Yes, I'm still bringing sticks home to my sweetie. It's nice to show our little ones how important it is to share and work together.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Family Portrait
Do we have a third or even a fourth chick hiding in here? We're not saying! So you'll just have to keep checking.
Friday, June 12, 2009
I love waking up early!
And when I say early, I mean it. I've been starting up singing every day about 3:55 a.m., when it's still quite dark. What's the point? I want everyone to know that this is MY territory--that I made it through the night, I'm still here, and I'm not going anywhere.
Couldn't I hold off until a "civilized hour"? Nope. When it starts getting light, it's time for breakfast! There's just a brief window of time between the sun coming up and the worms going down for the day. So I like to sing, loud and vigorously and long, before it's light enough to hunt. That singing will dispel any doubts about how filled with vim and vigor I am--a robin needs the respect of his neighbors more than just about anything!
After I've eaten my fill, I'll start up singing again, until I have babies to feed--they keep me hopping!--but my favorite singing is always long before dawn. Cheerily, cheerily, cheerio!
Couldn't I hold off until a "civilized hour"? Nope. When it starts getting light, it's time for breakfast! There's just a brief window of time between the sun coming up and the worms going down for the day. So I like to sing, loud and vigorously and long, before it's light enough to hunt. That singing will dispel any doubts about how filled with vim and vigor I am--a robin needs the respect of his neighbors more than just about anything!
After I've eaten my fill, I'll start up singing again, until I have babies to feed--they keep me hopping!--but my favorite singing is always long before dawn. Cheerily, cheerily, cheerio!
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
We cuckoos are killed by windows a lot.
People don't like putting window screening or bird netting on the outside of their picture windows, but boy does it help us!
Monday, June 8, 2009
I love...
that National Velvet's horse was named Pie--for the same reason that I'm a Pied-billed Grebe! And we're both speedy. (Though I'm a far, far better diver, if I do say so myself.)
I love preening my back.
But this isn't some stupid reality show. Please avert your eyes. And that blasted camera!
As a trap, neuter, and release cat myself...
Hi. My name's Kasey and I'm a Trap, Neuter, and Release cat. Except then I found a home. I sometimes miss the olden days when I could rip a little bird like this one to shreds, and I'll never forget the cool sensation when I chomped through their bones. But I also remember the tapeworms and roundworms, the fleas and lice, and the cold and rain and fighting with other cats to get a nice safe sleeping spot. I remember running for my life from foxes and coyotes. I love being an indoor cat, and getting to knock around chess pieces and other toys to my heart's content without my very life depending on successful kills and the cheap dry catfood they set out that we're supposed to share with every other TNR cat around.
Inside, in my cushy life, I've learned that predators only thrive at the peak of the food chain when there are a LOT of animals on the lower levels. But these TNR programs subsidize us, turning what's supposed to be a food pyramid on its head. I can't help wanting to chase things. It's hard for me to remember that that White-throated Sparrow out there is not a chess piece for me to push around. So you've got to do that remembering for me. If you're really humane, your sympathy should extend to the birds we subsidized cats love to toy with, shouldn't it?
Look, people. If you care about cats and want to create a world that is really sustainable for us, for wild birds, and for you, take one or two strays in and encourage others to do their part, too. And read this: http://wildlifeprofessional.org/blog/
No one--least of all us cats--wants people to have to euthanize unwanted strays. But guess what. We cats are predators--lean, mean, killing machines. We can't help it. And so guess what--we understand death and accept it. It's what happens in nature. You deluded humans romanticize nature and think that just because we want to play outside, that we should be allowed to. But I don't see you letting your toddlers play outside unattended. Love us? Take us in and take care of us and protect us from toying with birds like so many chess pieces, or soon this planet will go all to hell and we'll all go down together. We cats aren't rocket scientists. But some of you humans are. It's time you started acting like the most intelligent species on the planet.
Inside, in my cushy life, I've learned that predators only thrive at the peak of the food chain when there are a LOT of animals on the lower levels. But these TNR programs subsidize us, turning what's supposed to be a food pyramid on its head. I can't help wanting to chase things. It's hard for me to remember that that White-throated Sparrow out there is not a chess piece for me to push around. So you've got to do that remembering for me. If you're really humane, your sympathy should extend to the birds we subsidized cats love to toy with, shouldn't it?
Look, people. If you care about cats and want to create a world that is really sustainable for us, for wild birds, and for you, take one or two strays in and encourage others to do their part, too. And read this: http://wildlifeprofessional.org/blog/
No one--least of all us cats--wants people to have to euthanize unwanted strays. But guess what. We cats are predators--lean, mean, killing machines. We can't help it. And so guess what--we understand death and accept it. It's what happens in nature. You deluded humans romanticize nature and think that just because we want to play outside, that we should be allowed to. But I don't see you letting your toddlers play outside unattended. Love us? Take us in and take care of us and protect us from toying with birds like so many chess pieces, or soon this planet will go all to hell and we'll all go down together. We cats aren't rocket scientists. But some of you humans are. It's time you started acting like the most intelligent species on the planet.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Nestlings? Yum yum.
We cranes, both us Whooping Cranes and our dinky relatives the Sandhill Cranes, do in fact eat nestlings when we chance upon them. They're rich in protein and their crunchy little bones give us calcium right when we need it most. (Shhh--don't tell those pesky Red-winged Blackbirds that their paranoia is justified!)
My babies are probably not going to be killed by this crane.
And your babies are probably not going to stick forks in that electric socket. But good parents do what we can to protect them from EVERYTHING.
There are nine...
And yes, I have duck lips. But if I hear one more person make a crack about "Octomom," I'll just scream.
(Anyway, everyone knows she has grouper fish lips, not duck lips.)
(Anyway, everyone knows she has grouper fish lips, not duck lips.)
Semipalmated means our toes our half-webbed.
But we're hardly going to show them to the likes of you.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Macho?
I'm bigger, tougher, and more aggressive than my mate. Sure, he's speedy and he brings home the bacon, so to speak. But in our world, there's no such word as "macho." The word is "macha."
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Oh, no. Is someone watching us?
When you mate right on top of your nest box, NO ONE respects your privacy!
Hardly "least"!
Okay, so I'm a little smaller than an Eastern Chipmunk, but I'm more handsome with my more pronounced eye stripes. Why would anyone call me a "least chipmunk"?!
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Silly goose!
I've been watching that silly Laura Erickson lately. We geese get together with family and friends from earlier years during every fall migration and then all winter. It's great fun to catch up with our loved ones!
Well, humans wait a LONG time to do what we geese do annually, and I've been overhearing that foolish woman fretting about her 40-year high school reunion, which is coming up next month. FORTY years! I mean, that is a great cause for rejoicing--those few of us who make it through that many years are happy to be alive, I can tell you!
But she's all concerned that no one will recognize her anymore, because--no shit, Sherlock--she's 40 years older than she was in high school. Now she's right--we geese hide our years much better than you humans do--but she seems to think a person who went through high school as tiny and slender as a gnatcatcher isn't going to be recognizable as a rounder little chickadee. HAHAHA. Don't you guys realize that people, like birds, recognize each other by our vocalizations as well as plumage, and that--and this is another big DUH!!--you guys will be wearing NAME TAGS????? Get with the program. The most important thing we geese and you people look back on over the years is our connections with our friends and family. Anyone petty enough to be thinking more about how someone looks than what someone IS doesn't deserve to be thought of at all, much less to be going on crash diets before seeing again. This is a reunion, not a booking on American Idol.
Well, humans wait a LONG time to do what we geese do annually, and I've been overhearing that foolish woman fretting about her 40-year high school reunion, which is coming up next month. FORTY years! I mean, that is a great cause for rejoicing--those few of us who make it through that many years are happy to be alive, I can tell you!
But she's all concerned that no one will recognize her anymore, because--no shit, Sherlock--she's 40 years older than she was in high school. Now she's right--we geese hide our years much better than you humans do--but she seems to think a person who went through high school as tiny and slender as a gnatcatcher isn't going to be recognizable as a rounder little chickadee. HAHAHA. Don't you guys realize that people, like birds, recognize each other by our vocalizations as well as plumage, and that--and this is another big DUH!!--you guys will be wearing NAME TAGS????? Get with the program. The most important thing we geese and you people look back on over the years is our connections with our friends and family. Anyone petty enough to be thinking more about how someone looks than what someone IS doesn't deserve to be thought of at all, much less to be going on crash diets before seeing again. This is a reunion, not a booking on American Idol.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Stupid, stupid humans
Okay, so I'm reading Today's Papers in Slate this morning while munching on breakfast--it's how I keep up with the antics of humans--and I come across this little gem:
We birds don't have a single Senator or Congressman in our pockets--they don't even let us into their offices to lobby. But I notice they don't let ANYONE into their offices who hasn't gone through metal detectors. I say no guns in the National Parks unless they also start allowing people to pack heat when visiting their Congressmen.
As part of a compromise with Republicans, senators agreed to include an amendment to the legislation that would allow visitors to national parks to carry handguns. The House and Senate still have to reconcile their own versions of the bill, but everyone expects that to be done quickly given the current climate of dissatisfaction with the banking industry.What the holy heck?? After 8 years when Republicans didn't throw a single bone to the Dems, the Dems throw in something wacko like this to appease the craziest element? I have friends in Yellowstone--they do not approve!
We birds don't have a single Senator or Congressman in our pockets--they don't even let us into their offices to lobby. But I notice they don't let ANYONE into their offices who hasn't gone through metal detectors. I say no guns in the National Parks unless they also start allowing people to pack heat when visiting their Congressmen.
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