Nature noted – Page 18

13Mar

March Break with Raptors

During the March break we got to see a neat presentation on birds of prey put on by the people from the Wye Marsh. Here’s the snowy owl.

It didn’t want to do any flying for us. But after A LOT of coaxing, it finally flew to its perch and back again. Whee! What a whirl of feathers.

How do you learn not to freak when they land on your arm?

The great horned owl below was majestic. We were all told to respect this owl’s territory if we came across one in the wild. So noted to self. I think we have one prowling our bush.

Barn owls are cool looking. This guy below is eating a chicken leg. Yum!

And the red-trailed hawk (below) performed one dramatic flight demonstration. Besides pretty much skimming my head it flew into a ceiling tile and found the kitchen in this auditorium. Quite a crowd rousing performance! The bird was fine.

Speaking of fine, probably the finest part for the kids was the poop. Every bird demonstrated that ability for us. Spectacularly sometimes. Eew! The kids loved it.

Not sure the same can be said for the intern who had to clean it up.

© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.

06Mar

Lemme In!!!

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by Lizann Flatt
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Um…what is it that my cat is trying to tell me exactly?

(It’s awfully hard to write when this is the view competing with my computer screen.)

© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.

29Feb

Desperately Seeking Signs of Spring

Saved in: Nature noted, There's a story there...somewhere
by Lizann Flatt
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This winter I’ve seen far too much of this:

So it was almost like this unknown thing had appeared in the sky yesterday, and the day before, when it was actually sunny for a change. But just to make sure I wasn’t going to get all completely happy or anything it was also cold as …well, you know.

Seems I wasn’t the only creature seeking sunshine. I noticed quite a few tracks to tell me that other animals had been about.

Here is the sign of the rabbit:

Note that it is beside the track of the automobilus domesticus of the Honda family, species “Odyssey”. And, below, the rabbit is perhaps late, late, late for a very important date.

Triple tracks below! The right hand track is the domestic feline “Marshmallow” while the left track is perhaps a fox, and the track crossing horizontally is a small rodent, I think.

And then I got all happy when I saw signs that the beavers had been out. Perhaps they’d been sunning themselves on top of their lodge whilst I was out forraging at the supermarket.

See their trails up to and on top of that bump? It’s a snow covered lodge, trust me. And then it looks like they went on some sort of frolick!?!? Check out this trail:

Wish I could’ve seen what made them do this:

Or maybe it wasn’t the beavers at all. Maybe it’s like those crop circles…we were visited by aliens and it’s, like, a message:
ZA!
(Translation: “We. Were. Here. Nah. Nyah. Nah. Nah. Nah. Nah.”)

Obviously you can see what lack of sunlight can do to a person. ZA!

09Jan

Something Fowl in the Air

As I was taking down and putting away all the decorations from the tree, musing over how 2007 had been in general, some movement outside the window caught my eye. There was something up in the tree. Some type of fowl! I ran to get my camera. I opened the sliding glass door, stuck my head out and had a great time watching these birds in the tree while simultaneously freezing and freaking out the furnace. I took some photos but they were a little far away and ended up pretty lame looking even by my amateur photography standards. The film I took is a little better if only because you can see them move.

Not sure what these birds are exactly. Grouse? Partridge? By the time I was done fooling with the photos and went to get the binocs and bird book I returned to find that–poof–the fowl had flown away.