Category Archives: Babies and Juveniles

A Rough Start

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Tuesday May 14, 2013,

20130510075328-5x7wHere’s a shot of a young Eastern Cottontail I saw at Avalon Preserve last week. He’s only half-grown but he’s not so new to the world. Most rabbits are only fist-sized when they’re turned out to fend for themselves. While this guy isn’t even an adult yet, he does show signs of what it means to be a rabbit in the wild. Click on the pic and have a look at those ears. Something, possibly a fox or a hawk, has been at this little one. Maybe even a raccoon or a possum. If you look closely enough, you’ll see that at least one tick is still chowing down on our unfortunate hero. There are many, many critters that have rabbit on the menu. This could go a long way to explaining why rabbits procreate like, well,  rabbits. They absolutely need to. They’re feeding an entire ecosystem.  JK

In Good Hands

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Tuesday, April 3, 2012,

I stopped into Sweetbriar Nature Center a couple days back. I stop into Sweetbriar fairly often but on Sunday I was there to hear a lecture on the talon strength of various raptors. That’s raptors as in birds like falcons, hawks, or owls – not those wonderful critters that Steven Spielberg brought to the big screen. While I was there, I got to meet some of the new charges in the rehab room. This is one of the perks to being a volunteer there. You get to see all the really cool stuff. As chance would have it, two of the cooler new patients were raptors. The bird at the top of the post is a baby Great Horned Owl.  These guys are beautiful from the get-go. Super cute when they’re young, and then just plain magnificent as adults. Check out the size of him. I’ve got a cat that isn’t any bigger. This “little” one apparently has some soft tissue damage in one or both of its legs and has difficulty standing upright. He’s greatly improved since his arrival but he’s not quite ready for the great outdoors just yet. Don’t be alarmed by those eyelids. That’s its nictitating membrane. It’s sort of a second eyelid.

   

On the other hand, there is definitely something wrong with this bird’s eye. This adult Cooper’s Hawk has an infection and its eye is both very swollen and clouded. It was really nasty looking on Sunday but I’m told it’s already looking much better. Another feel-good story at Sweetbriar. JK  


Juvenile Cardinals At Sweetbriar

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Monday, October 3, 2011,

Here are two young Cardinals that I saw at Sweetbriar. I’m fairly certain that they were from the same clutch as both of these birds and an adult pair were all traveling together and remained close during the half-hour or so that I was taking these pics. The bird in the first photo appears to be well on its way to male coloration while the bird in the second pic seems to be female. This is just conjecture on my part. I didn’t look under any skirts to check. I do notice that the female’s bill is already red. More conjecture here, but maybe females can achieve red bills sooner than males because they don’t need to use as much red pigment in their feathers. I don’t know any of this; I’m just making a guess. I don’t really know the ways of nature. I just wonder at them. JK

JK