I don't hope for miracles, I rely on them...

Hey Y’all,

Quite a few people have remarked that they have all but stopped giving to 'big' charities or ones that go overseas because they can't be sure how their money is being spent.

Well, there is no guesswork involved when you donate to HawkTalk because all you have to do is drive up here and you can see your money at work. We need operational expenses, building materials and skilled carpenters for an expansion for chambers and to build a larger deck that would allow me to give in-house lectures. With my stable of 9 non-releasable raptors in-house, I badly need more room to house rehab birds.

Enough lamenting…

The youngsters have all but flown the coop; one hawk still comes in during the evening a couple times a week and the youngest of the Barred owls comes in about as infrequently, but now he mostly comes at night when there isn’t a good photo opportunity. At the end of my day, I put mice on the hackboard and look with the flashlight a few hours later and they’re gone… Sometimes when I’m sitting on the swing at night listening to the frogs and contemplating my fate, I feel a rush of wind coming from across the pond and when I shine my light on the hackboard, I can see it gently swaying. Payment comes in all forms…




Both of my patients that were transferred up from south Georgia had to be euthanized. **sigh** Both were fractures that were pinned by a veterinarian down there. The red-tail’s wing was frozen in place and the feathers weren’t coming in correctly. It was a first year bird, so she had already lost crucial life experiences and keeping her in captivity to go through another moult was out of the question. That and she was very aggressive, so long-term physical therapy would have been very difficult. The Barred owl either sustained vascular damage during the injury or the wing was bandaged too tightly post surgery because when we took off the wrap, the elbow and two inches on either side was completely leather like; dried up and looked desiccated like a mummy. Both were very sad cases and too gross to share those photographs with you, the reader. (It was bad enough showing you the box of rats lined up like little soldiers! :)

Icabod, (aka No-No) is going in for his third surgery in the morning as his partially amputated stump is still raw and has not healed over. He continues to use it as a kickstand and as a club when he whacks me in the head while he’s on the glove. He is another one that has not adjusted well to captivity and the old boy doesn’t have many options. All I know is he cannot live in the middle of my floor for the next ten years to prevent him from damaging himself further. So, Dr Martinez and I are going to hold our collective noses and take the wing off at the wrist and hope for the best. We cannot go any higher up as per Federal regulations. This is our last ditch effort before he gets to go sleep with the fishes. He’s a very beautiful bird and after the trauma of finally getting him onto the glove, is quite calm which is why I continue to hold out hope for his recover. Please keep him in your prayers. It’s all in his hands from this point on…


Not like I needed anything else to feed, but I took two little kitties home from the vet’s office and man alive, Face and Mommy punished me for about 2 weeks. I’ve never heard such growling and snarling coming from those two. You would have thought that I just invited Jack the Ripper home. I tried to explain to Mommy that not too long ago she was a girl in trouble and needed a helping hand, but she just looked at me like I had a lobster coming out of my head. They have eventually come around, although Face still won’t eat with them. These two babes lived up front at the vet’s office and so are very socialized, unlike my brood, which are half feral. They have brought me a lot of joy…

I know the tile is butt-ugly…there isn’t a drop of Martha Stewart blood running through these veins…

Bill thinks everything is funny…even the tile.


There USED to be a plant in this basket. Bill took care of it.


Sookie checking out the local news…she's an erudite poodlink.


Church – the dead cat, stares at me through the window…wanting wet food.


Sookie having a meet and greet with one of the Andrew’s Sisters…


A somber Church – the old peas is a bit long in the tooth these days.


I LOVE Praying Mantis’!


Which I had to rescue from Blanche…she was on a mission for a snack.


Scully’s moulting self – my elderly Screech owl, August is a bad hair month for him.


Thank for you taking the time to read my blog. OH, I almost forgot to tell you that I have built a new web site today. My kind friend was hosting it for me, but mean old hackers were causing too many problems so I took matters into my own fingers and constructed my own. Please check it out and let me know what you think, good, bad or indifferent. I have only done the home page so far and had to stop because my eyeballs were rolling around like BB’s in a boxcar. The PayPal icon is embedded onto the Home page, in case you have a chance to shake a little Mouse Money out of the couch cushions. We sure would appreciate it… www.hawktalk.org

NOW, thank you for taking the time to read my blog ….m.