Birthday at the Aviary 2015 – Part 2

Yeek, who knew getting two posts up in a week was going to be work?  Enjoy all the pretty birdies!

Bateleur Eagle – A threatened eagle from Africa.

Bateleur Eagle – The view from behind. Stunning.

Laughing Kookaburra – This little guy was in a cage in the cafeteria area. The kookaburra is a native of Australia’s eucalyptus forests. You know that koo-koo-koo-koo-ka-ka-ka bird noise you hear in jungle movies? That’s usually this little guy’s call they’re using. And he doesn’t live anywhere near a jungle!

Rhinoceros Hornbill – The large ornamentation on his head is called a casque. It is made of the same material as your fingernails. It gets its color from oil in a gland under the Hornbill’s tail. Yep, he rubs his casque and bill under his tail!  (The blurriness is from the mesh wire of the enclosure.)

Malayan Flying Fox – These large bats have a wingspan of nearly 5 feet! They do not echolocate, they use sight and smell to find the fruit and flowers that they feed upon.

A wide view of part of the wetlands area.

They had some very interesting nests in the wetlands area.

White-headed wattled Lapwing – This small bird from Africa wasn’t afraid of anyone. It’s said that in the wild it will defend its territory even from hippos!

American Flamingo – These birds get their color from the microscopic shrimp and algae that they eat. It can take up to 4 years for a baby flamingo to get its pink color!

Hyacinth Macaw – This bird from Central and South America gets 3 feet from beak to tail tip! It is the largest of the flighted parrots.

Southern Bald Ibis – This bird from South Africa is endangered. They like to build their nests on cliffs and they use that long bill to feel around in the soil of shallow waters for food.

The last picture will be of my souvenir. I didn’t want to spend big bucks and when I found these little china critters it brought back memories.  My BFF and I grew up in southern California.  That meant Disneyland at least once a year and we couldn’t wait to get another little china animal to add to our collection.  When I pointed these guys out and told her I still had mine somewhere, she looked surprised and said, “Me, too!”  We had a good laugh and I grabbed another little critter for the collection.

Great Blue Heron – I love seeing these guys in flight and fishing along the lake shore. He’ll be a cheerful companion to write with!

Birthday at the Aviary 2015 – Part 1

I decided to do the Aviary for my birthday. It was a bitter-sweet day with me wondering whether or not my brother was going to make it to his next birthday.

My son and I took nearly two hundred pictures between the two of us. 😀  I whittled it down to 83.  No, I’m not sticking you with that many pics! But I am splitting it into two posts.  Enjoy!

Stellar’s Sea Eagle – This large bird lives along the coast of Russia and the Bering Sea.  Like the Bald Eagle, the Stellar’s Sea Eagle eats fish.

African Penguins – That’s my boy in the back of the picture. “Hi, Spider Bait!”

I have no idea what kind of bird this is!  But it is a very strong swimmer!

Brown Pelican – One of only two pelican species that dives into the water to catch their fish. This guy was injured and unable to be released back into the wild.

Boat-billed Heron – It’s bill looks like the bottom of a boat! Big eyes help this bird hunt at dusk and early night.

Malayan Great Argus – These large birds are omnivorous and the male’s tail feathers are the longest of the wild birds.

Blue-faced Honeyeater – This bird is from Australia and is known for eating bananas!

Blue-bellied Roller – Rollers are known for their acrobatic flight while snatching flying insects out of the air. Those are tiny mealworms the people are holding!

Part of the hospital area. The other side had incubators and climate controlled cubes.

These are Burrowing Owl owlets that need some personal TLC.

Spider Bait insisted that I show you the food preparation area with its pan full of knives that is situated right next door to the hospital room!

Isn’t this gorgeous?! It’s a painting by Johno Prascak.

The purple and yellow birds are Gouldian Finches (from Australia) and the two brownish birds are Cutthroat Finches (from Africa). I don’t know what the birds in the back are.

I’m going to leave you with these two cuddlers. I have no idea what they are but they were so sweet sitting close to us and grooming and snuggling.

Part two is in the works!

My Birthday Trip to the Museum (Part 3) (Crystals!)

Yep, I’m late.  Had to pack Saver of Bugs off to her new digs way out in Philly.  *Sniffle*  Hopefully, she’ll find time to get a post up with a few pics of her new home.  (HINT-HINT-HINT!!!)

I luuuvvvve crystals/minerals/rocks etc.  It was too bad that it was the last stop before leaving.  We had to rush* through that section so a lot of the pictures were too blurry to keep and some don’t have what they are on them.  Hope you enjoy the sampling!

*For those of you who don’t know, our dog Jake has bladder cancer.  He can only hold his pee for about 5 hours.  We brought him up to my BFF’s house.  She lives about 30 minutes from the museum.  But there still wasn’t enough time to see everything!  I could have spent the entire day there.

**********

And, of course, since it was my birthday… I had to have birthday presents!

Stilbite

Wavellite

Kyanite

Thanks for coming along!  Hope you enjoyed the trip to the museum!

My Birthday Trip to the Museum (Part 2)

The Hall from an older part of the museum. What beautiful architecture! I couldn’t even begin to guess how much it would cost to replace this.

I love Egyptian artifacts. These tablets are several – thousand – years old!

Papyrus. It is unbelievably amazing that this has survived all these years.

Yeah, it’s blurry. Shaky hands again and this was the only picture of this mummy I took. Inside is a child. I wish the x-rays had turned out so you could see inside, too.

The small statues on the left are from around 332 BC. The taller one on the right is from around 1070 BC.

Amazing. These jars, left to right, are from 3050 BC, 2700 BC, and 1479 BC.

This jar rest is over 3,000 years old!

A recreated burial scene.

More old architecture!

Elephant skull. Wow.

I love how they put all this seashore stuff together.

These clocks are from the 1600’s.

Look at those feathers!

Sperm whale jawbone.

One of things I liked when touring the critter section of the museum, was how they set up scenes from the different countries.  For example, the African savanna would have not only the animals, but the plants and BUGS, as well.  Saver noticed this when she found ‘maps’ of what was in the exhibit.  And if you had the time and patience to look, you could find things like beetles hiding in the grass.

I happened to look up over my head while wandering through the exhibits and found this leopard watching me from up in the tree!

My favorite of the posed exhibits is “Arab Courier Attacked By Lions”. It was first shown clear back in 1867 in France. The Barbary Lions shown here became extinct in the wild shortly after this exhibit first opened. The last one alive in captivity died in 1922.

Hope you enjoyed the quicky tour.  Next up will be crystals!

 

My Birthday Trip to the Museum (Part 1)

The Zoo is one of my favorite ways to spend my birthday.  However,  since my BFF just had a hysterectomy not too long ago, traipsing through the zoo, up and down hills in 80+ degrees just didn’t seem like a nice thing to do to her.  In looking around to find something else that would be open on Memorial Day (the only day everyone would be off and the only weekend both kids would be home at the same time), I remembered The Museum of Natural History.  I had never been there without a pack of screaming kids.  Dinosaurs! Crystals! And no child rustling!

I got crazy with the camera. 147 pictures!  I whittled them down to 78 I’m going to keep.  No, I won’t make you view all of them.  But I am breaking them up into 3 groups, dinosaurs/fossils, misc., and minerals/crystals.  I didn’t write any names down, I was having too much fun.  One day was not enough to see everything.  *sigh*  Enjoy the pics!

Dinosaurs/Fossils

 Paleontology fascinates me.  To think that these specimens have lasted for millions of years!  How awesome is that?

I wouldn’t want this chasing me around!

 

Look how big that mouth is!  And all those teeth!

Could you imagine carrying that rack around on your head?

Millions of years old. Just amazing!

This lily is huge! And the detail is just amazing!

Dragonfly lineage dates back 300 million years.

Wouldn’t want to go swimming with this!

This turtle is bigger than I am!

Stegosaurus!

I like the posing of this exhibit.

Big front teeth!

Variety is the spice of life!

 

T-Rex!

Triceratops!

View from above. These guys were huge!

Hope you enjoyed the visit!

My Birthday at the Aviary

Yeah, I’m way late.  Life exploded around here.

I had wanted to do the Zoo again, but with this crazy weather it would have meant running around in serious cold and rain.  I don’t think so.  So I wound up chosing the Aviary when I realized how many years it had been since I was last there.  And I desperately needed a day off.

I went ahead and paid extra for a show and got lucky to be chosen as a participant.  It was a pirate themed show and I got to hold up a piece of a treasure map for a bird to come and take from my hand.  Yay!  Sorry, no pictures.  Photography was not allowed.  I do, however, have pictures from the rest of the day.  So here are a few of my favorites:

Keel-billed Toucan. So bright and cheery!

Stellar’s Sea Eagle
Huge!

Bald Eagles
Luuve their expressions!

African Penguin
Who are you lookin’ at?

Egg art.

Cape Thick-knee
I could literally have reached out and touched this one.

Malayan Great Argus
Not a good picture of this bird. I had to lighten it so you could see it. This bird is huge. Bigger than a Peacock.

Me feeding the Lorikeets.

Victoria Crowned Pigeon
Another close encounter. This ‘pigeon’ is about the size of a duck.

Brown Pelican.  Most of the Aviary is now open rooms where you are in with the birds.

Roseate Spoonbill

Paradise Whydah
These guys are really strange to watch fly.

Gouldian Finch
These guys let me get really close!

Sudan Golden Sparrows

Crested Wood Partridge
Very small. A softball and a half?

Burrowing Owl
A very small ground owl. He was in his own cage behind glass but he very sweetly poked his head up for me to get a picture.

My son’s contribution. He insisted I take a picture of this t-shirt in the gift shop.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Happy Birthday, Saver of Bugs!

I really have been blogging for a whole year!  It’s my darling daughter’s birthday again!  Wow!

You can view last year’s post here and see what an awesome smile she has! https://crittersandchaos.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/once-upon-a-time-i-was-immortal-or-happy-birthday-to-saver-of-bugs/

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAUGHTER!

This year I’m sending you pictures of fuzzies and fish from home.

Your new oto is getting along fine with the old guy. They’ve adopted this plant as their hangout.

Blurry, blurry. But these guys just won’t sit still. There is your first new guy. He wants to be friends but the old guy doesn’t know what to do with him. 🙂

And your other new guy. He is actually much smaller than he looks here. He was just closer to the glass. He is a little bigger than the Cardinal baby. It’s the same one you looked at when you were here. He survived that whole week in with the big guys, so I got him even though he was a bit skinny. He’s very bold and roams the tank and goes right to the surface to eat.

This is MY couch!  A picture that is almost a year old.  And nothing has changed!

Back scratch!

I’m helping mom.

Mom says I need exercise but chasing the rat is hard work!

Whaaaaat!?

I haz beeeg feets!

Remember this?

I miss you! Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday from all your humans, too! 

Hugs n smooches, sweetie!

Happy Birthday to Spider Bait

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SPIDER BAIT!

You bring light and joy into our lives.  We love you heart and soul.

Hugs n Smooches, Your family.

My baby boy turned 18 today.  (Sniffle)  I don’t have a montage of pictures to show you like I did with Saver.  Spider Bait doesn’t want his face all over the blog.  And a life’s history would take too long and probably get me in trouble (“You told them WHAT?”).  But I figure I can get away with a few ‘baby’ stories that have been told ‘ad nauseum’.

• We were at my BFF’s house in the big city waiting to see if my contractions would reach critical before driving all the way back home.  I didn’t want to get home and then turn around and come back.  When I go into labor, I go from zero to NOW in a hurry.  The contractions said NOW and my BFF said she knew a short cut to the Birthing Center.  So she got us lost.  We made it in plenty of time, but she will never ever hear the end of this one.
• Spider Bait’s name was supposed to be Jenna Adair.  Yep, he was supposed to be a she.  I have video to prove it.  But when the Midwife went to wipe ‘her’ off, she made a funny noise and then said, “It’s a boy!”  Within seconds everyone in the birthing room was standing over my half nakedness staring at Spider Bait’s particulars.
• Now this was a special kind of gift.  See, I didn’t know until I found out I was going to have a girl that I actually did have a preference.  And was shocked that I did.  I wanted a boy.  And since there would be no ‘favorite child’ in MY house, I made sure to say ‘her’ or ‘she’ whenever I talked about the baby.  Unfortunately, this was a habit that was hard to break.  I kept calling Spider Bait ‘her’ or ‘she’ for several months after he was born.  He swears that it has scarred him for life.
• Did you know he could climb pretty much anything?  As soon as he learned to crawl he became a monkey as well.  That meant the end of using a crib or playpen to contain him while I did silly things like take a shower or clean with nasty chemicals.
• Like his sister, Spider Bait didn’t like to waste a lot of time sleeping.  So he slept from 10-11 pm to 6-7 am with one one hour nap from 11-12 noon.  And at 15 months he gave up the nap.
• Also at 15 months he figured out that if he used the tips of his pinky fingers and the tips of his thumbs, hands spread, he could pop the safety guard off the VCR.  From that time on, it was no holds barred on what he would take apart.
• When we moved into this house we discovered that the dead bolt on the door was also keyed on the inside.  Now who in the hell would use that?  If there was a fire, you had to find a key to get yourself out?  Not likely.  We never used it when we were home.  Then Spider Bait came along.  If there was a way out of the house, he would find it.   I started locking the door from the inside to keep him in.  The basement door was tricky.  The longest item used on the door (no we didn’t put a dead bolt on it) was a spinning door knob thingy that had 2 rubbery spots on the inside that you squeezed to grab the doorknob.  It lasted 4 days.
• My son saw me yank on the refrigerator door one day.  Eureka!  So THAT’S how you opened it!  And open it he did.  Every single day for I don’t know how long he opened the door and climbed into the fridge and shut the door so he could watch the light go out.  Usually while I was in the shower.  I would take deep breaths and remind myself that he wouldn’t run out of air and suffocate in the 15 minutes it would take me to shower.  No punishment would stop this.  Now imagine me the first time it happened calling from the bathroom when I turned the water off to see what he was doing and getting no answer.  Then me running naked and dripping wet through the house hyperventilating because I couldn’t find him and threatening him for refusing to answer me.  And the near panic when I heard a thump in the fridge.  And there he sat, grinning from ear to ear, thrilled as can be.  You know why kids are cute?  So we don’t kill them for scaring us half to death.
• Did you know my son smacked himself right between the eyes with the clawed end of a hammer?  At 4 years old my son insisted on ‘helping’ me pound nails in on a project.  My kids have never been much on ‘play’ items.  They have always wanted the ‘real’ things and shunned the others.  And keeping them away from or forbidding them real things meant war.  So I gave him a small hammer and strict instructions.  However, my son has an independent streak a mile wide (no idea where he got that from).  He insisted he was perfectly safe holding the hammer in front of him and his face instead of off to the side.  I told him I didn’t want to hear it if he hit himself in the head.  Which, of course, he did; about 2 seconds after another lecture on use.  He sucked in his breath chin quivering and then tipped his head up so the tears wouldn’t fall and stared right at me without a sound.  I just shook my head at him.

I could go on for hours, but this gives you a good picture of life with my son; never slow, never dull, challenging to say the least.  And he’s funny and quirky and good to talk to and is awesome with kids.  I can’t wait to see him as a father.  Okay, that was a lie.  He’s only 18.  I can wait.

Happy Birthday to my surprise boy child! 

We love you thiiisss much!

My Birthday at the Zoo

For my birthday, I decided I wanted to go to the zoo.  I figured out that I hadn’t been since my daughter took a Career Exploration class there.  That was FOUR years ago.  I used to go every year at least once!  And I needed my ‘lellaphant fix!

Mother’s Day (and also my birthday) was out.  They had stuff going on and it would be packed.  So, today, Saturday, would do.  Uh, huh.  Everyone and all his relatives plus a couple of busloads showed up.  There were a trillion, berjillion people there.  Did I mention how I don’t like crowds?  That they make me cranky and give me a headache and make me twitch and sometimes make it hard to breathe?  Yes, I have learned to deal with this (mostly) over the years.  There are too many crowd inducing things I enjoy.  But I start having trouble when the crowds reach the shoulder to shoulder, shuffle walk stage.

The paths and outdoor exhibits were annoying but  manageable.  However, at the indoor monkey house I made it about 20 feet in and said, “Head for the exit.”  I could have turned around and gone back out, but I wanted to see some of it; but I also didn’t want to fight for a window.  Exhibits were peeked at over and around heads as we shuffled and stopped even though we were trying to get out.  My son said, “You know this was a lot easier when I was short and could get through everyone’s legs.  Somehow, I don’t think it would be socially acceptable if I did that now, though.”  I told him that at 5’10” and 17 years old, they would probably arrest him for being a perv. 🙂

Despite the crowds, I had a good time, got my ‘lellaphant fix (twice), and treated myself to gravy fries and 2 (yes, two) softserve vanilla, waffle cone, ice creams.  Yummm.  I also took 137 pictures, whittled down to 70 after eliminating all the bad shots and unwanted duplicates, and despite the fact a lot of the animals were being uncooperative.  For example, I like tigers, but I want more than a hip and twitching tale in my picture.  Now I know no one is going to sit through 70 zoo pictures so I’m going to try to keep it around 20-ish.  Enjoy.

Our greeter at the zoo

Iris along the water’s edge is our header for today.

Rock fish

Sand shark at least 5 ft. long

Sea Otter pup

Mug of the Day 

There is no mug of the day.  The mug of the day, a black and orange striped tiger mug purchased at the zoo and never even used, is lying in crumbs in the garbage can.  As I was carrying things into the house, I bent over just a bit and the freaking slippery plastic bag it was in squirted out of my arms.  Did it land in the multitude of soft dirt filled plant pots in the driveway?  Hell, no.  It flipped so it missed them and hit the concrete.  Fortunately, it was the only casuality.  My son’s zoo shot glass survived and so did the ‘It’s my birthday.’ rationalized purchase of a soap stone (?) egg carved with an Elephant.  So you get a picture of that instead.

Once Upon A Time I Was Immortal or Happy Birthday to Saver of Bugs!

Once upon a time I was immortal.  I raced my parents’ car on the back roads, jumped horses over large obstacles, faced down screaming charging stallions and snarling attacking dogs always confident I would succeed.  And I did.  Once in a while a, “Whew, that was close” would come along, but it didn’t stop me.  I could handle anything.  Right.

I remember exactly when I became horrifically, fearfully mortal. It was the day after my daughter was born. As I held that small, sweet child to my breast, fear put a stake through my heart. What if I did not live long enough to raise my daughter?  Who would take her if her father and I were killed?  I didn’t want her being raised by my family.  I wanted her raised in an atmosphere of tolerance and acceptance no matter who she became. I wanted her to know she would be loved no matter what, no strings attached.  And that being happy was more important than wealth or importance.  I had to live long enough to raise my daughter!

Did this fear ever go completely away?  No.  But Life makes you learn to live with it.  And so did my daughter.  When I took her picture at 3 weeks of age and actually looked at her picture without her there to fog my brain, I realized I was in trouble.  Those eyes were direct and knowing, an old wise woman at 3 weeks of age.

And she wasn’t waiting around for anyone.   At 3 weeks old she quit taking naps.  Yes, you read correctly – 3 weeks old.  Bedtime was from 10 or 11 o’clock to 7 a.m.  There was no time to waste.  When she finally managed to flip herself over (early, of course), there was no sleep for 10 days while she practiced even in her sleep, getting stuck in the corners and howling to be dragged back to the end of the crib to start over.  Nothing would satisfy her till she could roll herself in any direction.  She would have walked at 5 months, but her right foot was crooked and it imbalanced her.  The doctors didn’t want her in shoes so she had to wait till about 9 months old to take off.  And again, there was no peace till she could do a toddle type run, which took about a month.  At which time she never looked back and her poor parents have been playing catch up ever since.

*****

I originally had plans to put up a progression of photos through the years, all right and proper.  But as I started going through them, and finding that some of my photo albums are in the pit of ‘someplace safe’, I realized that it just wasn’t ‘doing it’ for me.  The ‘proper’ pictures weren’t awful, just not ‘right’.  Yes, I wanted the one of her with her new baby brother and the one with her father.  But then I realized what I wanted for this day was her smile.  Her real smile.  The smile a child has that makes her parents willing to slay dragons, to kill or die for their child.  And finding that smile, the smile you see everyday at home, was surprisingly hard to find in pictures.  But I found some that made me smile and made me cry, ‘cause that is my little girl.

(Unfortunately, some scanned better than others, and one was a grainy from school picture.  But they are all my little girl.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAVER OF BUGS!

You bring light and joy into our lives.  We love you heart and soul.

Hugs n Smooches, Your family.

A new baby brother

Dad and his TV buddy

Beautiful even when hot and sweaty

I'm wearing LIP GLOSS! (Parents - Nooooooo!)

First rock wall – “I can so do this!”

Even with her eyes!

That's my girl!

And that's my girl!

Happy Birthday, Sweetie!

This is a present from your brother!

Happy Birthday!