Don't miss it: Adobe Mountain Wildlife Center Open House

Are you local? Do you love wildlife? Want to support a really good cause? Check out the Adobe Mountain Wildlife Center Open House this weekend! I couldn't come today, but I'll be there tomorrow (Sunday). Say hi if you're there!

The open house runs 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 21 and Sunday, Nov. 22. There are live wildlife displays, activity booths, and more; and you can tour the rehabilitation facility. It won't come around again for a year, so check it out. Here are a few treasures from last year:







The address is 2800 W. Pinnacle Peak Rd, Phoenix, 85027. Take I-17 to Pinnacle Peak Road (Exit 217), go west on Pinnacle Peak, turn north at the first street (less than a quarter of a mile), and follow the signs throuhg the Adobe Mountain School Area to the even parking.

Obviously, bring your camera!

Monday goodies/Wildlife wednesday: Cormorants

After my last Monday post, Thérèse asked for cormorants. I've got cormorants. I've got cormorants to spare.

Cormorant-human relations can be a tricky thing. In some areas, they're considered pests because of their droppings, stealing fish from anglers, or just sheer numbers. In China, however, anglers have actually used cormorants for thousands of years to help them fish. Kind of like feathered, swimming, really goofy-looking hunting dogs.

For us, they're just a blast to watch. I don't know if any of you are Dr. Seuss fans, but one of my son's favorites used to be On Beyond Zebra. One of the pages talks about "nutches," which guard their perches thusly:



It always reminds me of this:


They act like it too -- that one cormorant is in flight because no one will let it on its perch. Also, their call sounds a lot like a belch. Add to that the fact that when one does get dislodged from its branch, it bumps off the next one, and that one careens into two or three more, and so on, and they all call out when disturbed; and you have a fluttering, silhouetted symphony of burps every evening. Best nature walk ever if you have a kid; trust me.

Here, have a few more:









Hooray for cormorants. And see, I do requests! Ask away.

Happy beginning/mid week.

Monday goodies/Wildlife Wednesday: Great egrets

Great egrets. Fierce. Graceful. Eaters of insects, fish, baby gators, snakes, frogs, small birds, and really just about anything.

Not eaters of people, and so great fun to watch.

I already did great blue herons, so I figured a Monday with great egrets was in order.

I had this all ready, but Blogger didn't want to do anything but throw my computer into a "Not responding" fit for two days. So now it's a combo Monday goodies and Wildlife Wednesday. Egrets are good for all occasions, no?









Hope you're all having a good week! What animal/pretty stuff/cool thing should I do next? Also, Species a Day write-ups and funny-kid posts coming.

Monday goodies: Great blue herons

Happy Monday! Time for a picture break. I need me some birds.

Before further (kid-caused, technology-caused, or other-issue-caused) ado -- herons! Great blue herons, to be exact. Fishing, eating, glaring, and generally being awesome.

Black widows, Part I

I keep promising to do regular wildlife posts, and something keeps putting them off: sometimes something more important comes up, sometimes, well, sometimes I don't know what happens. But I finally had it all squared away this week. I'm kicking it off with ... big surprise ... black widow spiders. (I know. Again. But I thought a proper post was in order.)

However, yet again, I got sidetracked, this time by a cold. More to the point, by my cold medicine. I've had a cold for half the week, and it's not the end of the world for sure, but I finally decided I would actually like to breathe. This is a problem. Decongestants, antihistamines, expectorants (what? I'm already grossing you out with black widows, right?), and really anything stronger than a children's chewable vitamin (and maybe those too) -- they all have about the average medicinal effect on me. What isn't average at all is their drowsiness effect. Seriously. I just now sat here, with my head cocked to the side like a dog waiting for a treat, racking my brain because I couldn't remember the word "drowsy." Cold medicine especially, including the alleged non-drowsy kind, either knocks me out straightaway or renders my intellect somewhere between Sarah Palin and a sea slug. (Decide for yourself who belongs on which end of that spectrum. It's still not good news for me.)

So if I were to give you a Wildlife Wednesday this week, all you would have gotten would have been something like this:



See? Did you see the error there? I just proofread it, and I know there's at least one error. I spelled "Yea" "Yay!" Clearly I'm not ready for this post.

But! Today is a good day for black widows anyway, because this one won me a camera rental, thanks to Aimee over at Greeblemonkey and all the wonderful, awesome, able-to-see-beyond-spider-prejudice people who voted for me:


You might recognize her from the top, although I flipped her for the header. Embiggen her here.

That gives me an idea. I can totally cheat and call this "Black widows Part 1." I have plenty of images from when I wasn't drugged/incoherent. Enjoy.

The classic:



A brilliantly illuminated juvenile (thought by some to be an adult brown widow but I totally don't think it is, and I've hatched a generation of spiderlings and am watching them through their moltings just to prove myself correct -- more on that next week):


A super closeup, showing her eyes and mouthparts:



And just so you can appreciate how small the eyes are and how big of a freak I am for getting so close, a full-frame head-on shot:


And lastly, our babies:



...and their rather unfortunate favorite meal:



I'll have more to share next week.

What? I look at your baby pictures.