Ma Nature can be a beotch

[Baz]

Those are some very nice photographs you took, Patrick. It's obvious you know your way around a camera.

I also appreciate your post and where you are coming from.

Tough call and I'm not sure how I would have handled it.

I try to co-exist with nature as much as possible but I do incorporate control products as necessary to maintain safety and comfort for my habitat.

Thanks again for the post and thread....good stuff.

[JavaBrewer]

We went through a few seasons where a humming bird nest was built and eggs laid in a small palm on the side of the house. Much to our dismay the nest was always found by larger birds (crows probably) and the fledging birds eaten. Then one season we discovered the babies gone (again) but also signs that the parent hummingbird(s) joined them as casualties. The following seasons no more nests in that palm tree. So in total the hummingbird family was 0-3 in successfully raising babies. Life can be hard.

[JavaBrewer]

Nature is a beotch - x10 when Vodka is involved

[Rick Lee]

Nature doesn't work on right and wrong. Only humans do that. If you want to respect nature, let it take its course. And that means might makes right.

[Don Ro]

Great post/thread, Patrick.
.
My g/f came by recently holding a wounded Dove chick. We put it on some leaves/twigs in a tall box w/water in a jar lid on the patio table.
Next morning, feathers all over the patio - neighbor's cat.
I hurt mostly for my g/f's heart...it was quite the sight to watch her fuss over that little Dove...which we named "Lucy".
I think of nature as a guillotine, sometimes...it just doesn't care...but I can release myself into that scenario.
Now, having to put down a dog...that's different...and painful!!!

[Concestor0]

My mother dropped me off at the neighbors house all the time, usually around supper time. It was difficult for the neighbors but they decided to let nature take it's course. Sure, I usually insisted on being fed first and the neighbors kids sometimes got left out but you can't argue with nature.

[john70t]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

Nature doesn't work on right and wrong. Only humans do that. If you want to respect nature, let it take its course. And that means might makes right.

Yes, but it should be noted that humans have created the modern world for the majority of existing animals to survive in:
From displacing most of the feeding/breeding grounds for our own specialized purposes(housing and ag), to direct mass exterminations like the passenger pigeon and bison and wolves and cod, to letting loose feral predators such as pet cats and snakes into pockets of diversity, to importing competitive species such as the common house sparrow, to pollution and other effects....we have permanently altered the conditions of the world and nature itself.

Most species don't replenish populations easily, if at all.
There is a huge infrastructure involved.

It's a question of end result: Many kinds or only a few. Your choice.

[flatbutt]

Originally Posted by cabmando

I'd have based my decision on which one is more likely to drop a bigger load on my freshly washed car and then acted accordingly.

HA! Come on....Nobody else thinks this is funny?

[Brian in VA]

Wow what an incredibly thoughtful post. We have the amazing and troubling ability to put ourselves into the minds and lives of others. You're touching on what is the essence of being human. And yes I've had a few drinks.

[RKDinOKC]

If you find a baby bird on the ground it is typically because the cowbird chick kicked it out.

[SCadaddle]

Well, I did raise an orphaned American Robin that had free reign of my home both inside and outdoors for his first 4 months before he decided to join the wild bunch. "Smokey Robin" was a pretty smart bird. Good at "numbers". Here is Smokey with 101 Projects for your Porsche 911. Smokey was the 2nd wild bird I had raised, came to me as a result of meeting neighbors searching for the first when he decided to leave.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5acQgU-81g

[SCadaddle]

The first bird I raised had a thing for stealing the keys to my Porsche, would kill you over a pistachio and loved to join the neighbor and I for coffee on the porch daily. One week short of a year old he also decided to hang out with the wild bunch.

[DanielDudley]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

My own relationship with nature is conflicted. I try to keep as small a footprint as I can, but I grow a garden and I am constantly battling bugs and deer. I don't hunt myself, but I encourage more deer harvesting around here.
I have a 2500 gallon koi pond in my back yard. One morning I saw a bird that looked like a frikkin' pterodactyl land next to it, and I said to my wife, "Wow, look at this heron. Mother nature, right in my back yard." Just about the time I said "yard" he darted out his head and grabbed one of my $60 fish.
It's always a struggle between man and nature, especially if we humans aren't intent of taking the easy route and just wiping nature out.

Fugu Fish. Say Fugu to the Heron.

[wdfifteen]

That jay is so cool Scad. Tell us more about how you acquired and trained him.

[tevake]

Wow, we have a bird whisperer in our mists. Interesting they chose to go join the wild bunch. And seemingly got accepted. Have they dropped in to visit since ?

Were they good company?

[SCadaddle]

The Jay, affectionately known as "Jaybird" was a pre-fledgling that wound up in my backyard. His parents were trying to lure the little bird into the yard next door that contained 2 large dogs. I tried to keep him occupied in my backyard for a few days, the parents were feeding it and at night I brought it inside only to take it back out in the morning. Probably after 4 days of this I became "imprinted" with the bird and became dad.
Jaybird was never caged. He had free roam of my house and went outside to fly almost daily, many times multiple outdoor flights in a day. He readily took to water very early on and would bathe often during the day. He fledged inside the house and before long became a really masterful flyer in tight quarters. Wasn't unusual to have him fly into the shower and do a couple laps around me with the water on while I was taking a shower. Usually slept atop my bedroom door and many times if I were up late watching TV in the den he'd fly from the bedroom door down the hall past me into the kitchen and grab a snack, take a bath then fly right back past me to go back to bed.
The "language" connection was made with him catching on and mimicking a "wolf whistle". Then it was a clicking noise that I couldn't figure out until one day I realized he was mimicking the noise made by me packing a new pack of cigarettes in my hand.
Jaybird was a great companion. I had no idea of the sex of the bird until about a month before he left as the Jays are no different in coloration. It was one evening when he was on my hand and I said "lets go for a ride in the Porsche" and made motor sounds and bobbed him between gears that he decided to get frisky. And then he started bringing me food. No doubt at that point it was a he.
In hindsight, Jaybird stuck around about a month too long with me; when he finally decided to find a mate he had already lost his territory of my yard to other Jays. The day he left I found him about a quarter mile away and he was hanging out with 3 other Jays. I whistled and hollered "Jaybird!" to him and he came back down one last time to me then back to the others. I looked for Jaybird for about a week and met a lot of people while looking. That's how "Smokey Robin" wound up with me afterwards. It's been almost 2 years now since he left yet I still "wolf whistle" when I hear Jays outside. Haven't had one reply yet, but I keep the faith that he integrated into the wild and is doing well.

[SCadaddle]

An early trick with Jaybird. The reference to "Dannys" is a strip club.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOE-HsKNnjk

[SCadaddle]

An outdoor flight at age 4 months.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSbAPEd5g24

[Don Ro]

Neat story, Scad!!!

[GH85Carrera]

I came home one day and a duck was standing in my driveway quacking. That of course caused me to investigate further. Mama duck would quack and then I heard a lot of cheep cheep from the storm drain. Evidently she had them on the march and walked right over the storm drain grate and she hopped up the curb but the babies all went down into the storm drain. Whoops.

One of the neighbors was walking her dog and said hello and she said she had called the city but got no action at all. My wife got home about then and the neighbor lady went to get her husband. I went to get our fish net we use to get leaves out of our Koi pond and a pick axe to get the storm drain cover off. I just the pick to get the leverage on the little hole and I removed the lid, the neighbor's husband dropped down the hole and used our net and a bucket the capture the ducklings. There were six of them.

Mama duck had given up by then and disappeared. We had six baby ducks in a bucket and then I remembered a lady I had met long ago, Rondi Large. She runs an authorized and licensed wildlife sanctuary. She said she could not meet that evening but she could meet us tomorrow. The neighbors had two young grand kids at the house so they volunteered to keep the ducks in their guest bathroom for the night.

The next day the folks at Wildcare accepted the ducklings. They said it is common for ducklings to fall into storm drains and they had over 50 at the time. They have a few adults that were injured and on the mend. The babies were not raised as pets and human interaction was kept to a minimum. As they grew they would all fly off with the adults that were there.

WildCare Oklahoma

They rehab eagles and owls and many other federally protected birds.