8/2/06 Mid-week bunny fix


Blogger is not my friend. I had an informative expose written on rabbit bot fly that just went poof! and disappeared.

;-(

Probably a good thing because a discussion of rabbit bot flies is probably not what you were expecting.

So instead I offer this old pic of Freckles, Missy and Mr. Bean. I tried to bond the three of them after little Peanut died. They made an adorable threesome and Missy loved Mr. Bean, but Freckles was not happy with the arrangement. She doesn’t seem to like boy bunnies. So, for a few months after Peanut died and before Mr. Bean passed away, the three would visit together. Mr. Bean would get it into his head that he wanted to play and would sprint out of his homebase in the bathroom and venture onto the sun porch where the girls live. I’d open their pen and the three would play together peacefully for a little while. Missy washed Mr. Beans ears which he looooved! Before long, Freckles would get jealous and pick a fight with Mr. Bean, who was at least twice her size. Mr. Bean always looked all wounded and confused that this girl bunny didn’t just melt for him the way Missy did. Soon enough he’d wander back to his spot beside the bathtub, the rejection forgotten until the next visit.

August is…

“August is the year at early harvest, a farm wife with a baby napping in the crib, a preserving kettle on the stove, fryers in the freezer, new potatoes in the pot, and a husband in the hayfield baling the second cutting. August is tomatoes ripening and the insistent note of the cicada punctuating the heat of midafternoon. August is the smell of corn pollen, and the taste of roasting ears, and the stain of blackberry juice on the fingers.

August is the flame of phlox in the dooryard and hollyhocks down by the roadside blooming now up at their tips. August is Summer squash by the bushel, and Winter squash swelling beneath the broad parasol of trailing leaves. August is ripe oats. August is a languid river and a springhouse brook reduced to a trickle.

August is a few impatient asters trying to compete with late daisies; it is daylilies all through blooming and looking ragged and outworn; it is the first sprays of goldenrod in the uncut fence row. August is baby rabbits almost grown, and pilfering in the garden; it is fledglings all feathered and on the wing; it is a cow, her Spring calf forgotten, chewing a leisurely cud in the shade of a tired elm tree at the side of the meadow.

August is the heavy grapes in the vineyard, and the lacy leaf where the Japanese beetle feasted in metallic glitter; it is wild grapes festooned on the trees at the riverbank; it is algae on the pond and the fat green thumbs of cattails in the swamp, and ironweed purpling, and vervain in full bloom. August is a hastening sun, earlier to bed and later to rise. August is Summer thinking of the cut and color of her Autumn costume.” – Hal Borland, Sundial of the Seasons, 1964

Hawks on display

HURT HAWKS by Robinson Jeffers
“The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder,
The wing trails like a banner in defeat,
No more to use the sky forever but live with famine
And pain a few days: cat nor coyote
Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons.
He stands under the oak-bush and waits
The lame feet of salvation; at night he remembers freedom
And flies in a dream, the dawn ruins it.
He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse.
The curs of the day come and torment him
At distance, no one but death the redeemer will humble that head,
The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes.
The wild God of the world is sometimes merciful to those
That ask mercy, not often to the arrogant.
You do not know him, you communal people, or you
have forgotten him;
Intemperate and savage, the hawk remembers him;
Beautiful and wild, the hawks, and men that are dying remember him.
I’d sooner , except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk; but the great redtail
Had nothing left but unable misery
From the bone too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed under his talons when he moved.
We had fed him six weeks, I gave him freedom,
He wandered over the foreland hill and returned in the evening, asking for death,
Not like a beggar, still eyed with the old
Implaccable arrogance. I gave him the lead gift in the twilight. What fell was relaxed,
Owl-downy, soft feminine feathers; but what
Soared: the fierce rush: the night-herons by the flooded river cried fear at its rising
Before it was quite unsheathed from reality.”

This is the only poem I know by Robinson Jeffers, but it has troubled me since I first read it. I sense the author’s great respect for the hawk and understand how that respect led him to give it *freedom* as he did, but don’t know that others would appreciate why it was the proper thing to do. Proper isn’t the right word for it, maybe truthful or honest would be a better word. Truthful to the nature of the hawk and all birds of prey. I might even extend that to all predators in similar circumstances.

I feel a deep sense of reverence for birds of prey. For wild birds of prey. For those that are captive, like the Bald Eagle above, I feel pity. Something so great as an eagle, an owl, a Harris’ hawk, or even a little kestral is diminished by being held captive. That is a given, I’d guess. Captivity has its’ merits, but I question whether what is in the bird’s best interest isn’t sometimes lost in the name of *education*.

These birds were on display last week at the county fair. Very popular show; this guy brings his act there most years. Usually I stay away because it bothers me so. This year I waited out a thunderstorm in his tent and took some pics and tried to decide if I was just being overly critical. After mulling it over for a few days while Blogger decided if it would let me make this post with pictures (it won’t) – I’ve decided that this guy and his *show* aren’t doing right by the birds. The general public loves being able to get so close – within arms reach- and the opportunity (for a few $$$) to be photographed *holding* one of these birds is a big draw. But to anyone who knows anything about them, or who respects them and can recognize the signs of their stress; it is something very far from worthy. Their was no respect or reverence here. Very little in the way of education – all show, no substance.

There are organizations that do this right. I volunteer for one of the best and know its educators to be fierce protectors of the birds in their care. That is how is ought to be.

Note: I apologize for the links to pics on Photobucket, but Blogger just won’t load these.