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sallyls: Thank you for the heads up and the link re: the "Endangered Species Act Under Attack". I clicked on the link and submitted my plea, as well. That's pretty scary. There is so much hope in the comeback of the California Condor.! Also, I was so heartened the other day to read in our local newspapers something about future possible expansions of our San Diego County coastal protected waters to areas not already covered... I wonder what would happen to all of our coastal sea creatures and plants if those precious, precarious ecosystems are no longer offered the vital protection they need! Re: your sad events... Please accept my cyber-hand-holding. I will say a prayer for strength, comfort and blessings for you and yours, sallyls.

Catbird and sallyls: Thanks for the confirmation of my inkling that our neighborhood rth is a first-year youngster. I saw her out on the same light pole on my bike ride today. She was eyeing the little field just next to the sidewalk below her... That field is regularly CHOCK FULL of bunnies!!! When Honey was able to walk that far (It's about a quarter to a half mile from our house) she would be eagerly (and hopefully) rubbernecking with bright-eyed panting at that field, the whole time we'd be dragging her past it!

I hope you all forgive me for the Audubon Action post but I thought perhaps a few of you might be interested in what is going on and the Audubon Society's position. We need to make our feelings known if we want to keep protections for our wildlife and their habitats.  The recent weakening of the Endangered Species Act and Migratory Bird Act has already allowed developers to cut down nest trees as soon as the fledglings are gone, whereas previously if there was an "active" nest it was protected year round.  The nonsense of removing a nesting tree/area in the off-season is so dangerous; of course the nest isn't used in non-nesting season, but if we remove all of the nesting areas when the nests are not in use where will the birds nest in the following year?   I don't think most businesses/developers give any care about the future, they worship the almighty dollar and profit. PaleMale and Lola's nest on the 927 building was removed in  2004 with Federal permission under the looser interpretation of the MGA, so although the nest had been in active use and producing chicks for many years, it was allowed to be removed one winter while it was "inactive".  Very very sad. 

"I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees." Dr. Seuss

Thanks Socal.  Just catching my breath...

Add me to the supporters of this cause, Sally. There may be some who will have other opinions, but I am hopeful that they will, at the least, just listen, and read, and think what our world would be like without wildlife, and that is where this attempt to circumvent the law, is taking us.

Catbird:

Add me to the supporters of this cause, Sally. There may be some who will have other opinions, but I am hopeful that they will, at the least, just listen, and read, and think what our world would be like without wildlife, and that is where this attempt to circumvent the law, is taking us.

Me, too, Sally, I'm in. Another voice, and another hand to hold. I second all that Socal and Catbird have already said.

Thanks all.  I wish I had thought to create its own thread earlier, I'd never done that before! I hope combined voices can have an effect.

My sister sent me a review of a book on birds/birding recently out, and I thought it might be of interest to my friends on the Tulsa Forum (and the watchers too):

Birder of Paradise - By ROBERT SULLIVAN - THE LIFE OF THE SKIES - By Jonathan Rosen.

The review in part reads: It is a thoughtful and engaging journey, one that discusses the history of birding alongside changes in the conception of nature from the 19th century until the present. There are cameos by Frank Chapman, the banker-turned-birder who created the Christmas Bird Count in 1900; Kenn Kaufman, the Jack Kerouac of birding, who in the ’70s hitchhiked the back roads of America for sightings; and Thoreau, who gets taken down as an antisocial hermit and praised as the inventor of backyard bird-watching. Theodore Roosevelt is Rosen’s hero, partly because he was a books-to-woods president who would drop bird news at a cabinet meeting (“Just now I saw a chestnut-sided warbler, and this is only February”), partly because Rosen sees him as “a rare but archetypal creature: an outdoor intellectual.” This statement is feather-ruffling if not overblown and potentially insulting to the likes of Gary Snyder and Wendell Berry and even Thomas Jefferson. But Rosen sees Roosevelt as presiding over a turning point in America’s relationship with nature. “For all he loved limitless frontiers, he understood the need for curbs,” Rosen writes. Birding is a kind of weaponless hunting, an attack by well-meaning mimes, and as such, says Rosen, it highlights our Jekyll and Hyde attitude. “It mediates between the urge to kill and the urge to preserve; between an America of unbounded abundance and a country of shrinking resources.”

Yikes! I apologize for the billboard size text in that last post. No idea why that happened. Oh well, us oldies (but goodies) will not need our reading glasses to read it, though.

No apologies needed for that one, Catbird! It was refreshingly easy on the eyes.... so much so, that your "Yikes!" post practically begged for a magnifying glass! It takes our middle-aged eyes sooo much longer to re-adjust... I rather got spoiled by that larger-font post. Thanks for the book pointer. I'll put it on my list. Ahhh... So many books, and so little time! I do hope you hear from your relatives soon, Catbird. Do let us know when you know. Still praying for them.

The California condor chick survived the fires! For links to the story and the YouTube video, check on Donna's PalemaleIrregulars blog for Saturday. The nest was 200 feet up in a redwood, but the flames only reached 100 feet up, but there, they burned a heart shaped hole right through the redwood.

Great news about the condor chicks.  I had followed their story a bit earlier and knew they had rescued the birds in the aviaries there.

We have not had any storm related birds come in, which is pretty amazing considering that 7 days later there are still probably around 80,000 people without electricity and many businesses; the damage was very widespread across our city leaving nearly no home untouched in some way. My brother-in-law is an hourly worker, and he has not been on the job for 7 days.  So he has lost 25% of his family's income for the month.  Itis one effect of the storms, and I can't imagine the impact after Katrina and Gustav and Ike, that we do't really consider, the loss of wages as well as homes and goods.

We are having a lot of disasters in a lot of different ways this year, and they keep falling on our heads like bowling balls. I have still not heard from or been able to reach my Houston family.

The bright side of the penny though is that Tulsa had a bumper crop of healthy baby redtails this year.

Catbird-sorry for your worry about your family!  It must be hard.  Hopefully no news is good news and they just cannot reach you. Prays for you and  yours.

Catbird, there are still a lot of outages here, powerwise, also some cells are sporadic.  If you want I can try to track them down for you.