The Neon Nurse's Charting

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to start something again when it's been stopped for a while?

At least the magic of Twitter has assured everyone I'm not dead. Ineffectually busy and pretty boring, but not dead.

I'm going to try a new version of catching up, which will at least help me have a journally record of what's been going on. Today, wildlife.

In the interest of exposing MrMike to new people and interests, we signed up to be volunteers for the Department of Wildlife. So far we have helped at a little fishing derby



(which got him all jazzed up to try it himself, which we are doing Saturday) and given these guys



a ride to the Nature Center in Pueblo.

They really logged some miles, for squirrels. A lady in Rocky Ford had noticed them under a bush in her yard, where they huddled for a whole day. Then her cat, who had recently produced her own wee ones, brought one in by the scruff, as if to say, "Well, for goodness sake, SOMEONE needs to step up here!"

The lady took them to the closest place she knew of, the animal shelter in La Junta. They called the Wildlife people, who (not knowing exactly where Lamar WAS) called me. We decided we might as well make a family adventure out of it, so we drove to La Junta in the Squambulance and then on to Pueblo, where we met up with the DoW person in the parking lot of Hobby Lobby.

(Sidebar: And now I want THIS!)



It's a four drawer lampstand thingie. We need it, and I will soon reveal WHY. I HOPE soon....

Since the squirrels weren't TOO young and to my rabbit-experience touch seemed not too depleted yet, I have hopes we will hear good news of them when MrMike and I go to the Raptor Handling class in June.

The other big wildlife thing was the Ibis ID Incident. When the alfalfa field across the road was being irrigated for the first time this spring, a flock of birds I'd never seen showed up, right at a convenient time for me to photograph them. Asking around various groups of people got a spirited discussion going of whether these were sorta kinda local White-faced Ibis, or rare Glossy Ibis that belonged out on the east coast.

You can see the pics and read the conclusions of the Colorado Birding Society here:

http://www.neonnurse.net/Ibis%20Flock.html

Even though it would mean they were astoundingly far from home, I had thought there was a CHANCE these were Glossies. Maybe a breeding pair or two had been blown way out here by hurricanes, and they had followed other wading birds' examples to stay alive and nest and all, but were flying up and down the rivers, trying to find their way back to their ancestral home.

TheClone says I watched too much Battlestar Galactica.