PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — A summer morning in Clearwater Beach is always bustling, which is why Mickey Zucker knows she doesn’t have a lot of time.

What You Need To Know

  •  Mickey Zucker is a volunteer bird rescuer in Pinellas County

  •  Zucker, who volunteers at several organizations, has been asking for help building birdhouses to help birds struggling to thrive

  •  After three years of pleading, a man who is a member of a VFW in Dunedin decided to build her 12 new bird houses

“It’s like a Jenga puzzle,” Zucker said as she was grabbing different items out of her trunk. “Everything has its place.”

She’s grabbing gear out of her car because she’s a volunteer bird rescuer working for different groups dedicated to saving wildlife, like Seaside Seabird Sanctuary in Indian Shores.

She gets calls all around Pinellas County to help birds that may have been hurt, or are in dangerous circumstances and, on this call, she’s helping a baby bird that fell from its nest.

“The nest fell down,” Zucker said. “Nobody saw the nest fall, but they found the three babies on the ground. Two of them had passed.”

It happened at one of the slips at the Clearwater Beach Marina, so she wants to try and save the surviving baby and any other bird that might have been there.

Sure enough, she found the baby, but it was on the brink of going into the water and this baby can’t swim.

Luckily, she was able to save it from going underwater.

This baby is an example of the many birds that Zucker rescues on a daily basis.

She’s helping all over the area where each call presents unique challenges.

“I’m going to put him in the bucket,” Zucker said. “But I don’t know. This guy’s pretty vigorous. I don’t know if he’s going to stay in there. Let me do a quick exam on him and make sure he doesn’t have a fracture anywhere.”

She loves animals and wants to make sure she’s always doing the right thing for the little guys that need rescuing.

That’s why, for the last three years, she’s been asking people for help by seeing if anyone could build her some birdhouses.

“They need to be nested in an actual box,” Zucker said.

Birds that she regularly comes across, like owls and woodpeckers, need boxes to be able to grow.

It’s become a dream of hers to have enough birdhouses to help these struggling creatures.

So, even after spending a day saving different birds at Clearwater Beach, she’s at the VFW in Dunedin because a member there has decided that after three years of searching, he’d be the one to build those birdhouses for Zucker and the Seaside Sanctuary.

“Wow, look at these,” Zucker said when she saw the birdhouses for the first time. “Holy cow.”

She didn’t just get one birdhouse—the man built her 12.

“They’re going to make all the difference for the for the baby birds that are out of the nest and the parents that need to take care of them,” Zucker said.

It’s that kind of generosity that brings so much joy to Zucker.

“This is amazing,” she said. “Absolutely amazing.”

Because she knows the dozen birdhouses are going to help dozens of birds in Bay Area.

The Seaside Seabird Sanctuary has been around since 2016.

If Zucker isn’t able to find a suitable home in the wild when she visits a scene, she’ll often bring them back to the sanctuary’s headquarters in Indian Shores for them to rehab there.