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Howdy My mating hoot owls are back. They are driving my Mini-Pin Buck crazy. Ones in one tree and the other in another tree. He can;t decide where the owls are.
Anyway We are hoping they mate again and produce another baby. It was so fun watching their baby two years ago learn to fly off the roof.
Haven't seen the bob cat female yet. But all the birds are coming back and soon our armadillo (he's our pet, ) I know he's the same one because he has the scars where he tried to get under the fence to get at my tomatoes.
Anyway Had to share with the birders on our group. I am going to get pictures this year and have some of you Identify them for me. Love Oma
May I be more compassionate and loving than yeterday*and be able to spot the idiots in advance
How cool........we have a resident red shouldered hawk here on our ranch that last season used to drop off her young one for hunting lessons on our round pen fence. The young male would sit on the fence for hours and practice trying to hit mice as they ran through the grass under him. But more times than not, he looked more like a raptor doing a Mexican Hat dance and less like a majestic hawk. But he learned and now soars over our paddock every morning and screams a greeting to me. Probably because I have left the odd morsel out for him after butchering chickens or rabbits, till he learned to hunt a little better. He got so tame that I would leave food out for him and he would swoop down with me standing about 20 feet away, take it, scream a greeting, and fly awayI also have a bald eagle that comes up off of the navational channel a few miles away to catch the thermals above our place, and a great horned owl female that lives in the pine over our house. Since my family is Cherokee, and follows that religion, we count it as a blessing that they choose to live with us on this land.
Hey, that's a pretty neat experience with the hawk. The best I've been able to do is a couple of "pet" buzzards, (believe it or not), LOL, but they're the same way when they're on the ground - kind of awkward.
Yeah, I know, they're not exactly in the same class as hawks, owls, and eagles, but they're so ugly that they're kind of cute.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Great bird stories. Living in the city we have mainly cardinals, chickadees, titmice, robins, mockingbirds, finches, house sparrows, wrens, hey, my list is getting pretty long. We also have the occasional coopers hawk that comes to eat the little birds. So far no personal relationships with any of them.
Oma - More than likely they are Great Horned Owls and this is their time of the year for mating, sometimes they are as early as mid to late January.
Carrie - What a wonderful experience with the Red-Shouldered. They are such majestic birds and to be able to experience the learning and watch the father's training must be a really special treat.
Tex - The Turkey Vulture (or Buzzard as some say) is such a beautiful bird and one of my all-time 5 favorites. I must admit to most they are ugly but the benefits they have for the planet are overwhelmingly beneficial. We would be just one huge garbage dump without them. They are also in a class very close to Hawks and Eagles and are considered a raptor of sort - just dead "take."
Thank heavens the weather is breaking so I can bird again. This winter has been so horribly wet it was just impossible.
Love, Maggie
Maggie Scarpone
___________________
Resident Birder - I live to bird and enjoy life!
As another wildlife nut, I am so enjoying this thread. Carrie, I love the story of the hawk. Altho I am not Cherokee, I consider it an honor that animals choose to live with me, too. I garden for wildflife, feed the birds, and have a pond. Nothing makes me happier than watching the critters. My favorite little guy is a chipmunk with a white-tipped tail that chitters every morning for me to put seeds out beside his hole. He has been around for 3 years now. I also love crows and woodpeckers.
The nature center a mile from me (where I volunteer) had a pair of nesting vultures every spring - in an old, falling-down building. The building was razed this past winter, but the naturalist built a huge "vulture birdhouse" where the old bldg. stood. The pair has returned and is looking at the birdhouse - we're hoping they decide to nest there.
Love,
Polly
P.S. Oma, would love to see photos of the owls.
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused.
Actually, these are black vultures. When I was a kid, we had only turkey vultures in this area, and we had to drive a couple hundred miles west, in order to see any of these. They're so aggressive that after they moved into this area, they almost "outcompeted the turkey vultures at one time, but the turkey vultures have finally learned to be more aggressive also, and they're making a comeback and holding their own pretty well, now. In West Texas, the blacks are notorious for sometimes killing newborn lambs and kid goats - something that the turkey vultures would never do.
Vultures.......I forgot about Fred. He was our resident vulture that used to slowly circle us while we rode horses in the pasture. If you looked up and talked to him, he would come closer, he was so entertaining, comedy relief in bird form.
I also have a red tailed hawk that comes to visit, a creature I have had a connection with since childhood. In doing raptor rehab over the years, my sister and vets were shocked that I can take a red tail hawk on the arm without a glove and never get taloned. I guess it's the long red hair from being a Irish/Cherokee/Wyndotte mix, and the red tail hawk feather tatooed on my shoulder. They know a familiar when they see one.
Carrie
PS: I have some pic's on my cell phone of my raptor family members, I'll try to download the software to get them put on my computer to share with you.
Well Mike and I feel blessed beyond belief for all the wildlife we have. We also feel blessed about red taled hawkes out her as well. Mike is part cheerokee, so he won;t let anyone kill anything around here. My BIL would shoot everything walking , but not here.
I also take all my herbs that are too old or maybe they got runined somehow and say a prayer as I lose them in the air and send them back to nature.
We completly love to watch the many species of birds that mate and eat and roost in the trees here.
By the vultures are cool>>>>But if you accidently hit one with your car, they smell really bad and so does your car for a while. I liken it to a skunk. Love Oma
May I be more compassionate and loving than yeterday*and be able to spot the idiots in advance
