MITCHELL �" DaVinci will never glide over a cornfield or perch the top of a tree looking for his next meal. Hobbled by a deformed foot and wing, he has lived the last six years at Wild Care, a wildlife rehab center west of Bloomington.

Beverly Owen is one of his caretakers. The Mitchell resident and retired teacher is a volunteer along with her husband Ron at Wild Care.

Every week they visit the center to clean cages and feed the animals.

“It’s slow right now,” she said. “Spring and summer is the busy time. There will be lots of babies.”

With no baby squirrels or raccoons to bottlefeed, Owen has more time for DaVinci, a crow she has taught to count and recognize shapes and colors.

She shows him an assortment of tiles with dots from one to six on them. He pecks at the tiles and when he pecks correctly, he is rewarded with a mealworm. He’s not always a willing student, she said.

“He has an attitude,” said Owen with a laugh. “He does it (counts) if he wants to. He does talk. He says hello, goodbye and oi, oi, oi.”

Owen has been a Wild Care volunteer for six years. She has cared for lots of baby animals, and many birds.

“My first love is the raccoon. Up to the day they are released, they will climb all over you and love on you. Once they are weaned they want nothing more to do with you,” she said.

“The ones at the center, they don’t want to be petted anymore when they are older.”

Squirrels, she said, are not as personable as raccoons, but she still enjoys caring for them. The really young ones she and Ron keep at their home to bottle feed. When they get older they go to the center in Bloomington. They stay there until they are old enough to be released.

“I’m hoping to release the three squirrels we bottlefed on our property,” she said. “We wait to release them until spring when leaves are on the trees to give them some protection; we don’t want owls and hawks to pick them off.”

Most of the animals that are brought to Wild Care, a nonprofit group, will eventually be released. But those that have a disability, like DaVinci, will stay at Wild Care all their lives.

In 2008, Owen recorded more than 900 volunteer hours. She also volunteers with the Lawrence County Concert Association, her church and in the classroom of one of her former students who is now a teacher. But most of those hours are spent with animals.

“Last spring we got to feed a bald eagle. He was a juvenile, so he didn’t have the white head, but it was really awesome to get to do that,” she said. “I love to take care of the fawns. They are very fragile. We’re lucky if we’re able to save half of what comes in.”

Owen has been caring for animals all her life. She and Ron share their home with several cats and two rescued greyhounds that she takes to Mitchell Manor. The dogs are therapy dogs and visit the residents at the home. Once a week, she cleans cages and spends time with the cats at White River Humane Society. Up until a few years ago, she volunteered at the Indianapolis Zoo caring for king penguins, puffins and an octopus.

“It’s been awesome to learn about the different animals, their needs,” she said.

A lifelong animal lover, Owen said she has had wildlife encounters she never could have expected before volunteering at Wild Care.

“I see them as helpless animals dependent on us. We have impacted their environment to such an extent, they need our help in order to survive,” Owen said.

For all the hours she spends helping animals, she never tires of seeing how they can improve the lives of others.

“They never talk back at you, you can tell them your troubles and they love you no matter what,” she said. “When I take the dogs to the nursing homes, you see how the patients’ faces light up when they see dogs. You can have some pretty introverted people and they come out and love on the dogs. That’s kind of awesome to see that.”