Day seventeen

[ink_in_hand]

I love these guys. And I wish the fandom would write/draw about them more. Now for an update...

Yesterday's post was a little incoherent, so I'm going to clarify.

I have a ball python, and she refuses to eat anything but live mice. Now, it got to the point that buying her dinners every week got to be a hassle so I started to raise my own. This is all good, except if you don't monitor them they can breed like crazy. That phrase 'breed like rabbits'? Has nothing on how fast mice can pump out the little ones. It's a nice arrangement, in that I know that the mice are treated and fed well (they get a lot of food scraps) and I can weed out the aggressive mice early on. They have excerise wheels, hidey holes, and save for the fact that they eventually become dinner are treated like any pet mouse or hamster.

But lately my baby hasn't been eating much, and save for a mouse today (which had me crazy happy) and one a few weeks back, she's been fasting for a number of months. And considering that it isn't always clear cut which mice are males and which mice are females, I had far too many on my hands. This happened last year too, and fortunately I found a raptor rescue group who were more than happy to take three dozen, though this time it was at least five dozen. I had a problem.

And as I have a fancy new camera that I got last summer, I have bird pictures.



A Turkey Vulture who, to my embarrassment, I can't remember why he's there.



And another because I love these guys and because shoelaces are fascinating, here he's messing with Rebecca's but he couldn't keep his eyes off mine for the longest while.



An American Kestrel, who they're pretty sure was hit by a car.



An immature Peregrine Falcon, she broke her humerus flying into a building.



A Red Tailed Hawk, she's been there for... six years I think.



And another of the Turkey Vulture.



A Saw Whet Owl who isn't too happy with having his frozen mouse stash taken out. Did you know that freezing meat removes vitamin B?



And here is the Great Horned Owl from yesterday, he's human imprinted.

Holy crap, this post took an hour to type up.

Comments

[ink-in-hand.livejournal.com]

You might enjoy these (http://ink-in-hand.livejournal.com/28228.html) posts (http://ink-in-hand.livejournal.com/28812.html) too, I haven't posted photos nearly as much as I probably should.

[cloud-sama.livejournal.com]

Oo, you're lucky to live in such a nice naturey area. Thank you for linking those.

[ink-in-hand.livejournal.com]

I am lucky, and I certainly don't take where I am for granted for sure. You're welcome, I'm always happy to share the nature love.