Strange Animal Wednesday

The day started with a bulk email from my friend Elsie from Brazil inviting friends and family to go to a bird watching event in a park in my hometown of Sao Paulo.  ...Strange to call that mega metropolis of almost 20 million people a “town”... 

Elsie’s email inspired me to go check on the Carolina Wren that has been nesting and incubating her eggs in my hanging fern on the porch.  When I got there, one of the baby chicks was hanging from the nest gasping for help.  I figured the mother had abandoned the brood.  Not knowing what to do, I pushed the chick back into the nest; whereupon, the mother darted out and alighted on the closest tree in order to scold me loudly until I left the area.  I left to go swim.

On my way back from the pool, I spotted a blue heron flying above me.  They look prehistoric when they fly!  Heck, they probably are close to prehistoric...

I got home to spot 8 squirrels eating the food I had thrown for them on the driveway.  The weather was such that the light made them look like the monkeys on Klaus Kinski’s raft in the last scene of Herzog's Aguirre, The Wrath of Gods.  Still my favorite movie after all these years.

I decided to fill my bird feeders and replenish the water in the dish I leave out for the squirrels/possums/skunks/ground hog/and other wild life that traipse through here.  Without a thought I walked to the watering can and bent down to pick it up when, too late, I notice I had just stepped on a Copperhead (!!!!!!)  Again, the weather came into play.  It was humid but cold, so I was mercifully wearing heavy jeans and thick leather shoes.  If I got bitten, the snake got hold of only my shoes.  It was a young snake and still had not learned that humans are deadly and that she should stay away from us.  Amazingly enough, my weight did not crush the young snake; so after freaking out and calling the Ranting Economist to tell him I was freaking out, I picked her up with a shovel and with the intention of taking her to the woods.  She fell from the shovel into the ivy too close to the house for comfort; hopefully she has moved on to the woods by now.  I’ve been looking at the ground  more carefully ever since; but I will soon forget to do it...

I left for work.  And as I was leaving town, I spotted a beautiful big hawk just sitting on the ground, next to the road, near the exit.  I usually see them flying above, or if I am lucky, on a nearby tree, but rarely on the ground!  I chose to view him as a good omen.

The rest of the day was uneventful until midnight when I went out to throw away the compost.  Right there, smack in the middle of the cement of the carport, in the center of my path, sat an enormous Wolf Spider, like a period at the end of the sentence that was my day.  I said “good night”, walked over her, threw out the trash, came back, walked over her again and went to bed. 

...Strange day...

....and the oil keeps spilling out of the wound at the bottom of the ocean in the Gulf.  And many individual animals will die.  And whole species are in danger... 

Boycott BP: when you need to fill your car up, drive past the BP station and fill-up elsewhere.