Goin' back a ways...

I have nada to post about, but still feel the need.
I was looking at photos from two years ago, and found some oldies but goodies.


Junior:


If you are relatively new to the blog, here's Junior's story.
About this time two years ago, he was sitting in a nice warm mew with free meals, awaiting his transfer to a nature center in Illinois.

That little head tilt just makes me melt. I was hiding behind the door as I took photos, in case he wanted to mate with my head again.



About two years ago, I went to my first OOS Owl Symposium:
(One of my Sunday Sketches...I so need to start doing those again. They made me giggle.)


And....sigh.
Boomer.

Off to his foster home, and onward to a forever home with another Boston, two kids and no cats.

The first foster home was completely useless, but the second time was the charm. Have you ever heard of a dog rescue returning your dog to you three months later???
I still miss him. The girls still talk about him. And Geoff says that Boomer was his favorite (we won't tell Nellie and Hooper).

I don't want to leave anyone depressed so how about an ending about food?

As most of you are aware, birds of prey eat meat. Bird of prey rehab centers need to supply that meat to their birds. A LOT of meat.

This was two years ago...during the quarterly "Rodent Run" (a fun video at that link...you have to have a warped sense of humor to deal with all this stuff), we were pleased (and a little horrified) at the size of some of the rats.
Some of them were approaching 2 pounds. They wouldn't fit in the bags.
So Marc had a good idea.....
Cut off the tails so the rats will fit.



(The birds don't eat the tails anyway....)
: - )

Bleh.

I just don't even feel like blogging. I must have post-Holiday letdown or something.
Bleh.

Saturday found me at RAPTOR for a little owl parade. One of the curators? skinners?...well, I'm not sure of his exact title, but anyway....this guy from the Cincinnati Natural History and Science Museum, who collects all the bird bodies from our freezers came by to pick up what we had. A visiting family member of his is really into owls, so I perched a few out and gave a quickie talk about each one.

The nice man also said that any time I want to come and see the Museum's "collection"
(i.e. drawers and drawers of prepared bird specimens, like 41, 000 of them) to just give him a call and he could let me loose back there. I don't have the words to describe how cool that would be. They have ivory-billed woodpeckers, Carolina parakeets, Passenger pigeons and an Eskimo curlew. I think I might have just wet myself a little.
: )

A few photos of yummy birds:

(Sylvester)
It's photos like this one that make me yearn to know what our birds are thinking.

"I only put up with you because you feed me."
"I can crush your hand without batting an eye feather. Feeling lucky?"
"Yaaaawwwwwn...."


This could/should be a screensaver:

(Priscilla)


And how sisal perches work:

If you click on the photo and blow it up, you can see how those little fibers can gently and slowly wear away a bird's talons.
That's Sylvester's foot, btw.


A Sunday Sketch:

It's a harpy eagle.

Okay, stop laughing. I only had a green crayon and a blue one! And they were broken and blunt.
Everyone's a critic.

Tomorrow begins my Marathon Program Week, with three days of programs, seven programs a day. I like to talk...well, a lot...but 21 hours of talking is a challenge even for me.
Ugh.

A post about raising young ones and having them disappoint you

You know, when you have young ones, you hope the best for them.
You hope they have a wonderful magical childhood, you hope they meet nice kids just like them.
Who they hang out with can dictate whether they are good kids, or they pick up bad habits and become punks.
Well, the latter has happened to us.


.....



The juvenile cardinal is hanging out with house sparrows.

I know! Isn't that disappointing?
I tried. Really I did.


Yesterday, we had to inform Lorelei that her beloved Betta, Twinkle, had died.
We had a quick "burial at sea", and then I asked her if she wanted to get another one.
She wanted a goldfish.
We went to the pet store and as we were watching the goldfish, I pointed out one who looked as if it was wearing lipstick. Lorelei wanted that one.
Meet Lipstick the Goldfish:

I had a program today, and while Geoff was watching the girls, Isabelle was especially helpful and well-behaved, so we decided that she could pick out something at the pet store, too.
She wanted a snail, to keep her Betta, Cuter, company.
Meet Lolly the Snail:

(Lolly is the name of a snail in a book we have been reading, "Let's Spot Dot", a story about a turtle named Dash who loses his friend Dot, who is a ladybug. Cute book. Available at Starbucks)
Coming home from RAPTOR, I passed this sign and couldn't resist getting a picture of it.
I think they might mean yard "sale".

Ahh...dumb people make the rest of us feel better about ourselves, don't they?

The pipevine caterpillars are still going strong...originally there were 12, but I have only been able to find 8 now.
Here are the smallest of the bunch:

...and the largest of the bunch, off on his own leaf:

When the cocoons begin, we are going to bring ONE inside and place it in our butterfly habitat so we can watch the transformation.
Anyone remember our butterfly disaster from last year?

While bending down to get pictures of the cats, I noticed a spider hanging under the fence right by my face...

It's either one spider molting out of his old exoskeleton, or one spider eating another spider. I didn't get close enough to find out which.

I haven't done a "Sunday Sketch" in a long time, but I have been doodling...


Tomorrow is the BOOK RELEASE DAY!
We will be seeing the inside of many bookstores...
I'm so proud of Geoff, I could burst into a million shiny pieces.

It's so random, it's scary. (And Happy June First!)

While going through some of my Flickr photos, I noticed a few pics I hadn't posted.
Back to my bird trip at the beginning of the month:
This is Mona Rutger, a wildlife rehabber who has helped countless animals, along with her husband Bill, in Castilia, Ohio for the past 15 years. And she was also name Animal Planet's Hero of the year for 2006.
I waited for a quiet moment, then stepped up to introduce myself. What a nice woman. Unbelievably knowledgeable, passionate. Nobody does it like Mona.

This is Baby, a four-year-old bald eagle in training for education programs at "Back to the Wild". Blinded in one eye after being hit by a train, she is doing quite well. A very well-behaved bird, considering she just started training. And watching little Mona (who is all of 5 feet tall) handle this huge eagle....it made me want to go lift weights and quit whining about how heavy our red-tails are.

Back to the Wild not only rehabs raptors, but other critters, too.
This is a flying squirrel who is a permanent resident there.
Did you know that, at least in Ohio, flying squirrels outnumber red and gray squirrels combined?
I would wet myself happily if I ever got to see one in the wild.

This belongs in BOTB's "Big Giant Things" file.
This giant waiter stands beside a BP station on the Marblehead peninsula. Whatever he used to be carrying is lost to the annals of time.

And to the present:
A cedar waxwing:

And he was LOOKING at me!
Are they not just about the most regal bird ever?
And so polite. They SHARE food with each other. Such nice manners.

Blog update for Kathi:
It's actually working ( I see that some of you have already discovered it)
Go to KatDoc's World and show her some of that Blogging support!

The weekend cometh...and I am so ready to bird-party.
"Throw your hands in the air...like you just don't care..."

Update on my womanly woes...
The medication prescribed has finally worked. As in, my cycle has been kick-started again.
And boy, is it PISSED.


Yep. I'm proud of that one.
Admit it. You have missed my sketches.

In closing, a little song from Kermit:



"Have you been half asleep
and have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailors?
The voice might be one and the same.
I've heard it too many times to ignore it.
It's something that I'm supposed to be.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
the lovers, the dreamers and me.
La, la la, La, la la la, La Laa, la la, La, La la laaaaaaa"

Sunday at the old homestead

I love Indiana. I may live in Ohio now, but my roots stretch all the way across the state line.

Mom's weeping cherry tree is taller than her house now.

I love my Macro function. Anyone tired of close-up flower pictures?
Too bad.

Isabelle is the Bubble Queen. It can keep her occupied for an hour straight. That's a good thing.

And Lorelei is the Queen of Photo Ops.


I had to tackle and hold down Miss Thing to get a picture of her laying on the grass.

Look! It's Earl's Uncle Ralph!

Mom's pond is teeming with critters. Water striders, diving beetles, crayfish, bullfrog tadpoles and two different types of snails. It's a great place to go "pond scooping".

Sorry. This is a really bad shot of a crayfish.

When I first saw these guys, I thought I was looking at a fish (though there haven't been fish in this pond for about 30 years) because they were the largest animals in the pond. Then I thought they might be really really big tadpoles. But I saw two different kinds...orange/brown ones, and green/brown ones like this. Salamanders??? Newts???

I don't know from salamanders. Who knows what kind of salamanders or newts would be living in a pond in southeastern Indiana?

Another type of snail. Some had the pointy type of shell, and others had the classic swirl shell.


And what trip to Indiana would be complete without some four-wheelin'?
My sister-in-law is storing this four wheeler for her Dad until he can find a place for it, so I took the girls for a high speed spin around the pasture and through the back field. I thought they might be scared, but since they are MY girls, they loved it to no end and begged me to go faster! I look sort of demonic in this picture. Sorry. I was trying to look happy.
I will catch seven kinds of Hell from my mother-in-law for this picture.

And a continuation of Sunday Sketches...I need a new pen:

What time is it?

I've heard that it takes your body seven days to adjust to the "Spring Ahead" time change. I have no idea what time it is.
Today was Swametti's birthday (Swamette's Mom). She is 82!
We had a thoroughly obscene brunch at Golden Corral (she isn't picky about where we eat) and went over for a visit at the Yurt.

This is Titus, one of Kevin and Rachel's dogs. He is part beagle, part whatever.
Say cheese, Titus!



Kevin, Younger-Son-of-Swami and Swamette.

"Good boy, Titus."

Happy, happy dog. He runs along when Kevin jogs, and he can keep it up as long as Kevin can...miles and miles.

My macro strikes again...this time, with Swami's crocuses. (Shouldn't that be croci?)

***

Finally! The red-tailed hawks at the 275 nest are doing something. I was driving by this evening and spotted one of them perched on the edge of the nest...and then, while I turned around:

...I saw a tail sticking out. So the female is starting to lay all of those wonderful eggs!
***
Later, as the sun was going down (an hour later than yesterday!), we noticed a red-tailed hawk circling our yard, and then s/he dove for the trees behind the house, landing on a nest!

We were so lucky to be outside when the hawk came by, because we would never have known a nest was back there! Whoot!
*Of course, by the time the nestlings are big enough to peek over the nest, the leaves will be on the trees and we won't be able to see them.

I love me some Queenie...

She is not amused. Not one bit.
(You can't blame her, really. I had the camera practically up her nose.)

Sunday Sketches: