BBJ

Baby Bluejays on the backyard patio.

Belle, very interested in the baby Bluejays on the backyard patio.

How Sunflowers Follow The Sun

"In a study published in the journal Science this week, researchers say they've found an answer: Sunflowers, like animals, have a circadian rhythm — an internal clock that can be set to the external world. During the day, this system sends messages to the eastern sides of their stems, telling those cells to grow slightly longer, which causes the sunflower to lean westward. At night, the message reverses, and the sunflowers tilt back toward the east."
-The Washington Post

Which is pretty cool if you, and by that I mean me, have ever wondered about it.

The Things One Sees

I was at Cabela's , AKA Walley World for Hunters, with my husband a couple of weeks ago.  He wanted to stop there after a trip to Denver. While he shopped I wandered around the aisles and at one point I had the strangest feeling I was being watched.  I look around but could not see anyone.  I looked up, thinking there might be a camera, and saw this.

Cabela's humor. How droll.

How Now Pink Cow

This painting hangs behind the reception desk at my dog's vet's office. Every time I see it, it makes me smile.

It's Miller Time

We are being inundated with Miller moths right now.  Every morning when I open either the patio screen or the front door screen at least four Millers go for my face.  Mid-morning I stepped on the front porch and found this little guy huddled in the corner of the left sidelight.

This is a Sphinx Moth (aka Hawk moth) and looks huge compared to a Miller moth. Its kind of cool.

Out And About

I was out shopping this morning, pulled into a parking space at the mall, glanced at the truck parked next to me and saw this:

The problem with cats is that they get the exact same look on their face whether they see a moth or an axe-murderer.
-Unknown

Owl Eyes

Earlier this month my husband was in the country with the dogs for  their run when he heard Little Sally Pumkinhead barking insistently and loudly.  She was where he could not see her so he followed the sound of her bark which lead him to her and a young owl with one of his wings tangled in a barbwire fence. 

He knew he would not be able to get near the owl so he called the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program  and within an hour Mike Tincher, the program's rehabilitation coordinator, was meeting us out near where the owl was hanging on the wire.  He used a blanket to secure the owl and then my husband helped him use wire cutters to cut the barb wire the to the left and right of the bird's wing.  This was done to keep the bird from being injured even more- wire being caught up in wing tissue and muscle. 

Mike then carried the bird back to his SUV and placed it into a pet carrier for transport back to the raptor facility.

Mike told me he did not expect the owl to live as his wing had been "de-gloved" in the bird's attempts to get untrapped. I told him I really did not think the owl was going to make it as we did not know how long he had been hanging there. I just wanted him to be somewhere safe when he did go instead of suffering even more and then dying in the hot sun.

After placing the owl in his vehicle we went back to were the bird had been and Mike fixed the fence.  He said that was almost as important as saving the bird because farmer's got very upset when they found a piece of their fence missing. 

Last week we got a letter from Rocky Mountain Raptor Program letting us know the owl had not lived as the damage to the wing and the trauma to the bird was too great. This wasn't really a surprising outcome for us as our reason for calling RMRP was to save the bird from a slow painful death.

Bunny Heaven

I took the dogs up to the cemetery to run them this morning. Little Sally Pumpkinhead mostly stayed with me but Duke ran off on in a search for rabbits. He checked around the cemetery's metal storage building and then started a systematic search of the large evergreen bushes scattered among the gravestones and markers. I find it very amusing whenever I see the back half of Duke protruding from the bottom of a large cone shaped bush. Those bushes are so dense Duke cannot get all the way inside so the only way I can tell if any rabbits are hidden in there is by watching his tail. If his tail is still, no rabbits. If his tail is wagging furiously, rabbits. As long as the rabbits do not panic and make a run for it they are as safe as a bar of gold in Fort Knox. That is, most of the time.

As we neared the end of our morning run Duke was nowhere to be seen so I started calling his name. After about 30 seconds I spotted him half way across the cemetery running towards me. As he got closer I noticed he had something in his mouth which looked as if it could be a dead bird. When he got within 30 feet of me he stopped and dropped what he was holding. When it hit the ground I could see it was a small mound of tan colored fur. Little Sally Pumpkinhead also noticed that Duke had dropped something and started trotting quickly over to him to take a closer look and, I could tell, maybe steal it away from him. I rushed over, got there just before she did, and picked the lump of fur up. It was a still warm baby bunny. I don't know how old it was but it just fit in my open hand. I had pick it up in such a way that it now lay on its back with its tiny paws held up in the air. It had tiny ears like a terrier puppy and its mouth was slightly open with the tip a tiny tongue sticking out. Its eyes were almost completely closed and as I stared at it I wondered if it could see me. I also wondered if it was alive because I swear it moved a little when I first picked it up. Then I wasn't sure because it lay limp in my hand.  Was what I interpreted as slight movement by the bunny  simply gravity pulling at the body when I picked it up?  I kind of hope it had died in my hand as that would mean it had not died alone. No living thing should leave this earth without the knowledge that another living thing was there to bear witness and mourn its passing.

Wild Kingdom

Look what we found on our morning walk last week:

It's a coyote den, front and back entrance. That mount of dirt is right behind the back entrance.  Here is what it looks like inside:

Front entrance showing how the den goes down and then curves for safety.  You can see sunlight streaming in from the back entrance in the middle of the photo.

Back view.  I put my camera farther down in the hole in this shot and  I think the flash from the camera blocked the sunlight from the opening at the other end.  The dogs were the ones who found this den and approached it very cautiously.  Both put the snouts down the hole but quickly lost interest in it. Because of the  freshness of the dirt in the pile behind the back entrence we think this den is being used.  Coyotes are timid and do not like being around humans and dogs and whoever lives in this one may have taken off when he/she heard us approaching.  We stumble across old dens all the time but this is the first one we found that looks as if it is still being used. Way cool.

Animal Forensics

Last week I was busy doing all the things that get in the way of blogging including reading the books I had pick up at Goodwill while I was in Denver and watching episodes of the sixth season of Doctor Who which is now available on Netfilx Instant. But even those things pale compared to what my husband found on our Sunday walk. He found this:

As you can see the skull is slightly smaller than a tennis ball. But what was it in life? We guessed a young badger but we were wrong. What do you think it is?

For the answer click here.

Animal Planet

If people were superior to animals, they'd take better care of the world.
-A.A. Milne

A man who kept over 50 exotic animals in a private zoo near the town of Zanesville, Muskingum County, Ohio, about 60 miles east of the city of Columbus, released them yesterday and then committed suicide. Deputies from the Muskingum County Sheriff's Office started tracking the freed Black bears, Grizzly bears, lions, tigers, cheetahs, and wolves in the rain as dusk approached. Since they did not have tranquilizer guns and the Sheriff feared the animals would reach more populated areas if not caught before dark, the deputies were told to kill every wild animal they found. Harsh? Maybe, unless you are the unlucky man, woman, or child who stumbled into the path of one of these creatures.

The problem here isn't the deputies killing wild animals roaming  the countryside. The problem is letting a man keep wild animals anywhere near a populated area. The state of Ohio and the federal government have no laws that regulate the kind of operation Terry Thompson had on his farm. Ohio law only regulates native species (Black bears for one.) while the Department of Agriculture rules only cover exhibitors and breeders, and Terry Thompson was neither a exhibitor nor a breeder.

The slaughter of up to 50 animals may not pass unacknowledged in Ohio. State lawmakers are finally serious about implementing laws that close the non-native animals loophole.  I don't think any private individual should own any exotic animal but let's hope one of the requirements of the Ohio state legislature is that all animal owners be mentally stable.

It's Cooooold Out There Today

Our bird feeder and bath are getting lots of visitors this morning. In addition to our usual Sparrows, Finches, Nuthatches, and Grosbeaks we are seeing Robins, Flickers and Red-Winged Blackbirds. The Flicker and the Blackbirds are coming up from the river. When my husband went out earlier to fill the feeders and change the water there were only three birds waiting for him. Now there are 20 to 30 birds out there. Bird communication is very efficient.

Breaking News: Scientists Think They Have Discovered The Reason Why Honey Bees Are Dying

(Photo by  Pokrajac)

Article at New York Times.

One Snake, Two Snake, Bull Snake...

While walking on the edge of a dirt country road the other day (the day of the two rainbows) I almost stepped on a snake. I don't know why I didn't see it until it was six inches away from me.  It might have been because I was more focused on watching the storm clouds to the south of me.  I knew that  if they were heading my way I wouldn't have time to finish my walk before the rain started. Funny thing, when I first saw the snake I wasn't afraid of it since it did not look right. It lay as straight as a line and looked flattened and at first I thought it was dead. Then a black, pencil graphic thin, forked tongue flicked out of it's mouth and I knew it was alive.

I stood there looking down at,  more confused than frightened, wondering why it wasn't moving. If it had been a rattlesnake it would have been coiled up like a garden hose with it's head up and hissing at me.   It  was not doing that so I decided it must be a young bull snake. I found it interesting that the body markings were just the same a rattlesnake, no wonder bull snakes were often mistaken for rattlers. My eyes traveled down the body to the tail and it took my brain a few moments to absorb what I was seeing. The tail ended in rattlesnake buttons. I was standing six inches away from a live rattlesnake. A live rattle snake that had not move a muscle but its tongue since I first walked up to it. I took a step backwards, I took another step backwards and then about three steps to the side. I walked past the snake and without taking my eyes off of it made a big detour around it.  I keep watching it until I had my head turn to the right as far as it could rotate.

As I walked away I thought about what had just happened. Why didn't the snake attack me? Then I thought about the time of day, early morning, and realized that the snake was still waiting for the sun to warm it up. The snake looked flattened because it was pushing its body into the ground trying to get as much of its skin exposed to the sun as possible.  It did not curl up and try to strike me because its body was still too cold to react with any semblance of speed.  It did the only thing it could when it sensed danger, it played dead.  If the temperature had been warmer the snake would not have been on the road at all.

Snake Bit

We were running the dogs at the cemetery last night when Duke trotted up to us looking embarrassed. He must have put his nose into a rabbit hole that contained a rattlesnake because he also had a puncture wound and a bloody scrap on his snout. By the time we got him back to the truck he was in pain. When my husband got him to the vet clinic they gave him a shot of morphine and some antibiotics. They also put him on a saline drip . He spent the night there and this morning they will call and let us know when to pick him up.

The vet told my husband that Duke being bit on the snout, along with being bit before and having had the rattlesnake vaccine administered, would actually be helpful to him. For some reason getting bit on the nose is less dangerous than getting bit anywhere else on a dog's body. He also told my husband that he has been treating a lot of cattle and calves who have been bit on the snout by snakes since the weather got warmer.* The warmer weather has caused the snakes to wake up and they do not like to be awakened once they begin hibernating. They wake up angry and this anger makes them lash out at anything or anyone who comes near them. Until the weather get cold again our evening walks will be restricted to the town streets.

Poor Duke. I hate that this has happened.

Update (10:09 AM):
We heard from the vet clinic and they say Duke is doing well. He will be staying with them for another night since their policy is to keep animals who have been bitten by snakes for at least 24 hours. His snout is still very swollen but he is resting comfortably.


Update (6:40 PM):
Talked to the doctor again and he said Duke ate some food and the swelling of his snout has gone down. He has dropped his pain meds and stopped the IV fluids. We will bring him home tomorrow afternoon.



*It was in the high 80's (F)/ 20's(C) on Sunday.

Where The Deer And The Antelope Play

A friend and I were driving back to the cabin one afternoon after a visit to Walden when we saw this regal male Pronghorn Antelope at the side of the road. My friend started snapping pictures of him from the passenger seat as I slowly drove along side him. The arrogance that this animal displayed was almost blinding. He was not afraid of us one iota and moved with the confident step of a world leader. He actually seemed to want us to take his photo but only on his own terms. Moving along at a princely pace he would sometimes stop and pose for us . Look carefully at these two photos and then try telling me that he did not realize just where he was standing in relation to us or just how striking the photos would turn out. He was electrifying.

Birdland

These crappy photos of two very elusive birds were taken by my husband and myself. The owl has been hanging around our friends cabin but we only heard his call and never saw him until the night before we left. I only got to see him swooping through the pine trees. My husband got close enough to take this photo- which was still a good distance away. We are sure this is a juvenile Great Horned Owl but we are cannot tell if it is a male or a female.

The Bald Eagle was perched on a power pole line right across the lake the first time I saw him. I snapped this photo and as you can tell he was even farther away than the owl when I took it. This bird stayed around for two days and then disappeared. We think he was attracted to the numerous dead or dying fish that were in the lake. The dying fish were the cause by two things, first, the lake turned over, a phenomena that has never happened in past years since the upper layer of water never got hot enough for turnover to occur. I guess we can blame global warming again. Second, the fresh water supply that usually flows into the lake was blocked off by humans which lowered the oxygen levels in the lake. When the lake turned the fish started dying. The eagle probably ate until his hunger was sated and then flew on.

Why Can't We Be Friends?

Duke pretending to be a statue and the squirrel pretending to believe him.

He Wore Blue Velvet

I cannot believe it! My first Indigo Bunting showed up at the feeder. Since I wasn't sure just what kind of bird he was I grabbed the binoculars instead of the camera and studied him carefully. The richness of his blue color blew me away. At first I thought he might be some type of bluebird (Western or Mountain) but the color and beak were wrong. When I checked the bird book I found out he was an Indigo Bunting. They are in the area, I've just never see one at my bird feeder. Since I did not get any photos of him I thought I would send you to a site that has some great Indigo Bunting images. Lovely, lovely color.

Aways A Population Explosion In The Spring

Introducing one of our town's newer animal babies:


Two week old Trixie and her mom.



Trixie heading over to check out her visitors.



Trixie getting a little loving from me while Duke ignores the whole thing.