It wasn't Face...it wasn't even a cat.

Hey y'all,

I'm absolutely stuffed from supping at Robert and Tabatha's house on this 1st of January. Had the traditional greens and black eyed peas and all the rest of it. I didn't stay long because it's been raining all day and my basement is...damp, but not quite wet. It's never been the same since the flooding of Sept. '09. **sigh**

It was around dusk this evening that I was outside chatting with my friend Nancy about the weird pinkish/yellow sky when one of my Barred owls glides through the yard and takes a mouse off the hack board. It was very cool to have been looking at just the right place at the right time or I would have missed the whole thing. The photo isn't good because by the time I came in, got the camera, went outside to wait for him to return to the yard it was dark, drizzling rain and he was WAY up the tree...

One of my Red-shouldered hawks came to visit on Christmas day. What a nice gift!

The chicky-poodles didn't care one whit about the snow...

Bill laughed when he saw Blanche by the back door. I wish he wouldn't gloat.

This here is Bill on Christmas day. His mama didn't raise no fool...

Bill helps me polish off the bowl of cheese grits. Yum, yum!

You would think I never feed my cats...

But then, if I didn't feed them, I would have no need for a cat box... Mommy is saying, "Hurry up! You've been in there all day!"

This pic really cracked me up when I noticed the fire extinguisher by the cat box. Mommy reminded me we had Mexican the night before... Is NOTHING sacred? Nah.

If I had grandchildren, you know what they would be wearing!

Or a dog. My cats wouldn't put up with this nonsense for one minute. And truth be known, he looks pretty embarrassed about it...

"Mama, if he follows me home, can I keep him?" Why can't I find a nice guy like this? **sigh** I captured this image on his FaceBook profile, so it didn't turn out large enough to really appreciate his awesomeness... Nothing like face time with a Snowy owl.

The Barn owl babes are just about ready to go. I've been using operant conditioning in hopes they will hang around post release to feed off the hack board while they are sorting things out.

Icabod has fully recovered from his surgery and is back in the big boy chamber!

This poor dear Cooper's hawk was found on Sally and Richard's driveway and couldn't stand. After a week of steroids and no improvement, the decision was made to euthanize him. Accipiters don't make very good rehab candidates because they are so spooky; sort of like the hot rods of the raptor family and unless the injury is minor that you can flip them soon, they will have destroyed all their plumage by the time their injury heals.

Thank you Miss Pat for taking this picture of Clyde, the Red-shouldered hawk that I plucked out of a tree in her back yard last week. Unfortunately, his humerus was broken. This bird had been making a very good living in the wild up until this happened because this was an old break, already fused but unfortunately, overlapped. We had to put this beauty to sleep, too. At least he didn't die a miserable death of starvation or being eaten by a coyote. This is the sucky part of my job...

You keep helping and hoping and loving and giving. It's always sad when a bird dies, or you have to make that awful decision to put it down, but my life is also balanced with the joy of meeting terrific Good Samaritans, helping to recover the wounded and of course, raising the babies! I look forward to offering many more blogs and photo's this year and I appreciate you, the reader, for going on this journey with me. I also want to thank you for your generosity because the donations have kept us afloat where the program fees have all but disappeared. Thank you - Thank you - Thank you! If you have any leftover Mouse Money, we would be most grateful for however much you can spare. You can go over to the web site www.hawktalk.org and click on the PayPal icon and it's a snap! Or you could mail us a Mouse Money check to HawkTalk, P.O. Box 130, Holly Springs, GA 30142

I want to end this on a funny note. Me being the party animal that I am, I didn't go out to celebrate New Years Eve last night. I stayed home and fell asleep early, woke up in the middle of the night and realized that Face wasn't in the house. So, I go down to the cat room in the basement. As my eyes were adjusting to the nightlight, I started doing a head count of all the puddies in a wad...let's see...Elliott, Choo-Choo, Louis, Peter, Cristobel, the dead cat was over in the chair, but I didn't see Face. I turn to my right and look over at the wicker cat bed and I see SOMETHING, so I figured it was Face, but as I started to move towards it, I froze! It was not Face. It wasn't even a cat. It was the cutest possum I have EVER seen! I backed away and scooted up to the house to get the camera. He let me get within 2 feet of him to take this fabulous shot! I'm calling him Opie because of the ears... Ron grew into his, but this little dude never will! God save you all and good night...m.