Borrrrring....

Wow, this has been the slowest start of any year since forever. As you saw in an earlier post I got in an adult female bald eagle the beginning of January and was able to take her back and release her where she was found.

Since then I've had a few calls about birds but they were just informational questions and not one needing rescuing. The resident and rehab birds are still here. I'm waiting for the feds to make up their mind about my sending my male golden eagle to Cornell. It's a long story, Cornell and I are waiting for the feds in Denver to make up their minds to honor his approval to receive the bird. That was granted by the state of NY and the USFWS NY regional office back in November. It's a governmental thing, hurry up and wait.

Until then we're all anxiously waiting for the end of this freezing, windy winter. It's been so long since we've had one we're all not used to the cold. It was -2 this morning when I got up and by noon it had climbed up to.....+2. Supposed to be in the negative double digits tonight. Hard to keep water in front of the birds and I have to quickly gather eggs before they freeze in the nest boxes.

Stay warm everyone, where ever you are.

Happy Valentine's Day

Hey everybody, Happy Valentine's Day to you all. Or as my friend Linda in TX and Cheryl in Scotland say, y'all. It's a beautiful day here, sunny and amazingly, 59 degrees so far. I have three birds going to new homes and this warm weather will certainly make it possible for them to fly out of here. One male golden eagle is going to Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, one female golden eagle to Zuni, NM and one female, I think, black-billed magpie going to Chapel Hill, NC. Good wishes for all of them during the rest of their lives.

He's flying!

This is such a wonderful photo for one reason. MIKHAIL, on his first day in the large flight area, has made it to the very highest wall perch. He's not on it in this photo because when I went in he flew around and landed on the next one down. This beautiful year old Prairie Falcon came in last year with a fractured wing. Drs. Blessing and Pedersen did the repair surgery and as you can see, it's a great success. Now all he has to do is get strong enough for release which will be in a few months when the weather is nice.

Fun time

As I believe I've mentioned in earlier posts, I do a lot of volunteering at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in the graphics department. In 2009, because of all the exhibits being put up, the reinstall of the Whitney Gallery of Art, the repainting, etc. of the gift shop, I put in 740+ hours. Last year, because there was only one large exhibit, Splendid Heritage, and not much else, I only had a bit over 400 hours.

Each February the historical center honors the volunteers by having us all in for a brunch. Well it started out as a dinner with staff skits, then went to a dinner with great staff entertainment. One year it was a "Mystery Dinner" where we all were asked to dress up in 1920s costumes. That's me in a skirt, believe it or not. Now they serve a wonderful brunch and still have the staff skits. A great time was had by all.

I asked my former graphics boss, Kimber Swenson, to join me for the brunch. The other photo is of myself, Kimber (seated) and Lynda Covert. Kimber, an awesome graphics designer, is now working from her home office. Lynda, and her husband Jimmy, are fabulous furniture designers with pieces placed in homes of the rich and famous all over the country. Lynda also does amazingly exquisite bead work on pillows and the furniture they make. This is the start of my 28th year of volunteering, hopefully I'll make it to 30.

Little falconer

Here's the newest photo of little Ashley Mathews. Her dad, Nate, and Aunt Elizabeth are the ones who drove up here from Cheney, KS last June to pick up a baby golden eagle, CHOOY, then took her to a new home at the Eagle Valley Raptor Center. Ashley was born near Thanksgiving and is the apple of her parents eye. Such a beautiful little girl, doncha think?

Same old, same old, sort of

It's been quite some time since I've posted a message. Right now I'm sitting here looking out at a mini blizzard. When I was doing my cleaning this morning there were a few flakes coming down but nothing noticable.

I have a dinner to go to this evening, celebrating Robert Burns birthday, as we Scots do every February (even tho is birthday is actually in January). I told a friend I'd pick her up but she called to say it was horrible at her house, about 15 minutes east of here. While we were talking the snow arrived at my house but as I'm sitting here typing the snow has greatly diminished and I can see quite a distance now. The two photos are from last week when we did have a bit of snow but the sun was so bright you needed sunglasses to go outside. They are looking NE and SE from my front door.

OMG !!! A pair of golden eagles are flying over the house. It's rather windy so they're doing a lot of up and down in the air. One is an immature but I couldn't get a good look at the second one, may have been an adult. There are almost 70 eagles nests in the Big Horn Basin and a couple not far from here. At this time of the year the adults are reinforcing their bonds and thinking about sprucing up their nests. I certainly hope they find something to eat but with all the rabbit tracks in and around my house there must be lots of prey for them to catch.

Friends in IL and TX have reported very horrible weather in their area. Two feet of snow in IL and single digits in TX. Not usual for those areas at all. Stay warm everyone, Spring must eventually show up.