The Carbon County Environmental Education Center is accepting toys — but not for children.

Instead, the toys — think Playskool-type items — will go to the birds.

“Our resident crow and our vultures like to play with these things the most,” said Susan Gallagher, the Summit Hill center’s chief naturalist. “They’re the birds that are injured and not releasable.”

Gallagher said the pint-size toys, items that are appropriate for infants and toddlers, are placed in the birds’ enclosures.

“We want to make their time in captivity as comfortable as possible for them,” Gallagher said.

She noted that just as children get bored, birds — especially intelligent species — can get bored, too.

And when they do — just like children — they’ll try to occupy themselves.

“We see them play with each other’s feathers. We see them play with wet sand,” Gallagher said.

And staff members who clean their enclosures have lost their keys — only to realize that a playful bird has picked them up, she said.

Gallagher encouraged anyone who is cleaning out their old toys to make way for new Christmas gifts to consider donating them.

“We can use them to make (the birds’) lives more interesting,” she said. “They deserve some holiday joy, too.”

In addition, Gallagher said the center is accepting donations of Christmas trees.

They, too, will go to the center’s feathered friends.

“Each of the bird coops gets its own tree,” she said. “Some hide in it, some perch in it, and some like to pick the branches apart.”

The center accepts trees year-round, she said.

Donors must clear the tree of all decorations — especially tinsel and ribbons.

Birds can ingest tinsel, or become tangled in it — both of which can be fatal, Gallagher said.

While Christmas trees can be donated, the center does not take brush, wreaths or yard waste.

Trees can be dropped off any day and any hour at the rear of the building at 151 E. White Bear Drive.