Amber Kimmich opened a cardboard box in her Powhatan County yard yesterday and 16 eager little bodies fluttered out.
Kimmich and other volunteers had saved the birds, called cedar waxwings, from certain death.
In mid-February, the waxwings had gotten stuck in a gooey pigeon repellent applied to ledges on the General Assembly Building. More than 30 waxwings died at Capitol Square.
Kimmich and her helpers repeatedly washed the survivors to remove the goo that glued their feathers together.
Helper Julie Mitchell of Midlothian choked back tears yesterday after the 16 took wing.
"To see all that death and destruction, and then to see them go free — yeah, I'm a basket case."
Hands-on care is extremely stressful for wild animals. Of the 53 waxwings that Kimmich took in, 27 survived.
"For that woman to have saved 50 percent of those birds is miraculous," said Ed Clark, president of the Wildlife Center of Virginia, an animal hospital in Waynesboro.
It's remarkable that Kimmich saved any birds that were "that fragile, that highly stressed and that contaminated," Clark said.
Shortly after the Capitol Square incident, Kimmich released four birds that weren't badly gummed up. The 16 released yesterday had required intensive care.
It may be a few more months before Kimmich releases the remaining seven, which lost a lot of feathers.
Kimmich is a member of the Area Rehabbers Klub, a group that cares for injured and orphaned animals.
It has cost about $1,400 so far to feed and care for the waxwings. Donations have covered about half that. Kimmich said she has put in about $200, and ARK has covered the rest.
Cedar waxwings resemble brown, sparrow-size cardinals with black masks. "They are beautiful birds," Kimmich said.
"It breaks your heart to see them come in the way they did."
And to see her patients finally take wing? Kimmich said, "There's nothing better than that."
Rex Springston is a staff writer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
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