Traveling With The Pets

Reading the Zickefoose saga about being booted due to Chet reminds me of a problem I encountered with Cinnamon in the last few months. The hotel chain I had a problem with has always been great, but I got the butt end of a doofus manager so I don't want to blame the chain for this one incompetent employee.

I generally prefer this chain because they allow pets. Some locations require notification of said pet, but most just waive past without a care to a rabbit. When I checked into this location with Cinnamon, I didn't see sign requesting a that pets be registered and made a point of walking through the lobby with Cinnamon's carrier for the staff to let me know if I should register her.

On my second day at the hotel, I came back to the room after a long day in the field and at the booth to find a letter taped to my door with my name and contact information and a stern note alerting me house keeping was in my room and discovered that I was hiding a pet in my room and they were on to me and that I would be expected to pay a fine for this. I was reprimanded for trying to hide my pet and risking spreading allergens to other guests. Also, I would of course be expect to pay for any damages Cinnamon should incur to the room.

Okay, let's set the record straight. Here was my bed in the hotel room:

Can you see a bed under that mess?

Here was Cinnamon's area:
You will note the green towel. I bring my own towel for the bunny so that way the hotel staff doesn't even have to put one of their own towels in the washer and dryer.

Here was the bathroom in the hotel in question:

Coffee, bird publications, various hair products, towels, etc...Here's Cinnamon's area:

You will note some towels and socks on the floor behind Cinnamon, those are mine as well.

"I disapprove of being blamed for Sharon's general slobbishness!"

I was angry for several reasons: 1. the hotel allowed pets, there was no sign that read she had to be registered and I went through the lobby with her, so staff had ample chances to say, "Yo, register your varmit!" 2. my name and contact info was on the note that was taped on the door for anyone passing by to read--this may be overly paranoid, but at the time I was traveling with several thousand dollars worth of optics and I do lead a somewhat public life and it is possible that someone might try to break into my room 3. I had put the Do Not Disturb sign on my door and for some reason housekeeping came in 4. The manager left an unreadable signature and no printed name so I had no idea who to talk to.

I was livid. I waited ten minutes to calm down and called the front desk. When the attendant answered I asked for the manager. She said he wasn't in. When I asked when he would be in, she answered, "Whenever he feels like it." That did not bode well.

I decided to google the corporate headquarters for their contact info and speak to them--they were very friendly and helpful when I explained my irritation with the staff. They understood and said they would deal with it right away. Incidentally, if you are worried about items in your room, always ask for a safe in your room, that way you are not responsible if housekeeping steals your stuff, otherwise the hotel is not liable. I have had stuff stolen out of a hotel by housekeeping. Years ago when I worked for a children's theater company and we were on the road, and I had my birth control pills and binoculars stolen out of my room (I wonder what kind of party they were planning with that combo). That hotel said they were not responsible.

The next day when I came back to the room there was an apology note from the manager and a present for Cinnamon of salt and mineral blocks. I did chuckle when I was checking out of the hotel that there was now a HUGE neon sign at the front desk reading: "Please Register all Pets!"

Hap wins the fleece

It looks like Hap is our winner with the first correct guess of red-necked phalarope. Hap, email your snail mail address to me and I will send the fleece--please specify if you would like it with extra bunny hair.

sharon at birdchick dot com

Congrats!

Monday Mornin' Photo Quiz

This morning's photo quiz is brought to you by Veronica B. in Sherman Oaks, California. She had a long Labour Day weekend hanging out with raptors (Ojai Raptor Center) and domestic parrots with fellow bird lovers:

"This little guy was brought to us on Monday and until we got it to rehab, we didn't have a clue what it was. Oh boy do I need that bird i.d. book! Anyway, I don't know if it's useful for your contest or not."

Veronica B., it sure is! Plus, this helps keep the contest from being to eastern region centric.

In honor of the fall temperatures in Minnesota, the prize is a size large unisex sage green Vortex pullover fleece. As an added bonus, if the winner would like, I can wrap Cinnamon in the fleece before I send it, so you can have some genuine disapproving rabbit fur on your shirt.

First correct answer in the comments section wins the fleece (Large is the only size I have).

Mis Pishification

We had our first cold front hit the Twin Cities this weekend. It was in the upper fifties, lower forties this weekend and rain moved in for a good chunk of it. This is my favorite time of year--nothing like breaking out the sweaters, taking a shot of scotch to warm up and my most favorite, stealing a few extra minutes in the morning to snuggle with a warm husband under the covers--all this when not spend hours on end watching hawk migration in Duluth. I even tried out a FANTASTIC squash soup recipe this weekend that I found in a cranberry recipe book (I omitted the cranberries and still really enjoyed the soup).

Warblers were passing by throughout the weekend. Sunday morning I heard few chips and looked out the window to find a mixed flock of Nashvilles, redstarts, Tennessees and a lone magnolia warbler! I started pishing before I could help myself and the magnolia (above) was very interested in the sound (I wonder what my neighbors in nearby apartments think when they hear me doing that?).

The magnolia flitted about by the living room window and then darted around the corner towards the bedroom and bathroom and I followed. I dashed to the bathroom window and started pishing. Just as I was focusing the camera on the warbler, a squirrel popped into view (above)! The more I pished, the closer it came. I have never, in all my years of pishing, had a squirrel come to check it out. Two squirrels actually came within a foot of the window to inspect the sound, but then noticed each other and started fighting.

Patriotic Squirrel

Groundskeepers at Forest Hill Cemetery thought it was kids who were stealing dozens of American flags. That is, until one found a giant squirrel's nest.

You can read the full story here.

How Is This Pigeon Still Alive?

I'm trying to get photos with the NovaBird Camera of a bald blue jay and cardinal but I keep getting massive amounts of rock pigeon photos. This morning the ledge was full of hangry pigeons (they were hungry and angry). So I opened the screen and filled the feeders and turned on the Squirrel Twirl which keeps the pigeons off at least one of my feeders. As I was filling the feeder the dude pictured below kept trying to land on the ledge--very brave for the pigeons on my block--they usually wait until after I close the screen to land:

This pigeon sticks out in my neighborhood because he looks like a garden variety pigeon, not the panoply of colors all the other Uptown pigeons have. I just got fascinated by him. The rest of the flock stayed at the top of the apartment building impatiently cooing for me to finish. This guy flew to the ground below to go after all the seed that I spilled. He completely ignored the squirrel which the other pigeons avoid. Suddenly, a loud clap startled me as all the pigeons took off overhead. "That was pretty urgent," I thought to myself, "there must be a Cooper's hawk flying around."

My little friend continued to feed as though nothing had gone wrong. Even the other birds on the ground around him took off and still this guy stayed. I thought to myself that this guy is not long for this world, if he's not paying attention to all the other birds around him. After a few minutes, he did fly up to the window just below mine and looked for more spilled seeds. Sometimes, if I drop a few seeds on a pigeon, it startles them and they fly off. I sprinkled some seeds down and they bounced off its back without much reaction. Another armada of pigeons took off in a panic, still this guy stayed on the ledge looking for food. As I watched this oblivious pigeon with wonder, a large, fast form zipped past my peripheral vision: there was the Cooper's hawk. The pigeon finally took off and darted right for the clustered trees, followed in hot pursuit by the Coops. I could tell already the Coops was too far behind and would not get this pigeon. On a hairpin turn, the pigeon dropped to the ground and banked hard to the right. The Coops got caught up in the foliage and when it darted to the right to get to the pigeon, it was flying too high to be able to catch up to the pigeon.

The Coops landed on the power line right outside my bedroom--where was my camera!? The hawk gave its kek kek kek kek kek kek kek call--I wonder if it was in frustration in having missed such an easy mark? I dashed for my camera, but a truck coming down the ally startled the Coops and it was away. It was not an adult like the one pictured above, but this is all I could find in iPhoto. Plus, it looks cool.

Pitchin' ' a Book

One of my problems has always been saying yes to everything that sounds fun and interesting and then discovering too late that I don't really have enough time to go around for everything I said yes to. At the moment I find myself with a little more time than usual and decided to pitch some ideas to my publisher.

I had to go out today to look over photo choices for the City Bird/Country Bird book. It's so exciting now that all the photos are going into it! It's been educational to learn about how long it takes a book to go from idea to print. This has been going for almost two years. I'm glad we're taking the time with it, I would much rather get it right and than get it fast. I really do think this book will be helpful for anyone to attract birds, even apartment dwellers like myself.

After we got the current book out of the way, I started pitching other ideas. One is for a peregrine book and I'm very excited that it's a go and will probably end up being series! Whoot! That one I thought would be an easy sell. I was nervous, I had sent a chapter off to one of the owners of Adventure and she did not receive that email and I had to read it aloud in the conference room. I normally have no problem with public speaking, but as I read the excerpt I found myself transported to fourth grade reading out of my Living Indiana History Textbook (shudder). What is interesting about pitching a book is that you have a sense of the market for the book you have a shot. If you can ease the publisher with sales numbers, you have a fighting chance. With bird books I have a pretty good idea. I have a good idea of what bird books sell and why good bird books don't sell better (one reason is that customers do not buy photoless bird books--they want lots and lots of photos).

So, then came the Disapproving Rabbits pitch again. The publisher is nervous. I can quote website traffic, emails and links but it's not enough. They ask if I know how many rabbit owners are out there? Do I know if there are rabbit specialty stores like bird stores. What's the rabbit market? These are not questions I can easily answer. I'm going to try and come up with a mock up of a book but there's still a chance that this publisher will say no. I know in my gut that this book will sell, but I just can't prove it like I can bird books.

Cinnamon was ready to lay down a heavy disapproval to the publisher, but a mouthful of carrot tops saved many lives today. You can still see a distinct harumph on her face.

Spidey Cleansing

When rabbits are completely relaxed, they flop and sometimes it looks like they suddenly had a heart attack or were shot by a sniper. They will be standing and looking around and then Bam, in an instant they fling themselves to the floor. Non Birding Bill and I always announce, "Oh no! Somebody shot my bunny!" If you look at NBB's blogger profile photo, that's Cinnamon in mid flop. Kinda disturbing, isn't it?

Well, thanks to the wonders of Cute Overload, someone has captured a bunny flop on film. Be sure to check it out, especially if you need a good cleansing from all the spider madness.

Spidey Senses Tingling?

One of the challenges of this blog is that I have people who read the blog saying, "I don't get the rabbits, but I do enjoy the birds." Or I have people telling me that they disapprove about all the birds and demand more bunny. You know, I have had two people in two separate states tell me they are president of Cinnamon's Fan Club and have had no one ever tell me they are president of the birdchick fan club. So...how on Earth shall I toe this tenuous line of birds and bunnies in this blog entry?

With this:

Warning! If you didn't care for the post about the spider in the wren house last week, you are indeed not going to enjoy this post at all. Scroll down at your own risk. I do have to chuckle, I have been having trouble loading photos into this post all day--perhaps blogger is not happy with spiders as well? This entry is not for the faint of heart.

I think I'm getting past my spider discomfort from writing in Mr. Neil's Gazebo. They are everywhere in there! I found a photo card from last week that I forgot to download and it was chock full of spidey photos that I chronicled. Since he writes in here, I can see why spiders are so prominent in Anansi Boys (also lots of good bird references in that novel too).

Webs are everywhere and one night a spider covered the door knob with a fresh web. I had a heck of a time as I tried to get the door open without touching the web.

When I finally opened the door, the spider popped out from under the knob and dropped on the ground--with a THUD. It was big enough to create a thud sound--eeeeew. There was a green crayon that I tried to put next to the spider for scale, but it didn't seem to care for the crayon and I didn't want to anger it. Speaking of big I noticed that there was a ball in one of the corners of the gazebo.

Upon closer inspection it revealed itself to the the exoskeleton or outer layer of a spider. Here you can see where the legs fit inside.

Here the exoskeleton is attached to a twig and that is my pinky finger next to it for a size comparison.

This was about the time I realized that if the exoskeleton was this large, how big is the spider now...and where exactly is it lurking in the gazebo? Ack! Above, you can see the hatch popped off and you can see the eyes, it looks like there are four. I'm fascinated and grossed out all at the same time.

While searching through photos for the Adventure Pages I came across this wolf spider carrying hundreds of young on her back. I had heard of this, but had never actually seen it. I took this photo from one summer when I volunteered to help Blanding's turtles cross the road during egg laying season. We would encounter box turtles, map turtles and snapping turtles on their way to lay eggs besides just the Blanding's. At one point, this spider decided to cross the road. I decided to apply the snapping turtle rule to the wolf spider--hands off!

That should be the last of the spiders in the blog for awhile.