Goodbye Nero

As some of you know, one of the American kestrel's that I trained here at Audubon died yesterday evening. If I've talked to you about my experience at the Audubon, I have probably mentioned him. He was a little bird with lots of personality. Below are a few of my favorite photos of him.

 

Nero (and Jeff) teaching me how to handle raptors for the first time.

Nero, bathed and with his most favorite food, after a long couple days of outreach.

Just hanging out.

His death caught all of us completely by surprise. True to Nero, he was found with food in his beak and talons. Right now, we don't know what happened. There was nothing obviously wrong and he was still young for a kestrel in captivity. There is a necropsy being done in hopes of getting some answers.

I had grown accustomed to my little buddy's morning greeting/twitter when I got to the barn and will miss him heaps :(

Kabul Beauty School

I took a small diversion from my regular non-fiction books and read this true story about a woman who helped set up a beauty school in Afghanistan. After leaving behind a bad situation in the states, she traveled as a volunteer for an NGO. The book follows her struggles figuring out how to help women earn a living after going through remarkable circumstances. I don't know that I would be brave enough to go to a country where there is a language barrier and threats to your well being on a daily basis. Props to her. In the past couple years she has had to leave everything she loved due to the threat level but she is hoping to go back. As the book drew to a close, all I could think was Deb Rodriguez is one gutsy woman.

Pictures of the Week!

I have spent the better part of the past week in meetings - house meetings, education staff meetings, all-day all-staff meeting and CPR recertification. Not much ground breaking (or interesting) has happened so here a couple pictures I've taken the past week.  Enjoy!

I found this leaf in the snow on a cross country ski

A squirrel enjoying a pine cone bird feeder made by students last week

Tonight's Sunset

Same sunset, different angle.

The Moon!

Four Fish

I came across this book on a trip to Barnes and Noble - thought it was looked interesting but didn't buy it. Then, for my birthday this past year, my parents surprised me with it! I hadn't even put this title on my wish list. Apparently there had been some hype behind this book and it was making the non-fiction "books you should read" lists of publications like Newsweek and they thought I would like it.

 It was certainly an interesting read. As the title implies this book looks at the life history of 4 fish that often end up on someones dinner plate - Salmon, Sea Bass, Cod and Tuna. I really enjoyed his take on aquaculture. Yes, there are many species currently being farmed. The problem is the manner in which it is being done. Traditional aquaculture practices rely on a polyculture. Take the coy ponds of China - in these ponds the system involves algae, fish and ducks (at a minimum). The idea is that all elements in the pond feed on each other in a loop of sorts.

Today, many farms over look this and have a monoculture. This is where the problems begin. The waste builds up and creates anoxic conditions as well as the potential for disease. These farms also are usually dealing with genetically altered fish which can cause lots of problems when the fish escape and mix with the already stressed wild populations. A third problem is that many of the farmed fish today are carnivorous and require an excessive food input per pound of fish - in some cases 20 pounds of fish lower on the food chain to create 1 pound of tuna.

The good news amongst all this is there are alternatives for those of you eating fish. A couple new aquaculture species show that fish can be produced as a polyculture with minimal environmental impact and the product can go to market at a relatively low cost. The problem is people seem attached to the species currently on their plate. If, however, some of the pressure isn't reduced on our current populations those familiar species may no longer be available to the common person. The other good news is that people are starting to realize just how important marine sanctuaries are to fish populations - if you give the population a chance to rebound before its too late it often happens quickly. A win for the fish and a win for fisherman.


Another good read. It was well written - mixing the authors personal experiences with the science made for a page turner. In fact, a couple of my co-workers have already expressed interest in borrow it!

Sherburne NWR

Me and Dakota during a "Raptor by Family" program (photo from sctimes.com)

Over the weekend, I helped present two raptor programs at Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge. We lucked out with mild weather and had a big turn out - in all about 750 people came to see the birds. You can see more pictures of Winterfest here (sctimes.com) - just scroll through to see a couple more of the birds!

Also, I don't know why but photos of me doing programs always have my mouth hanging open mid-sentence and me doing a gesture with my hands...apparently I get a bit excited :)

Wesley

I finished reading another book last month. This one is called Wesley the Owl  by Stacey O'Brien. Its the story of a young woman who raises an owl in her home. I had heard this book was well worth the read from several folks so I gave it go.

This lady intentionally imprinted a barn owl on herself. As the owlet grew to be an adult, it showed that he considered her to be his mate - even tried feeding her mice on a regular basis.  (I can't even imagine what I would do if one of the kestrels put a dead mouse in my mouth...GROSS!). For nearly 2 decades she cared for this owl in her home and recorded its behaviors. What she recorded was shared with an owl research laboratory - much of which were behaviors never before observed.

Of course, like all animal books of this nature, this one has a sad ending. For me, the most interesting aspect of this book was how much things have changed over the years in terms of animal care, understanding and regulations. Today, regulations prohibit anyone from doing something similar and with good reason.While I do usually think that owls are overrated (I am a falcon girl you could say) this book was a nice quick read that kept me interested. I even passed this book on already to one of the interns.

3 R's

Be forewarned! I am stepping up on my soapbox a bit for this rambling post.

I have been working on tweaking a lesson plan this week. Its called Recycled Art and as the name implies, we talk a bit about energy and recycling before making something "useful" out of trash. More often than not, trash is made from trash and not a whole lot is gained from the lesson.

One of the questions most commonly asked by the students (who are usually in 5th grade) is how an item gets recycled. You can tell them that the soda can they drink from today will be recycled and made into a new can and back on store shelves within 60 days but really how does the process work? The activity I am working on breaks the recycling process of common items (plastic bottle, aluminum can, paper etc) into 4 steps. The students then must put the steps in the correct order. Its a quick activity but hopefully it will give the students a visual of how things work.

Me at the National Zoo in DC grossed out by the number of plastic bags...

While research the recycling process and trying to find pictures, I came across some insane facts about the American lifestyle and all the trash that comes with it. Here are a few that just floor me.

1. The average American uses 1,200 plastic bags per year - when added together that amounts to more 380 Billion plastic bags a year!
2. The highest point in the state of Ohio is Mount Rumpke - a landfill which is literally a mountain of trash!
3. The average American uses 7 trees worth of paper products each year. In fact, just to print all of today's Sunday papers, 500,000 trees must be cut down.
4. An estimated 80,000,000 Hershey's Kisses are wrapped each day, using enough aluminum foil to cover over 50 acres of space -- that's almost 40 football fields. All that foil is recyclable, but not many people realize it
5. The U.S. is the #1 trash-producing country in the world at 1,609 pounds per person per year. This means that 5% of the world's people generate 40% of the world's waste.

All of these really made me think - I realize that our current culture is use and throw away. I am guilty of it too. But if all of us changed our daily habitats just a little that could add up to a BIG reduction in our waste. Take the plastic shopping bag for example. These are a single use item that end up everywhere; including our oceans where sea turtle and shore birds mistake them for food such as jellyfish. I now carry my reusable bags with me and rarely use plastic these days which, as a bonus, saves me a couple cents. Other countries are taking a bigger stand. At the start of the year, Italy banned the plastic bags. How? They put a large tax on them making it more economical for people to bring their own in. Which unfortunately seems to be one of the few ways to get peoples attention these days.

I hope to have my lesson plan and activities up and running in the next month. We'll see how it goes over with the kiddo's. At least in the process I learned a bit more about what exactly happens to all my trash.

randomocity

I did go home this past weekend but didn't do much beside catch up on trashy reality T.V. I have been racking my brain for something new or interesting to share with you, but alas, I got nothing. So here's a quick update of randomness.

Checkers hanging out with me at home!

1. When I got into work this morning, I discovered that the rumors have been flying about me. Some folks thought that I was really ill and others heard that I had packed up and left - for good. In reality, I just had a 3 day weekend.
2. Over the past couple weeks I have become obsessed with Glee. The Madonna and Britney episodes were FANTASTIC!
3. I have been having a bunch of work related dreams. Usually they involve me not being able to get something done or something going crazy wrong. In my latest one, a snake is released in my bedroom for feeding. I wake up to find a dozen rats and a 7 foot snake in my bed with me. Not amused.
4. I am losing weight unintentionally. I now weigh about the same as I did in high school. I think I am one of the few females in the world that would like to gain a couple pounds.
5. While I was home, I looked through a bunch of old photos. This made me want to get a plane and go visit some friends.
6. I am done with winter. Spring can come any time now.

Well, that is all for now. My life has been pretty boring lately, hopefully that changes in the near future.