Sunday, January 27, 2008

Injured Barred Owl

We had an amazing visitor to our house last night. Driving home from a party Kieran and Daddy spotted a large bird lying on the edge of the road. When we turned around and came back we realized it was a large owl, and it was alive (though barely)! It was lying face down on the edge of the road and had clearly been hit by a car. As it was going to fall below 20 degrees last night, we rescued the owl and took it home to our warm, darkened basement.

Within an hour the owl was standing up, and by morning she was moving around freely. This is a barred owl, and is truly a magnificent creature! She is very large, standing about eighteen inches tall, and has the darkest brown eyes we have ever seen, we were ally mesmerized. She didn't like us too close to the front of the plastic dog kennel where we had her housed, but other than that, she seemed to quickly accept our presence.

We tracked down the Virginia Raptor Conservancy and arranged to drop her off today. Kent is a licensed Raptor rehabilitator and allowed us to stay and watch while he did a full inspection of the owl, even asking Ken to hold her for a while (see picture, it is a special grip that controls their feet and tail feathers, so you can't get bit). He did not find any broken bones and the wings appeared functional. In fact, she was quite frisky (a good sign). I don't know about you, but throw me against the windshield of a car moving at 35 miles an hour and you would cause plenty of damage. He did say that she would have died from exposure last night, but now that she has recovered some, he will try and release her back into the wild if her eyesight tests okay (that is on of the biggest concerns with owls, as their large eyes are very vulnerable). All in all, it made for an exciting Saturday, with Kieran pretending to be an owl and imagining with Daddy that our Subaru was an Owl ambulance as we sped to the owl hospital. :)

Here she is in our dog kennel in the basement, look at those eyes!



Here we are at the home of a licensed raptor rehabilitator in Falls Church, VA. He has just removed the owl from our vehicle.



While the inspection of the owls skeleton was not terribly pleasant for the owl, it did not show any fractures.



Here is Ken tickled to death after being asked to hold her while she is hydrated (he placed a tube down her throat to give her water).

Friday, January 18, 2008

Map of religion in the U.S.

Interesting map... I am curious what "christian" in yellow refers to?

Click on image to see full size.


Link

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Kieran's Thoughtful Ponderings

As we have proudly mentioned several times before, Kieran seems to have an amazing grasp of language for his age. What we have really noticed lately is his analytical skills as well. So if you can stand a beaming parent, read the conversation below as an example of Kieran's ponderings...

Actual conversation between Kieran and Dad on the way home from daycare:

Kieran: "Dad, crash that car over there" as he points out the front windshield at an oncoming car.

Dad: Absentmindedly, "I don't want to crash that car."

Kieran: "Oh." Brief pause. "It is too dangerous?"

Dad: "Yes, it would be dangerous."

Kieran: "Oh." Brief pause. "They might get squashed?"

Dad: "Yes, they might get squashed."

Kieran: "Oh." Pause. "Can I watch Bob the Builder when we get home?"

Dad: "Ok"


There you have it, a clear demonstration of considering cause and effect, consequences, and a rave review of Bob the Builder! :)

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Our Puppy is Here!!!

Our female German Shorthaired Pointer puppy is here, after a long journey from California! She is a sweetheart and has been a lot of fun! We can't wait to get into showing with her, as she comes from top lines.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Top Ten Lists

I am sure most people are well innundated with top ten lists by now, but in case you are not, here are a few I found interesting:

  • Time Magazine's 50 Top Ten lists.


  • National Geographic's Top Ten News Stories.


  • NPR's Top Ten Music Albums by genre
  • .

  • Rolling Stone's Top 100 Songs.


  • Top 100 companies to work for in 2007.


  • Technorati's Top 100 blogs (list is dynamic).


  • Wired's Top Ten Scientific discoveries
  • .

  • PC World's Top 100 products of 2007.


  • PC Mag's Top 100 undiscovered websites.


  • Lifehacker's Top Ten lists (tech nerds only).
  • New Year with a Bang!

    Kieran decided to celebrate the new year by cooking his bottle of vitamins in the microwave! Needless to say, we are heading out to try and catch a New Year's special on Microwaves as the Microwave had a fire burning inside of it for a few minutes before Mommy was alerted.

    The picture below is not our microwave, but it could be. If you added a small fire inside and made the smoke blacker it would be the exact image we encountered.



    P.S. Ken was on baby duty, and was passed out on the couch when this happened. So an early start for father-of-the-year award!