BACK TO HEALTH, FREEDOM.

Byline: Rebecca Taylor The Register-Guard

A baby Western gray squirrel grunts in hungry anticipation as Reta Anderson loads formula into a feeding syringe.

Two rescued swallows circle overhead, occasionally plucking food from between her fingers in midflight.

In a nearby cage, a young Western grebe nicknamed "Whiner" cries for more fish. A frantic chipmunk hangs upside down from the screen atop its terrarium. And a pair of newborn flying squirrels snuggle in a wad of fleece, their teddy-bear eyes peering warily at visitors.

It's summer at Willamette Wildlife Rehabilitation, which means Anderson's menagerie of small rescued birds and mammals is bursting at the seams.

About 45 animals are housed in the whitewashed barn that serves as the center's headquarters at Morse Ranch Park in south Eugene. They arrive as quickly as Anderson, the center's director, can treat, rehabilitate and release them.

The center is funded entirely by private donations and often struggles financially during this busy season, when baby birds, squirrels, chipmunks, even bats, abound.

Most often, the young ones fall from their nests, suffer attack from predators or are abandoned by their mothers.

People find them and call Anderson, who takes them in for treatment or finds someone else with the skills to help.

Anderson has been rehabilitating animals since 1988. During the years, she has learned a lot from vets and veterinary technicians, but she has also had formal training from the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council and other entities. She has volunteered for the state Department of Fish & Wildlife, documenting breeding heron, eagles and osprey.

Her aim is to nurse the animals to health then release them back into the environment.

Sometimes her patients are too far gone to save. Sometimes their injuries preclude their ever returning to nature, and they are euthanized. Most often they fly or trot or scamper back into the world after a brief stay in the old white barn.

The day of their return brings mixed emotions for Anderson. She grows close to her charges, who, though wild animals, have personalities that emerge under her care.

"I do worry about them," she says, as her golden retriever-shepherd mix, Houston, lopes goofily around the barn.

But there is pleasure in seeing a swallow return to its family and resume its life after weeks of nurturing, she says.

Back at the barn, the animals know it's lunchtime, and they buzz with excitement when Anderson enters the room. She knows each of their stories. As the gray squirrel greedily sucks down formula, gripping the syringe with its paws, Anderson says it fell from its nest and was found bloodied and wounded by a passer-by. Now 4 1/2 weeks old, it seems healthy and robust.

The circling swallows also had been abandoned.

Whiner, the grebe, was one of two hatchlings tossed against the rocks on the shore of Fern Ridge Lake. A nearby resident took them home, where they nestled up against a wooden duck decoy that projected a maternal air. One grebe died, but Whiner appeared to be thriving under Anderson's care.

The chipmunk was found in the Costco parking lot. It probably had hitched a ride into town on an RV, Anderson says.

And the tiny flying squirrels were saved from a cat attack that claimed the life of a sibling in west Eugene.

Now they live in the barn-turned-nursery, in donated crates and terrariums, tucked cozily in blankets until they are ready to return to the wild.

HOW TO HELP

Donations can be made to Willamette Wildlife Rehabilitation by calling 485-8440 or on the Web at www.willamette wildlife.org.

If you find an injured or abandoned animal that can be safely handled, place it in a cardboard box and keep it in a warm, quiet place. Then call the center for instructions.