My 2D homies

[Bluebell]

oh nooooooooo, how'd the hatchling get fried?

i forgot to keep an eye on that eagle here but they seem to be there still.

[Bluebell]

the cam is a great way to send them love&blessings

[Jade]

The yearling flew into some out of date electrical wires, as it happened in super rural Iowa. One of the raptor centers already did recon and found a bunch of poles in the area that need updating and sent a presentation to the power company, and I guess they are pretty good about fixing them (as long as someone asks them too...) When they're dangerous like that, they're dangerous for anyone. A kid flying a kite or climbing the pole or a nearby tree could get fried up just as easily.

The little baby just passed because of nature... someone thinks they saw one of the parents accidentally land on it... either way the other two now have a much higher chance of survival. Last year all three fledged but now they are all deceased.

As you can see the drama can definitely be engaging. These little cam birdies definitely get a lot of love and light from people all over the world, and I see people having cathartic emotional experiences living vicariously through their trials. It's so fascinating!

[Bluebell]

it really is! i thought of that too.  the cam allows many people to, even unwittingly, send energy. like Ra said about sending 2D love to help them reach 3D.

[michael430]

[deleted]

[Jade]

Hadn't even thought of that one...! Might be a possibility...

[Jade]

Hi friends, I am bumping this thread to share some tragic news about a 2d buddy of mine that you may have seen me mention before.





This is Frank, as he had been named before us. I sometimes like to call him By-tor. Contrary to most lore we have regarding bears, Frank had a very gentle and patient demeanor. Rumor has it that his den is quite close to where we live, which would be supported by his sometimes twice daily visits. Frank would come up a deer trail out of a ravine from the state park lands behind my house, and up over a large patch of yucca on a hill where the deer would sleep in the winter. His path, long before we got here, was to come through our backyard through a busted panel of fence, and upon recent discovery, to delight in the black-oil sunflower treats we had left out for the finches and grosbeaks. Then he would pass either across our rickety deck, or on the narrow path beside it, and begin his trash foraging in the neighborhood. Vegan hippies that we are, we rarely produce a bag of trash more than once a week on trash day, but on occasion he did find such treats in our bin as spent edamame shells and an empty bag of sugar.

On the (rare but increasingly more frequent in the heat of summer) foraging excursions that happened in daylight, he was often accompanied by magpies and feral cats enjoying the trash that he strew everywhere. He was always quiet, slow, deliberate. In fact, when food supplies are plenty, bears are extremely docile and tolerant. Bears only are agitated or dangerous in certain situations, which are generally dangerous across most species: males' testosterone fluctuating with the seasons and causing them to spar, or sparring for territory, and females when they are defending their young. Also, if resources are generally scarce and the animals are near starvation, they may get more desperate. Yes, bears have great big teeth and are strong with great long claws, but they do not see humans as a food source unless they are borderline deranged. Bears are not hunters, they are foragers and opportunists. They eat nuts, berries, bugs. They will also fish. Sometimes they will eat carrion. If they find a newborn deer or elk or something else tiny and helpless, they may eat that too. But a human is not a bear meal. The trash buffet (and birdseed) that Frank came to feast upon was his food, it was stable, and he knew that. Is the strewn trash a tedious eyesore? Heck yes it is. Is it a bit nervewrecking the first time you hear a 400lb beast lumbering across your dilapidated deck past your front door and single pane windows? Uh, yeah. Is he even sort of frightening the 10th time you see him? No, he's not. He walks this line between adorable and majestic and it's awesome and fabulous. Even when he's rifling through a discarded, rancid shrimp tray. He's still this magical beast that graces us with his presence and trust.

Friday morning, Frank's body was found "riddled" with bullet holes, about a block away, in a neighbor's front yard. Someone shot at him, multiple times, while he casually walked through a residential neighborhood. His corpse was within a few feet of someone's front door, and that someone had a child in their house (who was the one who found the corpse). Most of the response has been outrage by my neighbors, thankfully - they all appreciated him and recognized his gentle demeanor.

I'd post an article, but you can google "bear poached colorado springs" and find plenty of hits if you'd like to read about it. Some articles have a picture of his corpse - and one that I saw posted today confirmed that it was indeed Frank as we weren't yet sure. Anyway. I'm in mourning for the murder of my friend, and it is very sad. Luckily, the DNR takes poaching extremely seriously, and violations carry a fine up to $20,000 and a felony charge, not to mention any other unlawful discharge of a weapon charges he may face. Of course, justice will never bring Frank back, I just hope they find who it was because they shouldn't be living in between state park land and numerous wildlife reserves if they don't have the patience to deal with a wild animal in their carelessly placed trash.

RIP Frank. We thought you were going to be a part of our lives much longer than you were (and had engineered several Frank-friendly fence designs so that we still had somewhere to keep in our shih tzu). We also have our birdseed dealer engineering some bear-proof feeding devices for us just to see if he can. So you had become more than a welcome nuisance, Frank. I am sure I may see you again as an incarnation as a bird soon because you seem to have grown so fond of our great birdseed. Soon you'll be one of the finchies napping *in* the feeder instead of beneath it. No matter what, godspeed on your next endeavors, Frank. Until we meet again, dear friend!

[Spaced]

That's so sad RIP Frank

[Minyatur]

RIP Frank, you looked awesome

[Bluebell]

i'm so sorry about ur friend Jade. =( seeing his picture makes me very sad, knowing what happened.

[Bluebell]

i'll pray for his soul to heal and be looked after.

[Shemaya]

Very sorry, Jade.  So unnecessary.  He was beautiful creature, I am looking forward to the day when human violence ends, and all earth's creatures live in harmony.

[Jade]

Thanks for all your prayers and good thoughts, friends! I am sure Frank is being very well watched over. He definitely had the sentience of an animal that had been observing humans, so maybe he'll be close enough to 3D to get a push over the edge soon! If he needs any more investment, he knows where to find me~

[Jade]

Today we had a visitor ~





A tiny little babby!! Look at that mohawk!! Awesome!! We have a sneaking suspicion that this may be a progeny of Frank (if you look in the picture above, Frank appears to have a red mohawk down his back as well, and light muzzle...). We're still deciding on a name. We let him hang out a bit then tried to scare him away, as it's daylight and there's a bear murderer around. He was *not* fazed by us, but eventually the neighbors let out their dogs and he took off (second picture is him noticing the danger!)

Periodically sending him little cloaking bubbles so he stays hidden. My fence line is the edge between wilderness so I doubt anyone saw him but us. Godspeed little mohawk dude!!!

[Spaced]

Frank Jr.!

[Bluebell]

<3 praying for new bear.

can't the cops do something about the murderer?

[Jade]

There is a felony charge and a $20,000 fine, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife take poaching very seriously, so they are definitely on the lookout. It might take a while but the murderer will probably blab and then someone will turn them in for the reward ($500 for info currently). Apparently about a decade ago CP&W tried to reintroduce lynx. Some folks didn't take too kindly to that, so they hunted the lynx, and sent pieces of the flesh of the dead lynx as threats to the DNR. It took a while but they were eventually caught. Apparently the poaching division has comparable resources to CSPD homicide so I'm holding out hope.

[Bluebell]

wow. i'd just take my rifle and go hunt the *ucker myself =P

[Jade]

Bounty's $500, come and get him!!! Bounty hunter is a good job for a neutral.

[Bluebell]

haha. i should make that a career, hunting poachers. would be emotionally satisfying.

[Jade]

Yeah, I remember I used to love watching the ASPCA/Humane Society shows on Animal Planet when I was younger and live vicariously through the first responders to animal emergencies. Kile mentioned he now kind of wants to be like Dexter for people who kill animals, but again he's neutral evil so slicing them up and keeping trophies of their blood I suppose would be the next extreme.

[Bluebell]

lol. yeah that'd be too far.

[Jade]

I took some video of the evening hummingbird feedings, as they can get quite intense and are very fun to watch. As you can see, the need for a second feeder is high! We are going through about 3 cups of nectar a day.

[Jade]

Short vid of tonight's feeding:

[Jade]

Today I tried to take another video, but the hummingbirds interfered.



This is a giant "Russian Sage" (though not a true salvia) plant that is growing in our yard. It wasn't until recently we knew what it was, let alone if it was alive - when we moved in it was a mess of dead twigs. Now, it is the most "alive" thing in our yard! It is constantly alive/buzzing with what has to be at least a hundred bees... probably more... definitely many more than I've ever seen in my memory. I tried to record a video so you could see the movement/hear the sound, but the droning buzz of the bees sounded like white noise in the background of constant humming birds streaming by (who also like to drink the nectar from the flowers).

Sadly, I had a hard time snapping many pictures of this swarm, but here's a cutie sneaking around the flowers:



As you can maybe see, the great majority of the flower buds haven't even opened yet, so I'm excited for what is to come! I may try again to record a video, if I can pinpoint a time of low hummer activity.

[Jade]

Birdbath has been a popular place in the 90+ degree heat



These are two fledgling western bluebirds. They're part of a family unit that comes by almost daily. Western bluebirds are insectivores, so they don't come for the birdseed (though being able to perch on my fence and overlook the neighboring meadow isn't so bad) but they do come and love to wash their lovely blue feathers. A few weeks ago one of them left one of the feathers which is one of my new favorite possessions (!!!). But they are very sweet. Usually dad comes by (who is striking indigo and orange) and scopes it out, and then a few minutes later the rest of the family (mom and 3 fledglings) arrive. Sometimes two family units arrive together.

I thought I had pictures of the adults that I had taken (or my husband, he took the above pic) but I just have tons and tons of lazuli buntings that came by through the spring. Here are what the adults look like:

[Jade]

My husband and I went camping this past weekend, and had a wonderful time. Our friend who owns the birdseed shop we visit (he used to work for the DNR) gave us a hot tip on a place in Pike National Forest to visit that borders a wilderness area. We were not disappointed. Taking photos is a new hobby of my husband's so I'm going to share some beautiful shots (most are his, some are mine)

When we first entered the park we were visited by a couple of hawks. Kile managed to get this awesome shot of one of them taking off:



They visited a few more times on our visit, but mostly soaring high overhead.

Here's another friend we made at our campsite: A gray jay!



Apparently these precocious little featherballs are also known as "Camp robbers", and this one displayed no fear of humans! Kile was thrilled because it came down so close to him when he asked ("come here!" -bounces down-)  and he got several good pictures, including this one them checking each other out.

Where we settled had some awesome old cabins, who knows how old





Butters had a great time, as always, though there were a bit too many pine needles at our first camp for him to hike much with us. He really enjoys the meadows.



Light through the trees -



The next morning I woke up to my husband completely losing his mind. Our friend the gray-jay came back, and once again responded to Kile's request that it "come here!" and it hopped down onto the log right next to him, about a foot away.



Omg so cute.

The clouds looked a bit ominous and rain was potentially in the forecast, and our spot was on a SKETCHY gravel road and we drive a tiny Kia sedan without any clearance, so we decided we should try to get out before the large gravel that we'd have to drive over got wet. Here's a picture of some flowers I took on the way out (there is no way to describe the mountain flowers here... I wish where we had gone had more meadows, but I've seen some mind-blowing meadows already)



As we were leaving, we noticed all the spots towards the front of the park were empty (and some of them were awesome). We had gotten past the scary part of the road so we went back to check out some of the other sites - they were all along a creek with tons of beaver ponds.

We pulled into one site and were admiring the huge beaver house/structure and all their dams at this cool little pond, when suddenly emerging from the forest....

(cont. next post due to image limit)

[Jade]

A MOOSE??!







He actually got pretty close to us (under 250ft) and the pond was definitely shallow enough for him to charge us. He seemed very mellow though, but I still desired to give him his space so as he got closer we moved to get into the car and observe him from there. He seemed to notice that he disturbed *us*, and hightailed it through the tall brush.

We decided to stay another night, rain or shine! (We got both!)

Some pictures of beautiful campsite #2:







Kile whistling "Xanadu" (by Rush, not Olivia Newton John, though both would have been enjoyable)








BTW... the moose came back in the evening... but just for a moment to pass by and check us out again, we didn't get any pictures. Seriously though, a moose?? Couldn't have asked to see anything cooler. Add that to the shot of the hawk in flight and I'd say it was a successful camping trip. I love living here in the rockies and I hope that when Gary gets back from his trip that he has some pictures to share too.

Thanks for letting me share mine, everyone!!!

[Jade]

This last trip we took a crazy amount of pictures. Too many to edit to fit down to work in a post, hah, so I made a gallery. Not a ton of wildlife this trip, but be prepared for many pictures of flowers!

http://imgur.com/a/ikNtF

[Jade]

Some pictures from a walk in the park nearby.



Wild sunflowers! These are by far the most prolific wildflower in our little foothill/prairie ecosystem.







Crazy awesome thistles



This one got photobombed....



Lizard!!



More pretty flowers...



This cool little alien dude decided to grace us with his presence. Kile said it was the biggest praying mantis he'd ever seen in Colorado! I've seen them up to three times that size in the midwest though.



Can you spot the prairie dog? We couldn't hardly either! There are thousands that live here but the grass was so tall that spotting them was difficult!