August sucks so bad, it can suck a softball through 25 feet of garden hose

It was around 100 degrees today. Or 96. Or whatever. When the temp gets in the nineties, it all becomes academic anyhow. But I did make it rain. How? I washed the car. Murphy's Law.

While I did my RAPTOR thing last night, Swami was taking photos:

Elvis. The Evil One.

Poor Rufous.
You know, it's not that his feathers are coming in too slow...you can see pin feathers all around his eyes and head. It's that he is dropped the old ones too fast. But the public loves him anyway. They can't believe this is Ohio's most common owl. When I do outside programs, and there are trees nearby, I walk over and put up next to the bark (the gray SO is even better with this) and tell people to imagine him about 20 feet up in the tree, sitting perfectly still. That's why you don't see screech owls. Or any owl, very often.
Now, to educator mode:
Eastern Screech Owl (Megascops asio, formerly Otus asio)
Eastern screech owls have a pretty rapid flight pattern, about 5 beats per second. They are an "edge" bird, hunting along open fields and wetlands, using what I call the "Perch and Pounce" method. They will swallow small prey (like deer mice) whole, but take larger prey to a perch to rip it to pieces. Some song-and-woodland birds that SO's eat are Northern Bobwhite,
Rock Dove, and Ruffed Grouse. (!)
Other prey include: small fish, small snakes, lizards, and soft-shelled turtles, small frogs, toads, and salamanders, and invertebrates such as crayfish, snails, spiders, earthworms, scorpions, and centipedes.

Breeding season for Eastern Screech Owls is generally around mid April, but may range from mid March to mid May. They have an elaborate courtship ritual: Males approach females, calling from different branches until they are close. The male then bobs and swivels his head, bobs his entire body, and even slowly winks one eye at the female. If she ignores him, bobbing and swiveling motions intensify. If she accepts him, she moves close and they touch bills and preen each other. Pairs mate for life but will accept a new mate if the previous mate disappears. Gray and red color phases will mate together. They nest almost exclusively in natural tree cavities, but can be enticed to use large nest boxes.
They aren't quite the top of the food chain... they can be preyed upon by great horned owls, barred owls, long-eared owls, great gray owls, short-eared owls, snowy owls, mink, weasels, raccoons, skunks, snakes, crows, and blue jays.

Okay, onto other stuff:

One of the lovely event coordinators brought over a fan for the birds, so I kept spritzing Lucy and she would spread her wings and revel in the breeze.
(That fan was farther away than it looks, by the way)

And a pic from Sunday lunch:

Swami takes a picture of me taking a picture of a ground hog.
Fascinating stuff.

The Will-Yum of the day:
Isabelle said to me today, "Oh, Mommy...you are the best Mommy we have ever had."
***
Please, in the name of all that is good and holy, make it cooler so I can go birding and not fall over when my bones dissolve into a large puddle of goo.

August still sucks out loud, but I survived.

I may very well have lost 10 pounds today.

First program, great. The woman who scheduled it with me and assisted me with carrying the birds in, etc, hugged me no less than four times and told me that she had a great feeling about me and what RAPTOR does. And she scheduled another program for November.

I had about an hour of down time in between programs, so I came home, cooled off the birds and lay on the couch, trying to soak up as much cold air as I could.

The four hour program was very cool. A "Cop's Night Out", with helicopter demonstrations, K-9 demonstrations, dog adoptions, Marines, fire fighters, a hot dog eating contest, music, face painting, Outreach for Animals (snakes, alligators) and of course, me and my birds. Even though it was hot enough to boil my eyeballs, it was FUN.

My in-laws (Swami and Swamette) and Rachel, my sorta-sister-in-law, her friends, her Mom...all came to see the show, which was very nice of them. And Swami brought me ice and pop.
Go and check out the link above for Outreach for Animals. Tim Harrison, the guy in charge of this awesome organization, is a good friend of RAPTOR, Inc, and is mucho passionate about his mission. From their website:
Since 1995 when "reality" TV began airing wildlife programs showing the hosts casually handling dangerous animals and mistreating them, playing with them as if they were toys, children have died and been injured at an alarming rate. These children act out the part of these television actors and are bit by venomous snakes and lose limbs after jumping on alligators. Parents are encouraging this by bringing large predators into their urban and suburban homes. These situations are very bad for the people and equally bad for the animals.

Our non-profit organization is taking the lead in an effort to save the children and prevent cruelty to animals by the misinformed public. Our educational programs provide information about wildlife and how the wildlife deserves to be left in the wild.

Very cool organization.

So, I made it. But I really don't want to ever go outside again.

August sucks out loud

I told myself that I wouldn't bitch and moan about how hot it is. We are all feeling it, unless you are lucky enough to be Dave or Trixie in Alaska, or Lynne in Minnesooooooota, or Ruth in Ontario. The rest of us are probably moist-browed right now, and may not smell very good.
Here in lovely southwest Ohio, it may get to 100 tomorrow. On any other day, I would just yank the curtains closed against the brutal sun and spend the day with the girls making homemade ice cream. But I have two different programs so I will have to venture forth into the ickiness. The first one is indoors, thankfully. But the second one is outside. For 4 hours.

If you live in the area:
Cops Night Out
Sunset Park, Middletown Ohio
5 pm-9 pm

Please stop by and meet our birds. And bring me ice water. Or maybe a few Popsicles.

I took the girls for a sleepover at Mom's, and she was proud to show me her new baby wrens, freshly hatched in the previously ill-fated bluebird box:

Four wrenlets, and one unhatched egg...see it under the baby on the left?

I may not have had a bumper crop of baby birds this year, but the monarchs are happy with our milkweed. My dream for the future includes many nature-related things:
A "green" house...recycled materials, energy efficient, etc.
Lots of mature trees
Enough space to take nature walks on our own property (a la Zick)
And...a huge field of milkweed and any other host plant I can find.
***
But for now....it's sloppy hot. And I come from icy German stock and I'm not a happy camper about this damn weather. Anyone remember the scene in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood when they sneak out the car and take a drive with their tops off? I wanna do that right now.

Did you know if you leave a bag of Combos in a car in August, the cheese melts out and all you have left is a pretzel tube?

I took so many good pictures today, I don't know where to begin.
Let's start at the end and work our way back, shall we? After dinner, I headed out to the milkweed to see if any more monarch offspring were to be found. And boy, were they.
I found 11 more eggs.

Some of the leaves had more than one. It was like Christmas morning.

Everyone seems to be at a different stage of development. The one on the right hatched maybe 3 or 4 days ago. The one on the left just hatched maybe yesterday.

This one is next to hatch. See the little dark spot? That's the caterpillar's eyes!
I am enjoying this monarch ranching so much. Isabelle and to a lesser extent, Lorelei, are having fun, but I am the one who is dancing around the kitchen. But hey. If Jess needs a life, I certainly do, too. I got a very nice gift from Isabelle (via Swami) today: The Audubon Society Guide to Butterflies. And it is like having a window into the world. It makes it so much easier to look up a B-fly in a book rather than search the Net.

Look at the wee monarch baby face! Or, it could be its ass.

Speaking of ass....

I was behind this car today. I have to wonder if some letters fell off, or a very creative prankster stuck it on without the owner knowing. I like to think it is the latter.


Powder is an opportunist. When Isabelle finished her lasagna, Powder jumped up and waited to be served.

"Hey, Mom. Smell my lasagna breath."


It was about 96 degrees today. And though my car is fixed finally, we weren't able to have our mechanic fix the A/C. So it was hot. Damn hot.
Cindy, our Bird Care director at RAPTOR, gave me a mist bottle for the program birds while we are out in the heat. After my program, as I dropped off the birds, they were panting a bit (birds don't sweat, so they pant like dogs when they are hot). I tried out the mister on the owls:

Elvis, or Barred Owl, who never approves of anything, approved of this. This bird hates everything, but when I started misting him, his eyes closed and I almost heard him sigh. He actually LOVED it. I'll be dipped. (If you look close, you can see the water droplets...he looks frosty)
Our red screech owl loved it too.

Warning: The following picture may just make you spit out any drink you might be sipping. Swallow first.

Done? Okay:

Rufous is in a molt right now, and for some reason, the program screech owls molt all weird and during the late summer, look like a cross between Dobby and a plucked chicken. Add water to this equation, and you get this:

How a single bird changed my day

I was grouchy today. I had nowhere to go, and the girls were in Hyper-Crazy-Annoying Mode.
I putzed around the house, did some laundry, until I couldn't stand it anymore. I got shoes for everyone and got in the car. I needed to see a bird. A different bird than what was out at the feeders. I pointed the car towards Blanchester, and headed down Rt. 28, a long, straight and flat stretch of road. I was hoping for a glimpse of a hawk, and I have seen them along 28 before.

As if Fate had lined it all up for me, I saw one.
A red-tailed hawk, perched on a phone line.
I pulled a Mary...er...I mean, a U-Turn, and stopped right under where it was sitting.

Since hawks can see everything that is going on, I expected to maybe get one good shot before it flew away. But I got many shots. Many.
Look at that gorgeous face. Proud, fierce, haunting.

"Yes? Can I help you?"


I couldn't believe it just sat there as I fired the shutter over and over. I got lost in the subtle rusty streaks and the not-so-subtle deep brown belly band. Brown birds? Please. Ever wonder if they are as soft as they look? Well, yes and no. The flight feathers are stiff, as they need to be, but the contour feathers of the body are silky. And those gray eyes.
This is an adult bird, though not too old, I think. Old enough to have a full red tail (they get this in their second to third year) but young enough to still have relatively light eyes. It's not a precise science, but typically, their eyes darken as they age.

******
Why do I get so ga-ga about red-tails? They make me think of my Dad. He showed me my first red-tail...I remember standing on the sidewalk in front of their house, and Dad pointed up at a large bird circling above. He said, "See the red shining through? That's why they are called red-tailed hawks." I was blown away; not just because this beautiful bird was soaring right above us, but because my DAD knew what the heck it was!
*****

So, I thought I was pretty lucky to get some shots of this hawk just sitting on the light pole. And then it took off, flew over the car, and landed in a culvert on the other side of the car.
And it had dinner...

"Gotcha!"

A nice fresh meadow vole? Or one honkingly big mouse?
Whatever it was, I got to watch it being eaten. Lorelei was asleep, but I showed the picture to Isabelle, and she said, and I quote: "Oooh....that's a nice, big, fat, juicy mouse! Good hawk!"
That's my offspring for you...cares that the bird gets to eat.

After eating, it hop-flew up to a sign and I got a nice long look at the red on the tail and those seriously awesome talons. So what if they are the most numerous and widespread hawk on the continent? So what if you can see one on just about any highway?
They're just GD fantastic.
And this pose is pretty close to the one on my own personal Zickefoose.
Needless to say, my mood was much improved by this encounter.

In honor of my post yesterday, here's a picture of our famous Goetta:

The package on the left is Glier's...the largest producer of Goetta. Anywhere. If you are nice to me, I will send you some for Christmas.

How to survive in Cincinnati

The girls and I were all over Cincinnati today, and it made me think of all the stuff that makes Cincinnati unique, fun or just weird. I thought about the times I have traveled in different cities, not knowing the layout, or the best restaurants, etc. Trixie will be passing through Cincy this month, so I get to meet another bloggeress! And we will be hitting us some chili parlors, oh yeah.
So here's Susan Gets Native Guide to Cincinnati:

• The circle freeway in Cincinnati is I-275. I think of it as a clock...Tri-County Mall is at 12, Northern Kentucky is at 6, and so on. and I-275 goes through three states: Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana.
• The two main "artery" expressways are I-75 and I-71. I-75 travels along the west side of town and I-71 goes along the east. They also merge to become I-75/I-71 in Northern Kentucky.
  
• The two big sports teams are the Reds (Baseball) and the Bengals (football).
  

And some years, they don't suck.

• Food that Cincinnati is famous for: First and foremost, SKYLINE Chili. It's not a Tex-Mex chili...it is a Greek recipe developed by an immigrant who will now go down in history as the Father of Cincinnati Chili. Two of the best ways to have Skyline...with spaghetti and topped with cheese, or a coney: Hot dog, steamed bun, chili and cheese. Another Cincy favorite is Montgomery Inn ribs. And Graeter's Ice Cream. If you come here, I will personally take you out to get all three.
• Cincinnati was founded mostly by German immigrants, and you can tell by some of the traditional foods: One is Goetta. (That's pronounced ged-da) It's basically oatmeal sausage. Don't knock it until you try it. Some smart-ass called it "Cincinnati Caviar".
• Our airport isn't in Cincinnati. It's in Kentucky. I know, I don't understand it either.
• With the northern growth of the metropolitan area, it is theorized that someday Cincinnati and Dayton will be merged. (Like Dallas/Fort Worth)
• You can guess someone's age by what they call State Route 126. If you are over 30, you call it "Cross County Highway". If you are younger, you call it "Ronald Reagan".
• Old timers here don't pronounce Cincinnati the way the rest of us do. I remember my grandmother, who was born in 1900, calling it "Cincinnatah".
• We hold the second largest Oktoberfest in the world. "Eins, zwei, drei....G'SUFFA!" Come enjoy Gemutlichkeit in your Lederhosen!
  
• If you need a hospital while you are here, most of them are near the University of Cincinnati. All of them are sitting on top of what we call "Pill Hill". University (General), Good Samaritan (or Good Sam, as we call it), Deaconess, Christ...all in the same area.
• Unfortunately, the majority of Cincinnatians are Conservatives. But there are small pockets of good ol' pinko liberals....like in Clifton, an area near University of Cincinnati. That's where you go to see (or be) the freaks. Independent films, hemp clothing, forward thinking people...you can get it all in Clifton.

• Famous people who were born in, or lived at one time in Cincinnati:

Benjamin Harrison- 23rd president
William Howard Taft-27th president
Albert Sabin-creator of oral Polio vaccine
Tony Snow-current White House Press Secretary (Yuck)
George Clooney (Oh, yeahhhhhhhh)
Rosemary Clooney
Doris Day
Ted Turner
Carmen Electra
Annie Oakley
Sara Jessica Parker
Tyrone Power
Roy Rogers
Stephen Spielberg
Jerry Springer (he was a news anchor, mayor, and that guy who got caught when he paid a hooker with a check)
Andy Williams
98 Degrees (Boy band from the 90's...lead singer was Nick Lachey, that guy who married Jessica Simpson)
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Pete Rose
Charles Guggenheim
*from areas surrounding Cincinnati or just from Ohio, because I like making lists:
Neil Armstrong
John Glenn
Erma Bombeck
Dorothy Dandridge
Clark Gable
Thomas Edison
Dean Martin
Paul Newman
Halle Berry
Drew Carry
Arsenio Hall
Gloria Steinem (Burn those bras, ladies!)
Tecumseh
Warren Harding-29th president
Rutherford Hayes-19th president
George Custer
Ulysses S. Grant-18th president
James A. Garfield-20th president
William McKinley-25th president
*Notice all the presidents from Ohio? Ohio is called the "Mother of Presidents". Eight were from here.

Now, no post of mine would be complete without a bit of humor.
Check out this ad from back in the day:

Are YOU everyone's PAL?

When you're stuck on what to post about, just walk outside

News: Sharon and Lynne are okay. Thank goodness.
*******
I was wondering what to post about tonight, and thought about just skipping it.
But I wanted to walk the yard, so I grabbed my camera:

The prairie is giving us lots and lots of flowers to cut and bring in the house. I just wish Nellie would stop walking through the grasses. Her big ass feet are smooshing all of it down!

Shannon had told me about the "Hooper Gritties", but I hadn't seen them until today. When Nellie does it, we call it the "Hyena Run", when she tucks her tail under and runs around like, well, a hyena. (Kind of like bunny binkies, just bigger)
Shannon also told me that Hooper gets the Gritties for about 30 seconds and that's it. And she was right. Nellie and Hooper act like they grew up together. It's wonderful to watch and I am so glad we brought him here. He's a joy to have around.

I am also glad that I let a bunch of sunflowers seeds grow into nice, tall plants. The goldfinches and house finches are eating me out of house and home with the thistle, so all the sunflower seeds to be had makes it easier for me to feed them. They have gone through a 5 lb. bag of Nyjer seed in a week.

I'm also glad that I checked the milkweed. I have seen monarchs flying through the yard in the
past few days, and I was hoping they would find the milkweed. And they did:

This was thrilling enough, but I looked under some more leaves...

...and found tiny, perfect caterpillars.

I rounded up everyone I could find (two cats and three eggs) and put them in the butterfly habitat. Our pipevine swallowtail cats didn't do so good, and that was my fault. The leaves I kept putting in there were drying up too fast, and I didn't think I could put them in water (afraid the cats would fall in, I guess) but I saw on Birdchick's blog that she was putting hers in water, so I did the same.

Now I am off to research how long all this birthing, pupating and emerging takes!

And if you ever wondering why it's called MILKweed...
When this stuff dries, it's like plastic, or glue.

See what happens when you plant NATIVE PLANTS ??? No milkweed, no monarch butterflies.
Everyone say it with me...Native, Native, Native, Native, Native.....