San Diego Seals

So, this Christmas I had planned to take our kids on a day trip to the mountains to play in the snow....but there was no snow in nearby mountains, so we did some things closer to home in stead.

My favorite was visiting the Seals at Children's Pool right here in San Diego (no pool...it's just a beach that's called that where seals come when they are pupping).

Here's some pics we got while we were down there....

Yes, yes that is a football next to that seal...

And here's a video of all the cute stuff we caught the seals doing...
(with commentary by my three boys)

These seals are Pacific Harbor Seals.   They are just one of the many seals and sea lions that can be found in California (as a kid when I was living on the boat I remember the sea lions always used to hang out on the bouys) .  

So, someone I know argued with me over whether these were sea lions or seals. Well, if you've ever wondered  how to tell seals from sea-lions, there's a good guide here:  How to Tell Sea Lions from Seals.

So, my oldest son also took this pic of a seagull.  He hasn't been in California long enough for sea-gulls to be no big deal.  Though it came out nice.

(Taken by my eldest)


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Latest Visitors

Guess who showed up on my front porch a few days back....

They were being so still I almost missed them.  In fact, my son and I walked right past them, played a game of tag, and didn't see them until we were headed back into the house.

They look like dove fledglings ..they didn't fly away even when my son got really near (no, I didn't let him touch them).  After we went inside they hid in a patch of unmowed grass right next to the porch.  It looked like they might have been there earlier too...it looked well "nestled" into.  My son was supposed to mow there yesterday, but he had bailed because he saw a wasp.  So glad he didn't!  We're going to have to be very careful when we mow now to check for wildlife first.

So, for all you lazy mowers out there like me, just know that one of the benefits of letting your lawn go is...

UNTAMED LAWN = WILDLIFE



Shared On Our World Tuesday

Camera Critters 

Throwback Thursday

Mockingbird Chick

About a month ago I went out to water my potted plants, and as I went to get the hose this grey bird started going CRAZY chirping and ruffling it's feathers and doing everything it could to get my attention.  It even swooped at me.  "Hmm...I thought.  Must be a nest nearby.  Good mama"

But as it turns out, it wasn't the nest she was concerned about.  When I went to water my flowers I almost watered this little guy...

"How on earth did he get there?" I thought.  These planters weren't under any trees, or anywhere else there might be a nest.  I wondered what I should do...but in the meantime brought my children out to take a look.

"Do you see the baby bird?  Don't get too close.  You don't want to scare it.   Just look...don't touch."

Afterwards I went online to identify it's mom, and see what I should do.   Our mother and baby were  Mockingbirds--the Texas State Bird.   I can't believe I've lived here all this time and never knew what our state bird looked like.  I've seen these birds all around but just never tried to find out what they were.  I didn't get a good picture of the mom, but here's one from Wikimedia Commons...

Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos)

Photo by DickDaniels - http://carolinabirds.org

Not only is this bird the Texas State Bird, it's also the state bird of Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi and Tennessee  (and used to be the state bird of South Carolina).  On Florida's site about this bird I learn this...

  When the chicks are about 12 days old, they will venture from the nest and hop around on the ground or in low shrubs. During this transitional period (after leaving the nest and before they can fly), the young birds are still in the care of the parents, who feed them up to five times per hour. If found hopping around on the ground, they should be placed low in a tree or in a shrub and left alone. The parents will continue to care for them for several days until they learn to forage for themselves.
- The Florida Gardener

My mom, who always kept birdfeeders out and full, once commented on this bird.  "I used to like those birds," she said, "...until I saw how they bullied the other birds.  They chase away any other birds that come around."  I wish I could have shared with her what I learned (she passed away last summer).  She would have loved seeing the baby bird we found, and I think knowing that these birds acted the way they did to protect their fledglings would have warmed her heart towards them.  She was fierce like that as a mother too.

Throwback Thursday

Butterfly

And here's a video I caught of these beauties sheltering from the wind.

Twitterpated Sky

I have some pictures of swallows and a cool video of them swooping around our doorway.  I've been meaning to post these  since July, when I took them! I miss the swallows at our door.

 

Oh, and if you missed the memo 

earlier this week, I'm on Twitter now! 

(Seemed to fit today's theme). 

Sky Watch Friday

 

Throwback Thursday

Grasshopper

I found a very lethargic grasshopper in my garden last month. When he wouldn't move after being nudged, I ran and got my 3 year old. That grasshopper road around on a stick for nearly an hour! For the next three days "grasshopper" was my son's favorite word.

(Any animal lovers in the house?  Just discovered a beautiful poem about a strange set of pawprints on one of my favorite Texas bloggers sites.)

 

Throwback Thursday

Green Spider

Found this in my yard.  It's a Green Lynx Spider.
If you're shuddering at these pictures, you're not the only one! 
This spider was about an inch long!  Pretty though, in it's own way. 

I'm now selling some fun gifts with this spider on it
at my Texifornia Zazzle shop here.

Rabbits and Cats and Kiddos

Guess what we found on our front porch today? It's not our first encounter with baby bunnies here. My son found a rabbit nest last summer, and unfortunately a few months ago we found some dead baby rabbits on our porch  (we think the mom was run over by a car in front of our house).

Well, lately we've had another visitor...a cat, probably a neighbour's, which my kids have enjoyed playing with. Well, this morning he was curled up on our porch, and when I took my three year old outside to pet her we found the bunny above in a little nook by the wall right behind where she had been laying.  When we noticed the rabbit the cat came over with some urgency and sniffed it...and then later came over and licked it's back, but didn't bite it. Made me wonder if this was one of those strange cases where a cat takes another creature under it's wing, or if the cat was just letting us know this was HER dinner.

Cat and child went to the other side of the yard and I slipped inside for a minute, and came back to find my child holding the bunny. I took it away from him, and not sure of the cat's intentions, took it inside until I could figure out what to do with it.

After a little research I learned the best thing was to try to return it to it's nest, but the cat was still hanging about (with no way to keep it out) and the nest, which I discovered at the edge of the porch, was very wet from last nights rain (I'm guessing that's why the bunny left it in the first place). So, I decided to keep him inside in a box with a warmed up sock full of rice (as suggested on the internet) and return him after it warmed up a bit and the cat had left.

He's now back in the nest...he snuggled into it immediately like he knew it, and seems to be fine. I am still concerned about the cat and a line of ants near the nest, but for now I think he's better off there. Since rabbits only feed their babies at night and early morning I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see if she's come back for him. They don't stay near their nest, I gather, because they don't want to draw predators to it.

I may not have handled things just right, but I'm glad to have found a live bunny this time and hope he stays that way.

UPDATE
Sadly, the little bunny did not make it through the night.  I found it the next morning just outside it's nest, and it had died.   Could have been the cat that the cat had done some danage to it we hadn't seen.  :-(


ALOHA FRIDAY QUESTION

• Have you ever tried to rescue a wild animal?

Please leave your answer in a comment.  And, if you like stop by Aloha Friday to post your own question or see the other blogs participating.  For more animal pictures and stories, click the button below:

Grackle Season

The first place I heard of "grackle season" was The Yankee Chick's Guide to Texas.  In it there is a hilarious section where the author, Sophia Dembling,  describes the "other" seasons of Texas, inlcuding Grackle Season.  Now, when I first read this I had never heard the word "Grackle" before, but when she descibed the countless hourds of black birds that descend on shopping malls across Texas, I knew exactly what she was talking about. 

That makes this all the more funny....

Yeah, every time I talk about grackles I have to share that cause it still cracks me up.  I found that button several years ago on CafePress and loved it so much I bought 10 (OK, they didn't sell them individually...just in packs of 10...and I figured I'd find someone to give these to!). Seeing how the grackle population seems to be strong enough to take over a small Texas city, I'm assuming that's meant to be a joke--but you never know! Either way it's hilarious.

So, this all leads in to my questions for today.  I gather Texas isn't the only state with a "Grackle Season", so...

1. Are the grackles hoarding in your area?  If not, when do they usually pass through (if they do).
2. Where do you live? (What State, or country/territory if you're outside the US).

Please leave your answer in the comments.  Thanks

Have a question or two you'ld like to ask on your own blog? The following two memes are a great place to share it.


Two Questions Thursday: Ask any two questions on your blog and answer other's questions! The linky for this meme is pictoral, so you can share a picture from your post.

Aloha Friday: This meme is like Two Questions, only with one simple question and a text linky. It's a fun easy blog to post on a Friday.

Birds Nest

Here's the little bird that's in the tree in front of our house (I'm assuming its the mom...looks too big to be a chick) .  Would love to know what she is!  Please share if you know!






Throwback Thursday

Mellow Yellow Camera Critters - More Caterpillar Pics

Surprisingly the dill plant survived the first set of caterpillars that call it home...then recently two more came, and pretty much finished it off.  When they were done with nearly everything green on it they crawled away.  We caught one crawling out of the pot and placed it gently on the grass.  Later that day we found it crawling on a plastic pinwheel that had fallen over in the grass, and together we took some kinda trippy pictures of it.  This first picture I'm pretty sure is by my son (age 7 - and yes, I was impressed).

And then, an amazing thing happened.  While we were still

taking pictures of the caterpillar, a grasshopper jumped onto

the pinwheel right next to him!   He stayed just long 

enough for us to take a couple shots.

Throwback Thursday at Living Life...

Aloha Friday

Welcome to this week’s edition of Aloha Friday. I’ll ask a simple question--nothing that requires a lengthy response--then you can leave an answer in a comment below!   If you’d like to participate on your own blog, you can create a post with your own question and leave your link at An Island Life.

Well, since there's been a lot of  wildlife creeping onto this blog lately (the wasps nest I stuck my hand into,  the rabbits hopping through our backyard, and the caterpillars munching on my dill ) I thought I'd ask about the wildlife in YOUR backyard:

What wildlife have you discovered in your backyard recently?

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Stuck My Hand In a Wasps Nest

(WASP Nest Photo by PhDilettante Design)

Today I accidentally put my hand in a wasp's nest I didn't know was being built under our picnic table.  Me and the boys had been sitting at this very table just a few hours earlier and I'm surprised we didn't notice any wasps around.  Later I needed to mow and when I went to move the table I reached my hand under and felt my fingers go into something soft (more a strange feel than gross, but definately felt "organic" - like putting your hand into old ashes).  I jerked my hand out and  saw something move past and felt something in my hair and swatted it away...but I was still thinking I had dislodged something flaky and it had blown up in my hair, or possibly that it was a spider.   Then I saw the wasps, and backed up quick.  Backing away I could see the wasps nest I had just put my hand in with 5 or 6 wasps on it, and several more flying around.   Amazing that I didn't get stung!

(The photo above was NOT taken by me...oh, no, I was not that brave. That's a picture I borrowed from an artist/photographer on Zazzle. You can visit their shop here.  The wasps in my nest were orange but about the same shape.  The nest looked similar, only slightly bigger and a darker gray. )

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Shared on Throwback Thursday

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A Backyard Visitor

If you like rabbits, you might also enjoy watching the 

video of baby rabbits we took when our kids found a 

rabbits nest behind the house earlier this year.

Wordless

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Caterpillars!

 There were 6 lovely caterpillars on my dill plant.

This was the lone dill that survived all winter...but honestly

I don't mind them munching on it.  It had already flowered, 

so it was a little late to use the leaves anyways.

When we first found them they were tiny and fuzzy
...just slightly bigger than a dill flower.

But they grew!

My kids have loved watching them.

If you tickle their back with a blade of grass these slimy orange antenna come out 

of their heads and they will bend back and try to hit you with them...

 You can see those orange antenna a little bit in the picture above.  It gets longer and comes out further than that but this was the best picture I got of it.  I originally thought it might be poisonous (couldn't think of another reason it would it do that) but I found out it's actually a gland that releases a foul smell to repel predators.

Unfortunately, some neighborhood boys came by and smooshed all but two of our caterpillars .  :-(  But, still hoping to see the last two turn into cocoons and then butterflies.  I just found out they'll turn into Black Swallowtail Butterflies!  (Thanks Laura P. from Lavendar, Literature and Lace).

This post is listed in the following memes:

Worldless Wednesday
Kludgymom Wordless Wednesday

Outdoor Wednesday is hosted by A Southern Dreamer

Throwback Thursday

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