"It's baby season," she said. "This is a real busy time of year for all rehabbers."

Lynch is founder and head of The Ark Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation, which she operates from her home on Sunset Drive.

The facility is an aviary, nursery and bird hospital all in one and handled approximately 1,200 song, sea and wading birds last year.

"Right now, we have a real need for volunteers who want to learn to rehab birds," Lynch said. "We also need couriers, people who will pick up injured birds."

She said this season is especially busy. On Saturday alone, she took in 13 animals: two possums, two Northern gannets, one wood stork and one common loon. The rest were songbirds.

The loon died that day, poisoned by some type of degreaser. The gannets were sent to a rehabber who specialized in sea birds.

Lynch cared for the songbirds herself and sent the possums to St. Johns Wildlife Care, a 15-acre facility on State Road 208 that has taken care of injured animals since 1988.

Karen Inman, president of St. Johns Wildlife, said her facility handles at least 1,000 birds of prey and injured or infant mammals, such as raccoons, possum and deer, every year.

"Most injuries to birds are caused by cats," Inman said. "Especially during baby season, cats are devastating. They catch and kill the parents, leaving chicks orphaned. And they also get fledgling birds on the ground."

She still likes cats, and has four herself, but says they "are the worst thing to wildlife there is, outside of habitat loss."

She also badly needs volunteers to help feed animal babies.

Inman uses a doll-sized baby bottle to feed a tiny possum she calls "Honey Bear," brought in two days ago.

"Its mother was hit by a car and killed in Ponte Vedra Beach, along with one of her babies," Inman said. "We rescued three babies."

Both The Ark and St. Johns Wildlife run on shoestring budgets, all from donations.

The Ark, only three years old, has a budget somewhere between $3,500 to $4,000 per year. The more established St. Johns Wildlife has an annual budget of $19,000.

However, Lynch and Inman both say that rehabbers find themselves spending their own money.

"There's never enough for food or medicine," Lynch said.

Inman was called early Wednesday morning by deputies when a pregnant deer was hit by a car on State Road A1A in front of Colony Reef.

She knew that sometimes an infant deer can be saved in these cases and rushed over.

But the baby was already dead.

"Man-made problems are doing this," Inman said. "They're being run out of the Fleeman Tract and have no place to go. "

Both Inman and Lynch said they were so busy feeding and caring for their tiny patients that they have no time to hold fund raisers.

Some baby birds require hourly feedings.

That's why they need help.

Anyone who wants to learn how to take a few young birds, squirrels or possums at their home can be taught to feed them.

"We just need people willing to do hands-on," Lynch said.

She said that was the way she got started -- a baby bird injured by a cat that a friend brought over.

"I started feeding it, and bang I was hooked," she said, laughing. "But I love it."

To become a permitted wild animal rehabber, someone needs 1,000 hours of experience under a licensed rehabber, or they may take a test.

Also, caging needs to be inspected by a state wildlife officer to ensure that it's adequate.

Lynch releases birds back into the wild when their wounds heal or when they grow old enough to find food.

She's giving special training to her 12-year-old daughter, Kailey, who feeds baby ducks with an eye-dropper and helps her with the other birds.

"The more people with permits, the better," Lynch said. "The most experienced people work with the animals most critically injured."

Inman said people often ask her why she saves animals like possums and raccoons, which eat turtle and bird eggs.