing night here on-site, our mammals are making their homes in their new enclosures, and thousands of birds have made it through our doors and thousands have made it back out into the wild.
As we make our way into the last parts of this year, let’s all have a moment to ourselves to take in the awesome-ness that you are (volunteers, staff, the public, all of us!) and head into 2026 with lots of love and compassion.
By: Acacia Parker | Public Outreach Coordinator
American Kestrels: Tiny but Mighty
Ages ago, I remember going on a hike with my mom and her asking me about the birds (as one does). She was insatiably curious about a tiny falcon, aka the American kestrel, aka the tiny but mighty Chihuahua of the sky. She mentioned it sounded adorable (and they are indeed) and that she was sad she’d never seen one. I assured her she had, she just didn’t realize what she was looking at in the first place. I, of course, as a certified bird nerd, gave her a rundown of what to look for:
- As the smallest north American falcon, these birds weigh little less than six ounces (at their heaviest, and those are typically the females);
- They are typically solitary and are often found perched up high on street lights or street signs looking for their prey (small rodents, bugs of various degrees, as well as sparrows/other birds);
- They are one of the only raptors who can be identified by male/female based on the colors of their feathers; the females have a rufous brown on their wing, with vertical dark striping down their chests and multiple black horizontal lines down their tail feathers; males have a steel-grey blue on their wings, a spotted chest, and one black horizontal line on their tail (near the bottom);
- They are LOUD and you will often hear them before you see them. They make a very clear klee-klee-klee call that sounds much larger than they actually are;
- They can be hard to spot simply because they’re small. Whereas with doves and/or pigeons who have a larger body and smaller head (kind of like a cartoon!), American kestrels are more “streamlined” (aka less cartoon-ish);
- They’re fast! They can dive almost sixty miles an hour and are one of the only birds who can quite literally hover in place (I recommend finding a video of it, it’s pretty incredible).
There are a lot more fun facts about these adorable (but intense) little dudes, but hey, it’s the holiday season which means you’re busy (as are we). It didn’t take long on this same hike to spot a male kestrel hanging out on top of a saguaro and for my mom to realize hey! she has seen one of those birds! And she mentions all the time now when she and my dad see them on their two-and-a-half acre property in north Phoenix (along with a few great horned owls and some Harris’s hawks!)
The moral of this story, in retrospect, is simply to keep an eye out for all this amazing wildlife we have out here in Arizona. It’s in the air, at our feet, and all around…make sure to take a breath during this busy holiday season to spot some!
Notable Mentions
Thanks again for taking the time to read through the bi-weekly blog and hang out here at Liberty Wildlife with us. Our public hours continue on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 10am-1pm, and our intake window is open 8am-6pm seven days a week. (NOTE: Our public side is closed this Sunday, December 7th for our annual volunteer picnic!).
Without further ado, here are this week’s notable motions:
- Dr. Lamb and our hospital manager Jan reassess some animals (3 pictures);
- Another wedding on-site and this one, unfortunately, got rained on, but not before some animals got to come out and say hello (and we rearranged some tidbits to make it work)! (5 pictures);
- A red bat drops in before being transferred to AZ Bat rescue (yes this bat was as spicy as she looked) (3 pictures).
Thanks again for hanging everyone! Until next time!
More Posts from Liberty Wildlife
July 1, 2025
I am going to do something I don’t often do… anthropomorphize a great horned owl and a Harris hawk…
December 31, 2024
Well, it’s official. 2024 is coming to an end, and it appears we’ve pushed well in to the 10,000+ intake range (the super official number will be given in the next blog, since we’re still taking in animals for the remainder of the day).
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