Digital Extra

In Wickford yesterday, a team of biologists worked with Dr. Susan Littlefield, the state veterinarian, treating waterfowl oil-soaked from the spill. In a solution of Dawn dishwashing detergent and warm water, they washed loons, grebes, eiders, mergansers and scoters.

Into each bird's eyes Dr. Littlefield squirted a syringe of sterile solution followed by a squeeze of antiseptic ointment. Birds that looked dehydrated got more solution through a red-rubber tube down their gullets. Some birds also had to swallow a shot of Pepto-Bismol -- the kind humans use -- in case they swallowed any oil. The pink Pepto coats their stomachs and helps prevent diarrhea, said Lori Suprock, the biologist supervising a team of colleagues from the state Division of Fish and Wildlife.

Some of the birds brought to the state's Marine Base in Wickford died. Most of them, however, were washed in the mild detergent. A biologist would wash a bird, rinse it in clean water, then smell it. If the bird still smelled of oil, it got another bath.

Two biologists had to handle each loon, the large and powerful bird known for its haunting cry on upcountry lakes. In the lee of Washington County's beaches, a flock of loons spend part of the winter.

Biologists have no way to estimate how many birds were killed Friday night and early yesterday morning. A spot of oil as small as a 25-cent piece can suck away enough of the bird's body heat to kill it, said wildlife biologist Jim Myers. Some dead birds washed up on the beach, but currents carried others away.

Canada geese and such puddle ducks as mallards and blacks, generally stay away from the ocean in rough weather, so they weren't threatened, said biologist Charles Allin. Also, a lot of migratory waterfowl already have left the area.

Sea ducks are common to Rhode Island's waters now. In his annual winter flight over the state last week, Allin counted only 3,000 Canada geese but there were 21,000 scaup -- 20,000 of them in Narragansett Bay -- and 5,000 eider off Sakonnet Point and another 2,000 eider off Sachuest Point. "If the oil got to Sachuest," Allin said, "we'd be in real trouble." A flock of rare harlequin ducks also winters off Sachuest Point.

High winds and pounding seas churned some of the oil spill beneath the water's surface, according to fisheries biologist Tom Halavik of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who said it certainly would affect fish, mollusks and crustaceans in the shoals farther offshore.

The crashing surf Friday night churned up the sea and drove oil into the crustaceans' habitat. By morning, dead and dying lobsters littered the beaches.

Another fisheries biologist, however, said that the waters affected by the spill, do not hold as many fish, lobsters and crabs or plankton this time of year. That biologist, John Stolgitis, also is chief of the state fish and wildlife agency. In the area's salt ponds, he said, shellfish could be contaminated for a while if enough oil got to them, but there was no evidence that clams and oysters would be fouled. Winter flounder in the ponds have another month before they spawn, Stolgitis said, so the oil probably would not affect them.

"This looks like a M.A.S.H. unit," said Stolgitis as he walked through the Wickford Marine Base yesterday.

Dressed in white coveralls, a team of biologists were hunched over a makeshift table, washing ducks. Three carpenters from the Division of Wildlife were building a pen where treated waterfowl would recuperate. Biologist Suprock was talking to a man about calling bait shops and shellfish dealers to get the natural foods the birds would need to recover. On a sheet of plywood straddled over two barrels, Harry Delahunt was dishing out chowder for everyone. The owner of Harborside Grill in Wickford, Delahunt is active in Ducks Unlimited, the wetlands-conservation group; when he heard about the duck hospital on Wickford Cove, he cooked five gallons of chowder to feed the staff.

In the receiving room, biologist Brain Tefft was lifting an oil-soaked grebe out of a cardboard box. He looked into the bird's ruby eyes. "You couldn't paint a picture prettier," he said.

Dr. Littlefield was examining the grebe's wings. "You're going to make it," she said. "You're going to make it."

In the back room, a loon cried.

And in a pet crate, a freshly washed male eider glowed orange in the light of a heat lamp clamped to the door.

The bird began to preen, to heal.