It was prior to hatchling season when I visited Congress of the Birds, the state’s only wildlife rehabilitation center specializing in avian patients, but even in the relative respite of winter, the clinic was alive with fluttering wings and staccato chirps. Founder and executive director Sheida Soleimani asked if I minded things flying around my head before releasing Pluto, a blue jay and educational ambassador bird, to accompany a tour of the close quarters where she mends wild birds brought to her doorstep.
In one room are recovering raptors (owls and hawks) and a large black vulture, who flaunts her impressive wingspan. In the main area, soft-walled enclosures hold songbirds. A yellow-billed cuckoo would be spending its winter in the south if it hadn’t been for a window collision during migration this past fall that landed her in Soleimani’s care, where she requires a special, costly diet of horn worms until she can be released in the summer.
“Window strikes are one of the highest causes of death that we see,” she says, noting that they comprise over 30 percent of the birds she’s treated, followed by 20 percent hit by cars. Rodenticides, fishing line, and pellet guns also pose threats. “The biggest challenge is human infrastructure. Birds have adapted to live around people and cities, but we don’t make it easy for them.”
Soleimani, a federally licensed wildlife rehabilitator and a studio art professor at Brandeis University, had a specific wishlist in mind when she set out to buy a home in Providence in 2018: space for her creative practice and to build a clinic. The large Victorian in Elmwood checked those boxes. She and her partner and co-director, Jonathan Schroeder – who started a secret fundraiser to build the clinic as a birthday present – turned the basement tiki bar into a fully functioning, licensed bird rehabilitation center, complete with an incubator, stainless steel tables, and veterinary equipment.
Congress of the Birds is in the midst of a new project on a plot of secluded woods in Chepachet that Soleimani purchased with the help of a friend and fundraising via GoFundMe. “It’s going to give us the ability to really scale up,” she says of the long-term plan to construct a release center with custom-built enclosures for birds to gain needed flight conditioning and reacclimation to the outdoors before being released back into the wild. So far, they’ve completed one 24-foot enclosure, with plans to install additional structures of varying sizes.
The nonprofit also acquired the house neighboring the land, and they’re in the process of gutting it to create the state’s first bird hospital, slated to be up and running hopefully in time for baby birds to arrive this season. “The Elmwood center will remain headquarters and a 24/7 triage center,” Soleimani says. “If it’s 10pm at night and DEM calls me with an owl, I’ll intake it here and stabilize it,” before avian patients are transferred to the hospital.
Late-night calls aren’t uncommon for Soleimani, and holidays are no exception – she and a couple of volunteers rang in 2025 receiving an owl that had unfortunately been hit by a car. “Fifteen minutes before midnight we were all triaging this owl together.” She reflects, “I didn’t have this team a year ago.” There’s still a long journey of fundraising ahead to grow a permanent staff, but she currently has around 40-50 volunteers and one part-time employee. She founded Congress of the Birds to fill a gap she saw in Rhode Island, and as bird rehabbers retired, she went from seeing 50 to 500 to 1,000 birds a year, and upwards of 2,000 in 2024.
“Rehabilitating birds is very demanding,” she says. “It’s from sunrise to sunset, feeding every 15-30 minutes, or if you’re lucky every hour. It’s screaming baby birds, putting food in their mouths, and by the time you’re done feeding all of them, it’s time to start over again.”
While Pluto entertains herself plucking vials off the shelves and preening her feathers next to the heater, Soleimani is occasionally interrupted by text messages and calls – a suspected case of avian flu, an injured bird found. When asked how she handles the constant deluge of notifications, she says, “It is overwhelming. I don’t like being attached to my phone, but at the end of the day, it’s an important reason to be on the phone. It’s better than scrolling.”
Soleimani, who was known as the “bird girl” in college for nursing avian victims back to health in her apartment bathroom, has always been immersed in wildlife rehabilitation. When she whistles a few notes to Pluto, the sound is almost indiscernible from a wild bird call, and she offhandedly notes, “I learned how to imitate bird sounds before I learned how to speak English. I listened to the Bird Sounds of North America by David Attenborough on my tape player. I would practice and practice until I could do them.”
This calling to care is in Soleimani’s DNA. “My mom was a nurse back in her home country. It was the joy of her life to take care of people,” she says, explaining that her parents are political refugees from Iran. Severe PTSD from being a political prisoner prevented her mother from continuing to practice nursing in the US, but she found another way to make an impact. In Ohio, where Soleimani and her family lived, they would find animals hit by cars along the road. “My mom started bringing them into the house, and my father, who’s a doctor, brought home medical supplies. They would work together at our kitchen island to put these animals back together.”
Throughout her career as an artist, Soleimani never lost touch with these formative experiences, and finds overlaps in her two callings. For Roger Williams Park, she’s in the process of creating a fountain that will stand as a memorial to the birds that perished there while sustaining the living ones.
Most of her work centers around individuals harmed by governmental systems, and birds have organically found their way in. Her most recent project, Flyways, depicts migratory routes. “In these flights of travel, birds come up against problems – windows they’re running into, or a world that’s not made for them. I’m thinking a lot about stories of migrants, especially in Iran, who can’t leave the country because of brutal suppression, and linking those two stories of both human and nonhuman individuals that are harmed by infrastructure.”
Along with Pluto, four other ambassador birds are in Soleimani’s permanent care – two ravens and two crows – which all came to her from sad circumstances. Former pets, or otherwise habituated to humans, they wouldn’t survive in the wild. “I never wanted to have any birds. I don’t believe they belong in captivity,” she emphasizes, but the company she keeps with them nonetheless brings levity to the often heart-wrenching work.
Just as she imitates birdsong, the ravens mimic Soleimani, repeating Farsi words she speaks to them. “They sound just like me. They say ‘salām.’” Most people don’t know that ravens can mimic sounds, or they’ve never seen them up close, and the ambassador birds give visitors a more intimate glimpse into avian lives, and the challenges they face.
Art and education intersect in the programming she offers. “We do a lot of live figure drawing of the birds. Students come up with activism-based projects in relation to the birds,” she explains, and artists-in-residence have created useful and beautiful signage, including a poster depicting what to do if you find a baby bird.
Every year at the end of the summer, Congress of the Birds invites the community to see all the rehabilitated chimney swifts (her specialty species) released together, an occasion marked by education and a little fanfare, complete with a Champagne toast. “It’s a party but also an event that helps people carry a little bit of good news with them,” she says.
This is the intent behind the rehab center’s Instagram feed, too, which is filled with cute birds and videos showing their personalities, attached to educational captions. “Images that are traumatic are not going to get people to engage with them in a meaningful way,” says Soleimani.
On a particularly difficult day this winter dealing with several avian flu euthanasias, Soleimani snapped a photo of an owl, adorably swaddled to receive medication. She posted a series of #owlsintowels to celebrate the small gains. “This is not a line of work that is joy all the time. It’s 90 percent awful, 10 percent joy, but that 10 percent makes it worth it,” she says. “When I can release even one bird, it feels better than nothing at all.”
April brings a slew of hungry babies to Congress of the Birds, which means volunteers are more needed than ever. To sign up for a training session, email Congressofthebirds@gmail.com. Donations help support the nonprofit’s long-term goals, and can be made at CongressOfTheBirds.org, where anyone can also find instructions on what to do if you find a bird in need of aid. “If you find an animal that you think needs help, don’t just leave it there, and don’t take it into your own hands.” When in doubt, contact a wildlife rehabilitator – Congress of the Birds also triages other animals, not just birds. Follow @congress.of.the.birds for updates about avian flu, adorable owls in towels, and more.
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