Strange bird behavior

The latest Cornell Lab of Ornithology's photo event is to notice and record strange bird behaviors. Doris Lombard of Mountain Center had the luck to get pictures of this unusual behavior of a juvenile Cooper's Hawk in the lovely rain of Sept. 1, the first day of the contest.

Here is the paragraph of the experts' comments on the interesting behavior from their Web site:

Cooper's Hawk Dancing with Stick

The captions to the photos showing this strange behavior mention that it was happening in the rain, and Cooper's Hawks do bathe in the rain, so perhaps some of the antics can be explained this way. This is a juvenile Cooper's Hawk..note the tail feathers without wear and the striped breast, so it may be practicing its grip. Cooper's Hawks squeeze their prey to kill it, which requires a very strong grip. Kevin McGowan from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Education department tells us, 'They are not squeezing like a python squeezes...they are squeezing and trying to puncture the prey.' Surviving on what you can catch and kill is a tough life and many young Cooper's Hawks can't manage it. Practice makes perfect. Birds of North America on line reference tells us that the Cooper's Hawk's long tail makes it well-suited to pursuing prey through the forest, flying under tree limbs, often skimming low and popping up over an obstacle to surprise its prey. Unfortunately many Cooper's Hawks are found with bruised or broken breastbones because of this tactic. Laura Erickson, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Science Editor writes, "Toying with objects probably helps young hawks become more adept at catching and manipulating prey. Cooper's Hawks also build their nests of sticks, so this 'play' may ultimately help this bird build a sounder nest."

White squirrel

Terry Richmond recently contributed another image of the albino squirrel in the Cougar Road neighborhood of Fern Valley.

I guess I like it here more than I thought …

My friend, Larrynn Carver, recently wrote this on Facebook and I got her permission to share it:

We came to Idyllwild by default, not choice. How many people have told me that they came up here for a day trip, and by the end of the day had bid on a house? Or that they stepped out of the car, and felt like they had come home?

It wasn’t like that for us. It broke our hearts to leave Flagstaff, where we had met, married, had our first child. I was offered a job in Perris, though, that we couldn’t afford to turn down. Archaeologists are a dime-a-dozen in Flagstaff. My boss-to-be, Geary Hund, lived here and almost dreamily sang about what a great town it was. It certainly seemed a better option than Perris, anyway.

It took a while, but the little things started to grow on me. I love pulling up to a stop sign and knowing the driver that’s waving me through. I love being able to walk to the grocery store, or the library. I love it that half the staff of the Fairway has been there for twenty years, and the other half never lasts a month. I love the story that someone drove past the Chevron with a low tire, and came home to find a message on their machine from Steve telling them to come get it fixed. I love that Theresa at the library saves things for my kids, because she remembers what they like. I love that even the teenagers still call Kathy and Denise "teacher."

I love that nobody here needs to use a last name. Herb, Becky, Dora, Barnaby, Lori- you know exactly who I’m talking about. I love it that Frank&Conor are always thought of as a single unit, although we all know their wives are exceptional, beautiful women. I love that Sherry knows I have a package before I hand her the yellow slip. I love knowing what a yellow slip is, and that my kids think it is weird that somebody brings mail right to grandma’s front door, down in the city.

And I should probably add that I love reading in the Crier that there was a bear under someone's porch, and immediately know that it was somehow Kevin's doing.

We have the best Halloween here, no doubt. I love that Mary from the post office and Bud from the bike shop have both been Grand Marshalls on the fourth. I love the way we are all a little afraid of Grandma Yung.

I love Gracie at the church thrift shop, and that Miss Bonnie remembers the name of every single child she has ever read to. I love walking into the Help Center, and the kids can tell me who wore every shirt on the kids’ rack. I love it that somebody in exactly my size, with a love of Ann Taylor, just made a big donation there.

I love it that when I tell people where I live, they always ask if I am by Rob and Mallory, or down by Svetlana? I love that when a neighbor is going shopping off the hill, they ask if you need anything. I love it that I can stop any misbehaving kid on the street and remind them to shape up, and they will, because their mom will have heard about it by the time they get home. Even worse, their girlfriend’s mom will have heard, too. I love the smell of the Candy Cupboard. I always tell myself that we are going there for the kids, but I always end up with a piece myself.

I love it that Ron and Cathy know that the blue jar is for Yunnan, the silver one for Keemun, and that the green tea I like is Kenmaicha. I never remember that one, myself. I love that Matt starts a chai when he sees my car pull up to the coffee house, and always does something fancy with the foam. I love rooting for whatever new restaurant is making an attempt with that building on the highway. I love that Dawn has always got something new to talk about when I get my hair cut, and that Rebecca's is a different color every time I see her. I love it that we only need 4 digits for a phone number.

I love pulling up to a party, and there are already six other Subarus at the curb. Mine is the only green one, though. I love it that we built a house for Maria, and that the entire town turned out for Jimmy Campbell. With salads.

I don’t love the transfer station. Not that I am one in my household who has to haul the trash, but that family member doesn’t always take it as often as I might like. Not that I’m complaining, or anything.

I’m still homesick for Flagstaff, and we might end up back there someday. I'm not all that enchanted with the rest of Southern California. But right now, with flames dancing at the bottom of the hill and a potential for evacuation, I know how much I we really have, here. Stay safe, everybody.

***DISCLAIMER: I am not usually this sappy. I have the flu. Don’t hold it against me.****

Rating chocolate bars

This is a rather fun and cerebral analysis of chocolate bars. Tom Chester, a man who is part of a study of plants in these mountains, obviously has a passion for chocolate.

It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring!

Photos taken from the Town Crier porch at 1 p.m. (top ones 5 minutes later) Wednesday by James Larkin.

Cottonwood Fire from the air

Denney Herr took these photos from the airplane when she was returning from vacation over the weekend.

Check out this NASA image of the Los Angeles fires.

Albino squirrel and bunny friend

Photos taken Aug. 14 in the photographer's Fern Valley yard.

By Priscilla Wood

More on newly discovered plant species

From Dave Stith:

Tom Chester, Mike Crouse, and I discovered these plants while doing a botanical survey of Tahquitz Creek. We had never seen these plants before and so were uncertain of their i.d. Tom spent the entire next day trying to ascertain their i.d. They most closely matched Western Snakeroot (Ageratina occidentalis) but had some minor differences. We hoped in our wildest dreams that they were an entirely new species that was isolated in this remote area of the San Jacintos, so on 8/25/09 Tom and I along with RT and Shaun Hawke returned to Tahquitz Creek to take more photographs and measurements, retrieve a sample for a voucher, and survey for more areas for these plants. We relocated the plants and found more just downstream from our original location. These plants are found in a very beautiful but rugged and treacherous stretch of Tahquitz Creek in just the sort of area that the Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit is often called upon to extricate lost hikers prompting Tom to write "it is not surprising that no one has seen this species in San Jacinto here before, since it is a tough location to get to."

Upon further analysis Tom concluded that "except for two characteristics these plants seem perfect fits to Ageratina occidentalis" and "so unless further evidence is found that this deserves to be a separate species, I'll go with calling these plants Ageratina occidentalis."

So, while we did not discover a new species, we did find a plant never before seen in the San Jacintos. In fact Tom writes "this is only the second location in all of Southern California for this species." "Dick Swinney (found) this species in 1998 in the San Gabriel Mountains." "Prior to Dick's find, this species had only been known from the Sierra Nevada and north to Washington, Idaho, and Utah. Our San Jacinto location is now the southernmost part of the range of this species."

Read more about Tom Chester's work at http://tchester.org/