My poor fox.

 I fear the worst has happened to one of my fox. (And no, this is not an April Fools joke as much as I wish it were!) I was following one of the well worn wildlife paths around my property and came upon this. A lot of fox fur scattered about this particular area. Normally I would have just figured one of them blew its coat out, but on closer inspection the fur was still attached to hide on some of the bigger clumps.

I haven't seen any of them in a while now and there are no other clues or evidence to give me any explanation. I just figured with baby season upon them they were busy at the den. For now, I can only wonder.....and be a little bummed out as well!

Onto other unexplained mysteries. Someone else out there is screwing with me! I can't tell you how many times I have had to pick up this owl! I'm quite sure it's on purpose and there is a furry little wise ass, snickering into it's mischievous little paws, as it watches me from the shrubs across my front lawn bending over to put it back where it belongs...yet again!!!

Game on wiseguy! LOL

Happy April everyone......people have already jinxed me enough to say with out jinxing myself, we're on borrowed time! Babies should be coming in any time now......

Home at last!

We're finally back and settled after a whirlwind week of wildlife conferences! We got back Sunday night and it was good to be home. It's taken half a week to play catch up and get back into my normal routine.

As usual the New York conference was a great time. It was on Grand Island up by Niagara Falls so after settling in (Mary, Sue, Lisa and Laurie inspect the comfort of the beds).......

....we took a short trip up to check out the falls. It was wet and cold....therefore a short trip! Of course I ended up spending most of that time on the phone with the Animal Rescue League regarding a trap we have set up for a mangy fox! Even when you're away you don't really get away when it comes to dealing with wildlife!

Mary was the smart one and stayed in the nice warm car when we decided to check out this trail. Sue's hubby Jim was along for the trip too! This big guy loved having all tourists throw him treats! I walked right up to him while he enjoyed some almonds. We don't have these guys near us....he's a fox squirrel. Bigger than our grays and different coloring....but cute just the same!

We also took a field trip to Hawk Creek Wildlife Center.
I wish I had more pics like I did last time, but unfortunately we got there later this year and it was pretty cold and rainy. Between the darkness and the rain the camera didn't come out much. I did manage to get pretty good shots of these beauties though!

Three days packed with lots of great seminars and new things learned! Thanks so much to JoAnn and my sister in law Christine for keeping an eye on the gang while I was gone! Christine had the added bonus of taking one of my dogs (Bernard) to stay with her for the weekend....lucky lady! Mom and Dad lucked out with the other 2 dogs, Boo boo and Marly. It's not easy to go away when you have tons of animals that need sitters! Thanks to you all for keeping them safe while I was gone!

And great big thanks to Sue and Jim who managed to sneak around behind our backs and surprise us all with the new edition of Wild Mammal Babies! The first 48 hours and beyond. It's the wildlife rehabilitators bible and we couldn't wait to get our hands on it. We were wondering why Chris from Chris's Squirrels and More kept putting us off every time we tried to buy them! Sue squrrl beat us to the punch! LOL

Massachusetts Birds of Prey Rehabilitation

This past weekend, we all went to a wonderful raptor show put on by The Nature Connection at the Alcott school in Concord MA.

Tom Ricardi of the Massachusetts Bird of Prey Rehabilitation Facility is a licensed rehabilitator and wildlife biologist. He has cared for injured birds for over thirty years, successfully introducing captive-bred bald eagles into the wild and we were lucky to see a few of his MANY birds including a golden eagle, great horned owl, barn owl, turkey vulture and this beauty......

.......a peregrine falcon! We can thank Lisa for this picture....I of course forgot my camera again, dammit! Luckily she has a pretty good cell phone camera! It's not every day you get to see one of these up close and personal!

Not one of his...but cute none the less!!