Toying With Skitch

Non Birding Bill is always keeping me abreast of the latest technology and just uploaded a screen shot and photo editing application called Skitch. It's mostly so I can point out things in photos. I took that golden eagle photo from the previous post and added some notes:

The first time I posted the photo I didn't even notice the house sparrow on the right. The sparrow was in eating leftover rat scraps. The house sparrows started building a nest in the golden eagle mew last week. No worries about raccoons in there.

The Golden Eagle Laid An Egg

I'm not sure how it happened, but one of my photos has ended up in the I Can Has Cheezeburger builder. People have been emailing me captioned photos and links. I want to thank whoever put it in there for crediting the photo to birdchick.com.

Andi, the education golden eagle at The Raptor Center laid an egg this morning. She's not housed with any male eagles (she's our only golden eagle) so the egg is unfertilized. Every spring, Andi and one or two of the red-tails hormones get so geared for spring that they lay eggs. If we can get to the eggs in time, we save them as props to show people. Alas, Andi smashed her egg not long after I took this photo.

Last night Non Birding Bill and I met some friends for some fabulous food at Amazing Thailand in Uptown and then we walked by Urban Outfitters and found several copies of Disapproving Rabbits on the book shelf. We then found the April issue of Metro Magazine at the grocery store and it has a small article I wrote about birds around the Twin Cities in spring. I enjoyed writing for Metro, they wanted me to be a bit saucier than the bird magazines I normally write for. I even managed to work in the phrase "hot turkey action"--and I get paid for this. Life is weird and fun.

I just got booked to be on Showcase Minnesota next Tuesday and rumor has it that Aaron Eckhart will be live in studio that day too. Yum.

Another Way To Recycle Phone Books

It's cold. Painfully cold. The type of cold that makes you utter a colorful four letter word with every step you take outdoors.

I went to The Raptor Center for my shift today and got an update on Peregrine 568. She's alive, feisty, and still in recovery. She has some bumblefoot issues but still, for a bird with all sorts of metal pins, she's doing as well as can be expected.

We have an education turkey vulture named Nero at The Raptor Center. Almost all of our ed birds are housed outdoors since they would be here in winter and are capable of surviving sub zero temperatures. The few exceptions would be Nero and the new broad-winged hawk we have in training. Nero's housing has been adjusted, complete with plexiglass and a heater, but the staff was making some upgrades to it and he was tethered in the prep room. He's imprinted on humans which means he would look to defend his territory from humans and worse...try to mate with one in spring.

Now, turkey vultures are the type of bird, that need a little enrichment when in captivity. In the wild, they fly around and look for carcasses to rip apart. Because of that instinct to seek out things to rip and tear, they can be a challenge in captivity. Above is a photo of Nero attempting to rip apart the astro turf around his perch. The turf is important, so birds can slough off dead skin on their toes and help prevent bumblefoot.

The staff would rather he rip apart his turf instead of his jesses. He is capable of picking and ripping apart the bracelets around his feet and could potentially get loose. He's sometimes given other objects to purposely rip and shred for enrichment-too keep him engaged with his natural behaviors--and keep him from ripping up his jesses.

Today, he had a phone book. Now that is what I call creative recycling! I wonder how much longer we'll keep getting phone books?

As much fun as it is to watch a turkey vulture take out the yellow pages, when my shift was over, I had to head home. On my way out, the front desk got a phone call that someone had a hawk or a falcon sitting outside the Rec Center of the St. Paul Campus of the University of Minnesota. The bird had hit a window and the weren't sure if it needed to be picked up. Since it was on my home, I offered to drive by and check it out. I found a place to park and just walking one block in the wind, and in all my long underwear, it was still painfully cold and my eyes were watering. I met up with the man who had called in the bird, and he pointed me to a dark corner. He said that the bird appeared to be recovering and was now standing up, as opposed to laying flat on the ground. I looked in the corner and said, "Holy Crap! It's a merlin!"

It was an adult female merlin and when we got within ten feet of her, she took flight and zoomed down the side walk, zigged and zagged through some small trees and darted off in an ally. Well, I guess it's safe to say that she didn't need any time at The Raptor Center. It was so sweet to watch her dark form darting through the campus, right over student's heads--such a cool bird. As I walked back to the car, I found a couple of spots of sparrow and junco leftovers. I think the merlin has been doing well. The wind was very strong and numbed by fingers and stung my face, I wondered if maybe that helped propel her into the building in the first place. I was glad I didn't have to take her in.

And now I leave you with some videos of the turkey vulture ripping his phone book and adjusting his turf:

The Long Road For Peregrine 568

WARNING! Some of the photos in this entry deal with a bird injury and some surgical techniques to heal that injury. If you are eating a meal or are kind of squeamish, you may want to stop reading this entry after the third photo. Just an FYI.

After the Holidays and my travel schedule, it was time to get back to my volunteering at The Raptor Center and an update on our favorite peregrine.

They were busy in the clinic and while I was waiting, I checked out some of the other birds the vets were working on. This was a falconry bird that got injured in the field. This peregrine falcon was out hunting and she got into a thermal and was soaring high. An adult red-tailed hawk tried to soar into the same thermal. The peregrine looked down, saw the red-tail and stooped! The falcon dove down and hit the red-tail, locked onto it and the falconer watched the birds disappear out of the sky. It took him fifteen minutes to track them down and he found both the red-tail and the peregrine on the ground (and a couple of prairie falcons nearby). The red-tail flew off when the falconer walked up, but there were puncture wounds on the peregrine's face--indicating that she had been footed in the head by the red-tail. Fortunately, the falcon did not lose an eye, but her face did swell up. She appears to be healing well and remarkably did not suffer any broken bones.

Check it out, another way to use that handy tool known as the Dremel--trimming beaks. Above, a vet trims the beak of a young Cooper's hawk. As birds are recovering at TRC, they don't always rub their beaks well like they do in the wild and they can get kind of long, so the vets have to trim them--this is called coping a beak. It's better for the bird and a little easier on the vets when they get bitten by a bird.

So, while I was in Atlanta at Bird Watch America, I got a call from Dr. Julia Ponder the Associate Director of TRC. I knew that there was only one reason for the call--something was up with Peregrine 568. She is still alive, but had to have some surgery. It turned out that her leg healed improperly, causing some long term foot problems. It's at this point that the photos might get a little gross for some people.

Even thought the fracture was healed, the vets noticed that the falcon kept getting bumblefoot on both feet (that's some cleaned up bumblefoot in the above photo). They did some checking and it turned out that when the broken leg healed, that it was a little bit shorter than the other leg. Peregrine falcons are designed for extreme precision, this a bird that can dive over 200 miles per hour and needs everything perfect when hunting prey at that speed. The shorter leg was also affecting how she was perching and aggravating the bumblefoot. So, Dr. Ponder said that they had two options: 1. Put the bird down or 2. Try an experimental surgery that has been tried successfully on a parrot: fracture the leg again and as it's healing, periodically separate the bone, forcing length. Perhaps you have heard of limb lengthening surgery? It's like that.

They did the surgery last week and Dr. Ponder said that if something went wrong they would know right away. They did the surgery and it went well. Now came the hard part of lengthening the fracture once a day of 0.7mm. Since this is painful, Peregrine 568 is put under anesthesia (That's Dr. Mitch putting the falcon under while a clinic volunteer holds the falcon in the above photo).

Here's the fixator on the outside of her leg--she's got some bruising (notice the green, birds bruise green). I'm not sure if you would call her a cybird or frankenbird, but she's got some heavy duty metal works attached to her leg.

Here's what it looks like in the X-Rays. Check out the toes--they are wrapped in duct tape, but it kind of looks like eggs.

Here is an X-Ray that was taken not long after all the apparatus were put in last week.

I think this one was taken yesterday, so you can see that there is a tiny bit more space between the fracture.

So, here's Dr. Mitch doing the extension--although the official surgical term is called "distraction." They kept talking about doing the distraction all morning. I wonder what the origin of that is? Let's distract the bone into growing longer?

After the distraction and all of her bumblefoot areas were cleaned she was wrapped up. They put padding on both feet and seal that with duct tape to help with the bumblefoot. Then they have to clean and put padding around the fixator and then wrap it with duct tape--I swear, they used half a role on this bird. So, now we have to see how that fracture heals. If that heals well, she will need further surgery to correct some of the bumblefoot issues.

Miles to go before she flies. Some may ask, why go this far for one bird. Number one, thanks to the blog--lots of people know about Peregrine 568 and have a vested interest in what happens. Number 2, what we learn from this experimental surgery in birds could help someone's beloved pet in the future. Number 3, she's a young bird with several years of survival ahead of her.

So, not the best news, but not totally crap news either.

I Needed Today

I was feelin' a tad stressed yesterday. Some of it travel related, some of it scheduling related, some of it money related, some of it deadline related, some of it work related, some of it book related--blah, blah, blah, blah, BLEH. It was to the point where I was even having trouble sleeping, where you wake up in the middle of the night and have even more irrational worries like, "I need to lose ten pounds." or "Am I going to have time to buy pickles and a baguette before Thursday?"--just ridiculous crap. And then I had today and realized that in the end, life is really cool.

I had my shift at The Raptor Center today.

First up, injured peregrine falcon number 568 is doing really well! She was very feisty when I took this photo right before her examination this morning. Her pins are out and her bone has healed.

Alana, who was her original vet has left The Raptor Center--it's a teaching hospital so there is a steady rotation of vets. The peregrine is now in the care of Dr. Mitch (in green on the left, who has been at The Raptor Center all of 9 days). Today, Dr. Julia Ponder (Executive Director and Vet) also checked on the peregrine with Dr. Mitch to make sure that the healed leg fracture was stable.

The doctors tested both legs to make sure that the fracture healed properly and that the leg wasn't sticking out at an odd angle. After that, Dr. Mitch and Dr. Ponder gave her a sort of falcon pedicure, by sloughing off any tape or medication residue on her toes. The big news is that the healed fracture looks stable and after the Thanksgiving Holiday, our injured falcon will be moved to a flight room with other peregrines--hopefully she will get along with the other peregrines in there and get used to moving around in a larger space! If all goes well, she will move on to flight training. What great news!

As if that wasn't great news enough, I got to give an All About Owls program. Most of the time at The Raptor Center I do a general Raptors of Minnesota program but periodically, groups will request something specific like owls, falconry, eagles, or just about anything. It's fun to break out of the routine. The group was very into it and there was 5th grade boy who knew almost all the owls that I brought out. The only one he missed was the above bird. He called it a ferruginous pygmy owl. Even though the bird is actually an eastern screech owl, I gave him props for even knowing that there is such a species as a pygmy owl.

After the program I got a chance to feed our education barn owl on my gloved hand. There's something relaxing about having a bird feel comfortable enough to eat while perched on your arm, you can't help but feel honored. It's also a fun opportunity to observe the birds at close range. I love getting lost in the stiff feathers on an owls facial disc.

All in all, not a bad day.

Injured Peregrine #568 Update

There's a video of Cinnamon and myself on Showcase Minnesota up over here.

Look who is looking bright eyed and feisty! Yes, it's injured peregrine #568! Today was just a plain busy day, I have to pack for my flight to Texas tomorrow and I had two programs back to back at The Raptor Center (the first was about 70 two year olds and then the second was a small group of senior citizens--talk about shift gears fast!). But in the middle of all that, I managed to pop down into clinic and get an update on the injured female tundrius peregrine falcon we have been following. Things are progressing well!

Here is an X-Ray that Alana took last week. If you recall from last time, they removed the large rod that was inside the leg stabilizing the bone, leaving in the two smaller titanium pins. When Alana took this X-Ray, she noticed that one of the pins had broken in two--note the pin on the bottom. That pin is located just below the healed up break. She's not sure how the bird managed to break the pin, but she decided to remove the remaining stabilizer. A tiny piece of one of the pins remained in the leg, but it will not harm the falcon in the long term (unless she goes through airport security).

The skin on the leg is pink and healthy and her feathers are growing back in (it looks much better than the first day that I saw her leg--bleh). She still has a long journey ahead. She will remain in a clinic cage awhile longer to make sure that she can move around and that the healed bone is stable. If all goes well, they will consider moving her to a flight room, but it's best to take the time to make sure everything is healed up.

All in all, very good news.

Peregrine 568 Update

WARNING! This is a post about an injured peregrine falcon we met earlier this month. This post covers some of her recovery. Some photos might be a tad gross for those who may be eating or have a problem with needles. Just an FYI.

Alana Shrubsole-Cockwill, the vet overseeing the injured peregrine falcon I've been blogging about, called me this morning to let me know that she was going to check on the bird to see how she was doing. When I arrived at The Raptor Center, Alana was working on a red-tailed hawk with an injured wing in the above photo. After she checked the injury, she extended the wing to keep the muscles from permanently contracting.

The red-tail was passage (first year) and huge! That's Steve Sutter hold her up. He volunteers in clinic at TRC. Clinic volunteers come in once a week, feed and clean birds in recovery and hold birds while the vets check them out.

Steve's job is to get the falcon and then when she is under anesthesia, he still holds onto her feet--on the off chance she isn't completely under, she won't grab the vet or flail around and risk further injury.

Some good news is that the bruising has gone down! Some may remember from last time that the bird's leg was bright green from bruising. The flesh looked healthy pink and you can see pin feathers growing in (her leg feathers had to be removed before surgery--kind of like when humans need to be shaved on a body part about to be operated on.

Something I didn't mention last time was that the foot, just below the break was red, and Alana mentioned that it might be some type of vascular compromise--maybe the blood vessels were damaged when the bird flew into the nets or transported or as a result of the injury. If you look at the photo of the leg from last time, you will note just below the green that the foot was red. Today, all the redness was gone, so the blood flow is good. After that, Alana moved the leg around. I asked if the moving the leg around was for the same reason she was extending the red-tail's injured wing, but she said she was checking for stiffness. I got a video of her extending the leg and talking about what she's doing:

I will say this, Alana does a great job of explaining what she's doing, she's a good teacher. Since I'm an education volunteer at TRC and not a clinic volunteer like Steve, I don't know all the lingo and what they are doing and why. She very naturally will explain what she's doing and do it in way so that you don't feel like a complete dunderhead.

She made sure to clean the spots where the pins holding the broken leg in place and then she took a look at the peregrine's toes:

Because the falcon was going to be putting more weight on her good leg as opposed her broken leg, care had to be taken to keep her from getting bumblefoot and her good foot was wrapped in surgical and duct tape. But what is a bored falcon to do when it can't migrate and hunt and has to sit in a dark box all day--why try and rip at the tape off her toes! Note the mangled mess above. Alana removed the tape:

The bottom of the foot looked good, no signs of bumblefoot! You know how I love to smell birds? Alana told me to smell the falcon foot. I have now experienced that bad bird smell--her feet were stanky! Which is weird because birds don't sweat like humans so it's not like she had sweaty toes in gym socks. It's a combination of the foot being wrapped, probably getting some food bits and poop in there. Alana washed it off and rewrapped the toes. Who knew birds can get stinky feet?

If you look at this photo, you can see little tabs of duct tape--the tabs are there on purpose. She's going to pick at it anyway, might as well give tabs to keep her busy to keep her from ripping it all off her toes.

One thing I haven't mentioned that you may have noticed on the red-tail and on the falcon are the envelopes on their tails. By sliding this over the raptor tails, this prevents them from breaking tail feathers during their recovery. They are in small boxes to prevent them from moving too much too soon. But sometimes an antsy raptor is going thrash about in the clinic cages, so this just helps protect those important rudder feathers.

Here's Alana and Steve with peregrine 568 at the end of her exam. She's perkier, her weight is up and she doesn't need to be hand fed. Alana is going to do an X-Ray next Tuesday to see how the bone has healed and to determine what the next stage will be in her recovery process.

Again, if you enjoy following peregrine 568's story, please consider contributing to her recovery at TRC. I've yet to meet a raptor with health coverage and TRC relies on donations to treat the over 800 birds they see in a year.

Falcon Medical Care

First up, a quick public service announcement:

Anyone missing an eclectus parrot in the Twin Cities area? One was found on the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota and is now hanging out at The Raptor Center. If you're missing one, call TRC at 612-624-4745. The bird does not need a foster home or a new home, just looking for the owner.

A WORD OF WARNING: THIS POST MIGHT GET GROSS FOR SOME READERS! I was allowed in TRC's clinic this morning to observe a post operative exam of the injured falcon. We're going to see some of her injury, it might be kinda gross for those who have trouble with injections and medical procedures. There's not a copious amount of blood but there is a photo of some nasty looking bruising. If you think this might be too much to read while eating, quit reading after the broad-winged hawk photo.

Here's a new bird we're training in for educational programs at TRC, it's a first year broad-winged hawk. Don't let that cute cock of the head fool you, this bird is not sweet, it's a tad brain damaged. This bird was shot as a youngster in the nest in the Twin Cities area and still has the BBs in its head and somewhere in its back--hence the head tilt. We suspect that it has vision loss in its left eye (and possible hearing loss). When you look at it, the lights are on but there doesn't appear to be anyone home. I'm not sure if the shooting occurred by a bored kid or by someone who didn't take kindly to hawks nesting near their feeding station. However it happened, it was illegal and a shame.

When I came to TRC for my volunteer shift this morning, I did a quick verbal check to see if the peregrine we brought in on Saturday was still alive. I do educational programs and am not involved in the clinic. I know they are always busy in the clinic and didn't want to be underfoot to view the falcon myself. But, Alana, the vet working on the falcon, offered to give me a call when she was going to do a post operative check on the bird so I could take pictures and learn more about the injury.

They put the falcon under anesthesia in order to clean her surgical wounds and inspect her without stressing her out. Here is the X-Ray they took of her Saturday night. She had a compound fracture of her right leg. Know one know for sure how she got it. Did she bounce off of a car windshied? Did she crash land on pavement while hunting a pigeon? Did she hit a window on a building? Who can say?

Alana showed me where the fracture had pierced the skin and she had sutured that up. The bird really couldn't be in a better place for its injury, TRC specializes in avian orthopedic surgery.

So, Alana, cleared the feathers away from the leg (they don't shave 'em, they have to pull them out) and inserted pins to reset the bones. This is the falcon's X-ray after her surgery. There's a rod inside setting the bones straight that is connected to pins that go through the skin and are attached to another rod outside the leg to help stabilize the fracture while it heals.

Here's what it looks like from the outside. See the blue piece? That is the outside rod covered in surgical tape. If you look close, you can see the pins going into the skin that connect to the rod on the inside. Alana cleaned up that whole area to prevent infection. Note how green the flesh is on the leg? I asked if that was some type of medication--that's not what that is. That is bruising--raptors bruise green! I never knew that. So, for her type of injury, that color is normal. Alana said that some people will see that on a bird and mistakenly think it's gangrene but it's just a normal bruise. And I thought human bruises looked gross. Alana also said that when she first saw it, that told her the injury was three to five days old.

Feet are very important to birds--they use them when they are not flying. Even when sleeping, birds stand on one foot. Since this peregrine will be putting all her weight on one foot while her broken leg heals, she is at risk for an infection called bumblefoot. To prevent that, Alana put on some surgical tape to help cushion it the good food. They will keep a close eye on the foot when they check her bandages to prevent infection.

After her wounds were cleaned, the peregrine was given fluids. She had been starving and her weight was low. The above photo is the peregrine slowly coming out of anesthesia. Alana told the clinic volunteers that when she was awake, she was to get forty grams of quail. She wanted the bird to be hand fed to insure that she ate all the food. The volunteers carefully weighed out the quail and cut it up into bite sized pieces. The hope is that while you are holding the bird, someone can just hold forceps with meat to the beak and the bird will eat it. However, being in captivity and held by a human can stress the appetite right out of a bird and sometimes you have to force feed them. The volunteers were hoping that they didn't have to force feed the falcon. Here's a video of how she reacted to food:

Needless to say, she did not need to be force fed. If you're wondering why the dish is held in front of her, then removed, and then brought back to her, that's to help stimulate her to eat. If the meat just sits there, after a bite or two, the bird can lose interest and just play with the dish. But when the dish is removed and suddenly reappears with meat, the bird's food instinct kicks in and it takes a bite. Kind of an ADD thing. Sorry to everyone who can't view video. I tried to get a photo:

She's so fast that it came out blurry, but you get the idea.

This is the inside of the crate she is staying in. The clinic volunteers made a sort of donut shape for her to lean into so she doesn't have to put weight on her feet, but when she was put inside, she decided to stand. I didn't get any photos once she was in, she had more than enough paparazzi for the day and needs to recover.

And I should mention that she is getting all of this first rate medical care without health insurance. I've never met a raptor who has any kind of health policy. TRC survives on donations, and if you are feeling inclined to spend a few dollars, please consider donating a buck or two to TRC in her honor. She's case number 568.

I will make updates on her progress as I hear about them--good or bad. She still has many obstacles to overcome, but if a bird can survive the first twenty-four hours in the TRC clinic, their chances of recovery greatly increase. If she does end up having to be euthanized, at least she's being made as comfortable as possible and being well fed as opposed to starving over several days with a painful injury.

Lost Weekend

This weekend wore me out. I am not a creature meant to spend lots of time in high temperatures and hot sun, but I found myself in it quite a bit. The upside is that I don't notice while I'm having fun and observing birds, but the downside is that when I get home, I am exhausted down to my bones.

Check it out, the monarch chrysalis on our radiator came out this weekend. That was timely because I had my Monarch Ranchin' class on Saturday morning at Staring Lake Outdoor Center. Stan helped out a little...well, actually he started out by distracting the group by releasing a chicken in the outdoor center--wacky boy. But after we had been out searching for monarch eggs and caterpillars, he put them under the Outdoor Center's microscope-it was very sweet to see the details of the eggs up close.

As soon as I was done at the Outdoor Center, I had to zip right over to meet my buddy Amber to do 2 back to back bird programs for The Raptor Center at CONvergence. This is our third year doing it, you may recall some of my photos from last year. I didn't have time to do the parties this year. After we finished our programs and drove back to TRC to put the birds away, I had to zip home and get ready for a friend's birthday party.

This is one of my favorite bird programs that I get to do as a volunteer. For one thing, people at a science fiction and fantasy convention are happy and in a good mood, they are seeing old friends and discussing a favorite topic--and they're in costume (note the lovely lady dressed as a fairy in the above photo). This year, one of the new staff at TRC came along to observe the program and at one point she leaned over in surprise and said, "I just saw a Dalek! I mean, a life sized actual Dalek!"

I was really impressed that she knew what a Dalek was. She already had cool points in my book anyway, she's the one who has been rehabbing the young porcupet.

It's fun to try and guess different costumes, (I think the one in the photo above is an Andorian) I also recognized Dr. Who, Brak, Sailor Mercury, and I saw at least four different Indiana Joneses at four different ages. I even saw someone dressed like Young Frankenstein! The woman who arranges for us to come is named Erin. As we were packing to leave, we thanked her for having us out and the generosity of the group (we always get great donations from this group on top of the program fee). I asked that she keep us in mind for next year. She said TRC would be back and added, "I always ask for you and Amber because you guys get us and what we're about." What an awesome compliment and it totally made my day.

This morning I was back at Staring Lake to lead an "urban bird trip". I would have advertised in the blog, but it was a last minute trip for me--I was subbing for the original trip leader. I took the group to couple of spots on the south side of the metro area, near the airport. There were a couple of unusual birds (for Minnesota) reported there and also, they are just great general birding spots. We heard and glimpsed and Acadian flycatcher at The Old Cedar Avenue Bridge and we heard and glimpsed a Bell's Vireo at Black Dog Preserve. I find that both of those species are more exciting to hear than to see.

The real star of the show ended up being Virginia rails. We passed another birder while listening for the Acadian who told us that the rails were putting on quite a show, so our group hightailed it out to the observation deck. When we arrived, a sora scuttled out of the way and is wasn't long before we heard the Virginia rails grunting. We were able to glimpse an adult chasing a younger bird. I played the Virginia rail call on my birdJam and the adult gave up the chase and came straight for us. He ran under the deck, around us, and zipped in and out of the reeds. It even paused to give its grunt call right back. The bird was moving way too quick for me to digiscope it (I snapped the above photo with my point and shoot), however someone in our group had a nice camera and...

Rob Grant got the above shot of the Virginia rail! Thanks, Rob, for letting me use your image in the blog. I have to say, I've called rails out before but these were hands down the best looks I've ever had at a Virginia rail. The bird soon ignored our group and continued its chase of the younger bird. We stayed for quite some time observing other species of birds and still the rails would scurry about us.

We also had great looks at marsh wrens--this guy popped up and sang for so long that everyone in the group got a good look through my spotting scope and I had a chance to digiscope it. Wow, a wren sitting still--who knew? I really enjoy doing these low key birding trips where we just enjoy the usual birds and get a few surprises in the process.

After the trip, I came home, took a long hot bath and napped a good portion of the afternoon. Tomorrow, I have to do Showcase Minnesota and then it's off to check the bees. Last week, Non Birding Bill and I put in some frames from the healthy Olga hive that were full of eggs and larvae in the hopes that the queenless Kitty hive would raise one of the eggs into a queen. I'll check for queen cells and if there aren't any, I'll have to combine what is left of Kitty with Olga.

Celebrity in the Audience

Amber and I did our Raptor Center Program at CONvergence today. Check it out, Wonder Woman was in the audience...and yes I mean Wonder Woman as in "in her satin tights, fightin' for our rights and the old red, white and blue (insert piano solo)". Aparently, when not using her lasso of truth on deserving criminals and Nazis, she likes to learn all she can about birds of prey.