Robins meet, owl adapts, Galaxy shares, fox learns . . .

American robin

After rain?  Before spring?  Once grass starts greening?  What brought at least 100 of them here to the park earlier this week?

Despite the chilly, overcast day, they were out in droves, their colors giving them away: a robin convention in the neighborhood!  

People walking or bike-riding could move right through the robins, who fluttered off to settle down again nearby.  If worms were part of their reason for being there, recent rain may have brought them out.  Or maybe simply the imminence of spring once past January and February: could it be that?  

Is there an avian specialist in the house?  

If so, these two questions: First, when will hummingbirds come back?  Now may be the time to set up for those beautiful and amazing hummers.  It was only last year I first saw numbers of them aiming for the red flowers on the trumpet vine. 

And second, does anyone know where to find the bird-silhouette stickers to put on the outside of windows to prevent bird hits? 

A wise, resilient owl

Even if I had a wingspan of nearly 6 feet and fearsome talons too, I wouldn’t want to be an owl born in captivity and living in a safe place where I was cared for – then suddenly set free to survive on my own in a huge city. . . .

But one real owl, named Flaco, who was suddenly freed from New York City’s Central Park Zoo, has proved his mettle, quickly moving from hopping to flying and from being fed at the zoo to becoming an effective hunter for his meals.

As one of the world’s largest owls, a Eurasian eagle-owl (name not explained in the NYTimes story), Flaco reportedly gained confidence quickly once on the loose.  He may have looked stressed to begin with, but now he’s described as an “athletic and handsome prince.”  

                           Flaco                             NYTimes pic                            

The animals who harassed him at first must give him a wider berth now that Flaco has proven himself in the big city.  https://tinyurl.com/2p8dmcb2

Universe of cat info

I’ve mentioned to others how much I like Jackson Galaxy, the self-described “Cat Daddy” whose TV series “My Cat from Hell” was my intro to him and his cat-savvy ways. 

So he looks outré – who doesn’t, in these days of practically anything goes, anywhere? – and he’s confident about what he knows and how he can help all of us who mean well, but need work.

Galaxy can seem to be all over with his products, his Cat Camp sessions around the country and his YouTube station with videos on countless aspects of Catdom: all easy to watch and hard to argue.

For those wanting to know about Galaxy, here’s the route: first, a series of short videos about him and second, a series of his “cat lessons.”

https://www.youtube.com/JacksonGalaxy/intro

https://www.youtube.com/JacksonGalaxy/videos

 

The White Paws

                                                                     by Dara Yen Elerath

The fox with broken legs has a gift others do not.  He removes his paws and they go walking through the woods at night alone.  The paws stop to touch pondwater, to brush a blade of saltgrass.  They tap the backs of passing beetles in the dark.  At dawn, they return to the fox, whispering of rabbits curled in damp caverns, of green oak leaves and sand.  The fox listens carefully; he gleans secrets of the world this way.  He learns of the earth without lifting his nose from his long, broken limbs.  Always, when the paws return they say we missed you, always he listens.  How young, how simple they seem besides his face which is mottled and pocked.  He gentles the paws like children.  He hopes when he dies they live on without him.  When his bones rattle and shake in wind, he hopes the paws walk through autumn leaves, pad softly through newfallen snow.  He dreams they will drift across a black lake dappled with rain; that, above it, they’ll rise; they’ll glow like four pale moons.

              (c. 2022 by Dara Yen Elerath. Originally published on 11-16-22 by the Academy of American Poets.)

 

 

#