The Democratic caucus has a new addition to its office and her name is Stella.
Sitting in a cage, near the window in Majority Leader Chris Donovan’s office, she chirps away as his executive assistant and legislative aide explain how they saved the Starling and nursed her back to health.
Donovan’s executive assistant, Millie Torres-Ferguson, said Stella and three of her siblings were cleaned out of a vent at her house. She said Stella fell two stories and survived for three hours before she discovered her and called Megan Perry, Donovan’s legislative aide, for help. The rest of Stella’s siblings didn’t make it.
Perry, who has a background in biology, decided she would try to raise the baby bird and nurse it back to health. Perry said she used an eyedropper to feed Stella for the first week. She said around day five she wasn’t sure Stella was going to make it, but three weeks later, Stella is almost ready to be released.
Meanwhile, Stella’s become the talk of the office.
Torres-Ferguson said they usually remove Stella from Donovan’s office when he’s in, but even he has grown accustomed to her soothing voice and marveled at how quickly she has grown.
Perry said she was feeding her every 15-minutes for the first few weeks. Now, about every hour, she eats a mixture of dog food, boiled eggs, and apple sauce from the end of a coffee straw.
“She lets you know when she’s hungry,” Torres-Ferguson said, referring to the chirping.
Still, her wings aren’t big enough to fly away. Perry said they’ve been taking Stella outside and she’s able to find ants to eat, but she’s thus far been flightless.
Torres-Ferguson said all the legislators that saw Stella during her first week in the office have continued to check in on her progress. By next week, she said, Stella may be ready to be released.