Olga

A couple days ago, I got my new book in the mail. It is a children's book called Olga the Brolga. My favorite crane species. Olga wants to dance, but no one will dance with her. The illustrations are awesome and in the end, Olga gets her friends to dance. Super Cute!

BUBBLES!

Today, the temperature barely inched above zero. With the wind chill, it was -10F midday. What do you do when it is super cold out and you are bored sitting in your apartment all day? Blow some bubbles. Outside.

I whipped up some homemade bubble solution, made my own wand and headed outside. After the bubble hits the ground, I waited a few seconds and then "popped" the bubble with my finger tip. The result was beautiful!

Each bubble is unique. I could only get small bubbles, so maybe store bought solution would have been a little better. Especially for taking pictures. Next time I do this, I want to try adding food coloring to the bubble solution and have snow on the ground. Stay tuned :)

Week in Review

This week was pretty awesome at work. A couple highlights:

Donald an I during a training session

• Managed to get a picture of me with a bird on glove where I look normal AND am smiling. Those of you that know me, know that previous pictures of me with birds usually have me gesturing wildly or with a contorted face because I am mid-sentence.

• Set a new personal record for audience size at a single program. I gave a presentation at an elementary schools all school assembly. 750 people!!  

My new bracelet

• Switched out some of the birds equipment. For the first time I did this completely solo! I even turned one of the jesses (the leather straps I hold onto when working with a bird) into a bracelet.

• Paged through a book called "Raptors of the World" and saw lots of really cool looking hawks, falcons and eagles. Let me tell you that Australia has some super adorable falcons. This book also has lots of great information and has moved onto my wish list.

Great River Bluffs State Park

Enjoying the view

I went to one other state park yesterday - Great River Bluffs State Park in Minnesota. It looked quite a bit different than when I hiked it this summer. Sadly, the trails were sheer ice and after falling on my bum once, I gave up exploring any other parks.

Another overlook

The view was worth the hike :)

Perrot State Park

Hit the trails for a little state park hopping today. First stop was Perrot State Park in Wisconsin.

Unfortunately, we have had a warm temperatures during the day and cold nights so some of the trails I wanted to hike were sheer ice. I did a couple short loops but will have to go back and explore when the weather warms up.

Living a Public Life

Well folks. Its finally happened. I am on youtube. One of the downsides to doing presentations nearly everyday at work is that you are bound to get taped. And some of those videos end up on youtube. I found my first videos of me teaching during the last couple weeks. I watched some of them and can tell you, its weird watching yourself.

Anyways, here is one of me showing how much an eagle weighs. As part of this, I tell the kid just how smart crows and ravens are. He then tells me that he recently hit one with a snowball. Hopefully he thinks twice before throwing the snowball next time!

In Search of Birds

Katie and I look through our scopes for Goldens

 A couple days ago, Katie (my co-worker) and I went on a search for golden eagles and albino red-tailed hawks. We even had a "map of awesomeness" of locations that we were likely to find them.

Bald Eagle

 We searched for over 6 hours and came up empty handed. We did find several hundred bald eagles, 30 red-tails, crows, turkeys, mallards and golden-eyes. At one point I even shook hands with a dead opossum. But we could not find the birds we set out to find. At least we had a great time along way!

Frosty Grass

LOVE! American Kestrel

Red-tailed Hawk (pale but no albino...)

Cute little creek we stumbled across

Happy New Year!

Stopped at the refuge sign after my hike!

Its January 1st and I managed to get out and about for some exploring. I started at Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge. Since it was pretty early in the day, I had the trails to myself. Even though it was bitterly cold (actual temperatures just about zero, never mind the windchill) it felt great to be out. After that I drove around some of the back roads and managed to find a good number of raptors - a ton of bald eagles and red-tailed hawks with a coopers hawk thrown in. All in all a great way to start the new year!

Found a couple fish!

Out on the trails!

Ice forming a cool pattern