Where is it? & Heron Cam Alert!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Check out The 24 hr. Heron channel thanks to The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. I just saw a Mom(Dad?) feed the young bird in the nest. I always wondered how long the young were left alone during the day as I see Mr. and Mrs. Heron on the the lake from sunrise to sunset. Nice to know that someone checks in during the day to deliver a tasty and healthy lunch. Ok back to my show.

MR. HERON'S SHOPPING LIST

Sorry We're Late...

There are many signs that Mr. and Mrs. Heron do infact winter in Florida. I haven't actually seen them although I have seen their images and namesake everywhere including an ornate carving on a gated community's gate, as the mascot of a local realestate office and on the sign of a motel. I have caught glimps of their southern cousin the Great White Heron though fishing from the local canals and mangrove swamps.

What Happens On The Trail...Snow Birds?

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW!!

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW!!

Mr. and Mrs. Heron were still around last week but  I have yet to see them this week and wonder if they are packing to head back down south soon. Thinking of them and also recently discovering a great comic website called Tundra Comics inspired this comic. Chad Carpenter's comics are so hilarious and a bit similar to the ones I did for this blog...well we both have bears and other animals and the outdoors. so kinda the same yet not.

Nature Can Be Sooo Cruel- Head & Tail

Aren't Bears Cute???

I have a friend who has a deathly fear of snakes. Big snakes, small snakes all snakes. If it slithers then she is afraid of it, jumps 6 ft in the air and runs blindly at record breaking speeds in the opposite direction. Why all the running I ask her, does she really think the snake is in hot pursuit??? I would call her fear of snakes a phobia because for the most part it is irrational. I on the other hand have a completely rational fear of bears. Bears are BIG with BIG TEETH and CLAWS and may decide to claw at you or bite your head if you tick them off enough. With all that said I was sad the other day when a Policeman made the decision to shoot a bear who had followed his nose down the lake and into town for a snack. The snack he was after was garbage and not human or canine or feline or Mr. and Mrs. Heron so why did the Officer need to shoot him with a bullet? It is my best guess that the Officer decided to error on the side of safety as in , "Better Safe then Sorry". However living so close to nature I really think we need to have a better plan then that. I am pretty sure that Officer didn't go home bragging about how he killed a bear today. Perhaps that Officer also had a fear of bears the way I do. Human fears usually result in a "fight or flight" response and can make us do the darndest things. My friend's natural response was "Flight", the Officer's was "Fight". Yes, bears are scary creatures but so are Policemen shooting guns with bullets practically in my front yard. Of course the hunters in my back yard are another story.

Nature Can Be Sooo Cruel- Wishbones

BTW,

ALL birds have WISHBONES so Mr. Heron has been caught in a lie...

but then again can we really blame him for trying to save his NECK?

I have been thinking about dead animals lately mostly due to my personal experience of running over a beautiful 5 ft. black snake sunning himself on the road the other day. I thought he was a patched crack in the road and at the last second realized that I was running over a snake with my mammoth vehicle. Ouuuuchhhhhh! Oh the misery of meeting your end while blissfully sunning yourself. I thought about stopping, but then what? Rush him to the vet? Is there a place to take these poor suffering snakes? I thought about perhaps just moving him off the road but was afraid that he would bite me if still alive. I screamed and cried all the way to my Core Class which is where I was headed in the first place. I hoped there was a chance that I had missed his vital organs and that after some rest he would be fine. But I am sure animals don't recover from these things and he probably slinked off into the grass to die. Wow, nature can be so cruel!

The next time I went to Core Class I drove very observantly and with my music a bit less blaring. Being AWARE I decided would be the best way I could make it up to that poor snake. Then as I was driving home after class wouldn't you know it but there walking lazily down the middle of the road was a big old snapping turtle. She was huge and dirty and really had no clue of the impending danger she was in. Here was my chance to make up for hitting Mr. Snakey, but how? I had no idea about the dexterity of snapping turtles and whether they were capable of whipping around and snapping you. So at that point I was not sure if my desire to help her was greater then my fear of her. There was also the chance that I would end up as "Road Kill" myself if I didn't do something quick being that it was late and we were on a very curvy country road. I tried to nudge her with my foot, but she would not budge. I yelled at her to move but she just looked at me. I lifted her tail end with my foot which made her really mad and her head began to jut in and out of her shell furiously, each jut ending with a snapping sound. After hearing those SNAPS I determined that I would try to move her without picking her up. I returned to my truck to retrieve something, anything that I could move her with. At this point I really did not want to touch her. I could just picture myself in Emergency holding my detached finger with all the hospital staff berating me that everyone knows you don't pick-up a snapping turtle, especially one big enough to bite your finger off. So as I returned to my vehicle I suppose I was hoping to find a "Snapping Turtle Removal Kit" in the trunk. I did find a cardboard box there but determined I would have to lift her into it which defeated the no touch option. I searched the back and front seats and all I found was my daughters sweater. Alas that would have to do. As I returned to Mrs. Snapper I could not believe what I was about to do. Somehow I thought screaming may help so I began screaming at the top of my lungs as I picked her up with my daughter's sweater wrapped around my hands. Now what? I was in the middle of the road sceaming and holding a big old snapping turtle with her head jutting in and out violently snapping at me and I could not decide which side to put her on? The lake was on one side but I believe she was heading away from the lake to lay her eggs so I put here down there in the brush. I drove away hoping I hadn't done more harm then good. It truely is amazing how all these wild creatures survive and thrive year after year despite us humans. Nature can be cruel but it can also be quite amazing.

BTW, I never did tell my daughter that I used her sweater to lift a big, old stinky snapping turtle...and I probably never will.

Nature Can Be Sooo Cruel- Get Off My Log!

One day as I was out meandering on the trail I spied Mr. Heron on a log(I now call it his log) along the shoreline. There were trees and brush between the trail and the water so I tried to get closer to him and perhaps get a picture. I found a little trail leading to the lake through the brush and as I got closer I realized that Mr. Heron was sharing the log with a loon. I wondered how that came about and who was there first. Was this some sort of stand-off I had come upon? So now I really wanted to get a shot of the two of them. I was almost crawling now below the brush line hoping I would not be detected. However, Mr. Heron being the shy sort spotted me in no time and flew away with a few flaps of his powerful wings. Disappointed, I then turned to the log in hopes of getting a pic of Mr. Loon but alas he was gone also. I left without any pictures however thinking back I really should have taken a picture of that log. Darn!

Trail Tales #1- Fish On Her Bones

The water can be mirror like in the early morning. The reflections of the sun, clouds, treeline and houses in the water got me wondering about what the birds flying overhead might think about when seeing their image below. Do you think they are checking themselves out?

Portrait of Mr. Heron

I tried my hand at a little sketching today. I have not sketched in 25 years. I have doodled mind you(note my other blog) but sitting down to attempt to draw Mr. Heron is another thing. I was intrigued by Mr. Heron's neck, the way he curves it and tucks it just so as a resting place for his proud plumed head. I wanted to colour him in but with out the proper supplies I scanned my sketch into a paint program and coloured him on my computer adding the moon and title as well.
I recently found the quote below. It speaks about adventure in a gentler way then most quotes on the subject. No need to risk life and limb it seems as adventure is all around us. We just need to go looking for it once and a while. It may even be as close as that pencil and paper sitting unused in your drawer.
"A man practices the art of adventure when he breaks the chain of routine and renews his life through reading new books, traveling to new places, making new friends, taking up new hobbies and adopting new veiw points"- Wilfred Peterson