Monday, March 29, 2010

Excuses, Excuses

Once again, I'm a slacker and don't have much for ya this week.  We've had 2 successful Great Horned Owl Reunites and this evening will hopefully be a successful Barred Owl reunite.  Mom wants her baby back ASAP!
We've been busy at the Center with workshops and events.  Audubon Teaches Nature had a wonderful talk on Spring migrants and we released a Broad-winged Hawk that was overwintered because injuries prevented him from making the fall migration to South America.
And we've only just begun with baby season!  I hope to at least keep posting once a week...I may not have any new Owly finds, but I'm ALWAYS looking everywhere I go.




WANT!

The Owl











Monday, March 22, 2010

Officially Baby Season and Owly Monday

Its official this week.  Baby Season! We've had 4 juvenile Great Horned Owls come in.  A very small nestling (that I took home and fed at 12pm and 4 am for 3 nights), 2 sibling older nestlings and a single older nestling.  The first guy had some serious injuries and we sent to another facility.  I helped reunite the siblings with their parents Friday night.  After scoping out the area we decided on a HUGE Pine tree with a nice fork to put the artificial nest (whicker basket from Walmart) and plenty of understory and cover. Thats not me climbing the tree....a volunteer arborist helped us get the babies back.  (Thanks David!)  In the second pic, you can see the basket in the fork of the tree.  David is getting the baby out of the bucket to place in the nest basket.

So from now on...weekly posts may be too difficult for me.  I'll do my best to keep up, but no promises 'til late August. (yeah, it lasts THAT long!)


The Owl

Monday, March 15, 2010

Shoulda crafted an ark!


We've had soooo much rain recently.  Unfortunately we had way to much Wednesday, and my 9 mile commute home from work turned into an 1hr and 1/2 nightmare drive home.  And when I got home, I found this:

Our basement had about 6 inches of water in it.  It looked like it was a little higher from the waterline.  Luckily it all drained out within a few hours.  Not too much damage, but we'll definately have to replace our AC units and possibly the downstairs furnace.  I had some old notebooks from college and about a dozen books that were destroyed.  I think everything else is ok.
(the cans are part of my craft room organization...they're primed, and need to be painted, the pillow case was so stiff that it acted as a flotation device for the helpless cans that were stuck to it).





 The Owl

Monday, March 8, 2010

1 Week Later

And its Owly Monday again.  Except not too many Owls today.  I have decided to share some of our pictures from our "delayed" Honeymoon  that we couldn't take right after the wedding because of work.  S here are just a small drop for you.  Most of these are ones that I've taken with my little Kodack Easyshare Z650 10x zoom (except where noted).  So grab your Monday mug of coffee 
and take a tour.

This was one of the absolute highlights for me.  We were all sitting down to dinner, conversing, enjoying the meal, when all of the sudden this guy flew over our heads!
Its an African Barn Owl!! Holy (enter your favorite expletive here)!
We didn't see him her the following night.
(Sam took this pic w/ his Nikon)

Tanzania Roadblock.
This was our first "game drive" and in Tarangire National Park. 
A very large heard of Wildebeest.

On our way back to camp we got an up close and personal view of a small heard of Elephants.

An early morning game drive allowed us to see these guys!
Bat-eared Foxes are primarily nocturnal and sleep in their underground dens through most of the day.

We had a wonderful breakfast with this as our view.
Beautiful scenery in Tarangire.

My birthday was spent with the Masai and traveling to the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater.
Dancing with the Masai.

Everyone at the lodge (including another OAT group that was at the end of their trip, their 3 guides, our 3 guides and all the staff ) came out dancing and singing to celebrate my birthday.  It was just about the best birthday EVER!  And we got cake!

On a very looooooooooong dusty, bumpy drive to Serengeti National Park we were lucky to catch this guy eating. 
A Greater Kestrel! Sam took this shot w/ his camera.

And a little video for you.  A Leopard that our little group had all to itself (no other tourists to fight for viewing positions).  After watching it silently watch a Reedbok, he finally decided to come down the tree to start his evening prowl.  And just for the record, my awesome Nikon binoculars reveled that he was indeed a he.

More pix to come.  And if you are interested in experiencing this for yourself, check out


The Owl