Animal Sightings

So I've had a bloody day of it XD

Broke two plates, ankle is playing up again, and neighbour called me for assistance because she'd seen a baby squirrel in her back yard and couldn't get the RSPCA to help with it (grey squirrels are an invasive species in the UK, and the RSPCA is forbidden by law to release them back into the wild after treatment - usually they just get euthasized :/)

So the long and the short of it is that I now have a couple more house guests, at least until they're big enough to look after themselves some XD



Meet Ginnel and Grumble, 8 week old male and female (as far as I can tell) orphans. We reckon Mum was a notch-eared squig who came to our bird table a lot in the winter and a neighbour reported road-killed on the street above us the day before yesterday. We're not sure if these two had any other littermates - they'd fallen into my neighbour's walled garden and got themselves trapped, poor babies.

I ran them down to the vet for a check-up and to pick up some puppy milk formula and put some stress-powder on order for them, and they got a clean bill of health besides being a bit thin and dehydrated and missing their mum.


(Grumble after feeding time - he got the hang of the syringe first, and he's now had two feedings of at least 30ml each! He's named because he's VERY VOCAL and likes to call you names in language that I'm sure his mother didn't teach him XDD
Ginnel's got a little less appetite, but I think she's still a bit stressed and getting over the shock. She's eaten some of the apple and spinach leaves and dried corn I scattered for them, as well as had a couple of decent feeds. She's named for the place I found them - the little alleyway between houses that my neighbour uses to store her barbecue and lumber for her hubby's carpentry business.)

I'll try and get some slightly less zoomy pics of them, but no promises XD Did you know that squirrels do the war dance of excitement almost as well as ferrets do? XDD

 

Met this fella on a walk yesterday.

 

Saw a kitty in a window!

Spoiler: Big, zoomy, behind a screen

 

A dog bork....

 

it's officially spring and the robins have been beating the absolute shit out of each other for about a week.

 

Saw a white-breasted nuthatch! I love small birbs.

Again, not my pic, but what a good bird!

 

Was it upside-down? Because that's my favorite thing about nuthatches.

 

It was! And sideways. We watched it circle up and down a tree several times before it flew off.

 

I just saw a lady carrying a big blue parrot!!? Unfortunately I am in a bus so did not have time for picture

 

I am intellectually aware we have at least two local pairs of feral peafowl.

And yet it is still immensely surprising to see a hen strutting across the road on my drive to work, calm as you please. This is Pennsylvania, what the fuck is she doing here??? Being an Elegant Lady who takes no shit from cars, apparently.

 

I got woken up this morning by one of my roommates asking for help on a rescue operation for a cardinal that was stuck in the apartment complex stairwell. Somebody left the door open and he flew in and couldn't figure out how to get out. Roommate nabbed him with a bedsheet and carried him outside. There was much distressed beeping, but he seemed to be flying okay when she let him go.

 

A very old animal encounter story:

When I was around ten I was climbing trees in my grandparent's backyard when I heard a cardinal singing a few trees over. I started mimicking his calls, and he responded by repeating them, so I kept repeating them back. After a few minutes, he stopped calling, and flew by my tree, dropping a twig in front of it! I still have the twig in my room

 

Animals I have moved from places they shouldn't be (in the house_ to places they probably are better suited to (outside):

• Varied thrush
• Rufous hummingbird
• Lots of insects - moths, bees, those giant dragonflies that live in WA, beetles, etc....
• Spiders
  
• Robin
• Voles and mice
• Lizards
  
• Dark-eyed junco
• Black-capped chickadee
• Some species of sparrow

Holding a hummingbird was pretty incredible, although I was terrified I would hurt him, but he buzzed off just fine

Edit: moved spiders out from insects because, dude, I'm a biology person, I should know that one

 

My grandma had a rufous hummingbird get into the house once when I was there. We managed to shoo him back out the door he came in by, but he was not a happy baby.

 

Humming birds are assholes, and do not really seem to understand that they are literally smaller than everything because they WILL FIGHT.

 

Yeah, I once saw one of her local hummingbirds chase off a hawk.

The Aztec god of war was named after hummingbirds for a reason.

 

Yeah like, we're talking about the aztecs here, they knew hardcore and if they think 'warriors are reborn as hummingbirds' that's gotta tell you something. Hummingbirds remember that they're dinosaurs. Specifically, they think they're all t.rexes.

But yeah hummingbirds are proof that 'a smaller version of a normal sized animal is always angier and meaner than the full sized version' is true for birds, horses and dogs.

 

I once had a rufous out of no where just swoop in and hover in my face. It would move to block my path whenever I tried to go around it, and did that like three times before it decided I was allowed to pass. Idk what I did to piss it off, but the whole thing felt like, "eh, eh, you wanna GO!? LET'S DO THIS, YOU AND ME RIGHT HERE- ooooooh runnin' way 'cus you're SCARED HUH!?"

Little dude, that is not a good survival instinct you have there.

 

Counterexample: my parents' dog Missy. :::PPP

But yeah, hummingbirds are tiny, adorable balls of all-consuming hatred for all that lives.

 

Hummingbirds are my favourite. I wish we got them in europe. It would literally make my entire life to feed some at like a park or something without having to spend the £££ to get over y'all's side of the pond XDD

EDIT: OH ALSO, update on the squirrels! They've done really well, and the past few days I've had their coverted-dog-crate-with-branches-and-elevated-nest-box (it was the best I could do for cheap and short-notice) outside on the garden wall that has a bunch of trees overhanging.

I left the door open yesterday and today I spotted one of them doing squirrelly things up in one of the big old yew trees we have on that side. It felt like a goodbye, but not a bad one. I'm gonna keep leaving food out for them for another week or two, but I think they're gonna be just fine :)