Dedication, posers, sweet new faces, and finally a bird walk

Training on the barn owl continues. He is officially on the RAPTOR permit as an education bird, so continued training on the glove and into and out of a carrier. We have made jokes about it, but a "padded" carrier would benefit him. The LAST thing we want is to open that wound again.

Volunteers are the life-blood of non-profit organizations. People are here to help. And help they do. They donate their time, their energy, their love.
Dan is a long-time volunteer at RAPTOR. He's been there forever. I walked over to Earl's cage and peeked in. Dan was wearing a face mask.
"What in the Hell is that on your face, Dan? Is Earl extra stinky today or something?"
Turns out that Dan is allergic to something at RAPTOR.
And yet, there he was.

Posed for me and everything.

A new volunteer is learning to handle the birds.

This is Bob....with my Lucy. And he did very well, and she responded to him very well. Good. Maybe I will get help with programs soon. Don't get me wrong, I love doing programs. But the hard work before and after them (jessing up the birds, loading the birds into their carriers, loading the carriers into the car, unloading the carriers at the program, and then reversing the whole process afterwards)...well, it's tiring. The gravy is the actual program.
Speaking of programs: If you are in the Bethel, Ohio area tomorrow, come and see me at the Bethel Founder's Day festival at Burke Park. I'm going to be on the "Pioneer Stage" at 2 pm.

We haven't had the baby ratlettes on a post in a whole day, so here's four of them in a row:

Oh, they are so perfect against that pink blanket.

And look out. Baby rat ears, eyes and lips:



And let's not forget those perfect, claw-tipped feets.

After sending a pitiful email to Kathi, she magnanimously agreed to go birding with me today, so we hit the CNC.
Why dead things are attracted to me, I'll never know. Crossing the road to get to the meadow, we found a piece of dead stuff.
We thought it was a snake and I of course picked it up.
But then I saw hair:

A possum tail, no longer attached to the possum.



And it went downhill from there.

Only at Magee Marsh can I see birds with Kathi. Everywhere else, it's a crap shoot.

*Okay, I am totally kidding here, so please don't think I hate the woman or that we really don't see birds. It's just become our thing to taunt each other about who jinxes us on bird walks. Since I post more than she does, I get to point the finger at her.*

And speaking of pointing fingers, here's Kathi, pointing at nothing:

At least she is a good sport about being a total poser.
The last bird we got for the day was a Great Crested Flycatcher. And I found it. SEE?
Told you it wasn't me.


A video of us not seeing birds: