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November 11, 1998 |
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Harris' sparrow | |||||
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Copyright © 1998, Janet I. Egan |
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the scoop on poop Despite last week's sudden demand for Ralfie, he's still here. The "application pending" sign is still on his cage, so I assume the adoption will come through. However, Matthew did get adopted. He's one of those lovey-dovey orange cats who rolls over and purrs and rubs against you and then bites you. A lot like Wilbur actually, although Wilbur rarely bites me anymore. The new staff person who approved the adoption said the people were really nice and they understood Matthew's temperament. Trevor was terrorizing other cats all morning, pouncing, and chasing, and staring down... At one point Trevor and one other cat had Sadie, the one-eyed cat, cornered inside one of the community litterboxes. The standoff went on for a couple of minutes before another cat horned in on the action and distracted Trevor's attention. Sadie made a break for it. And for some reason, lots of cats found it necessary to use that particular community litter box. Very often, when I go to scoop the two community boxes, they haven't been used. All the cats have their own in their cages and when they're out for exercise they often go back to their own cages to use the box - with certain exceptions like Jaguar who will use anybody else's box with impunity. Today, Bonnie dumped it and I washed it before we put clean litter in it. The community boxes are the big ones with the detachable covers. They don't fit easily into the sink. Actually, they don't fit into the sink at all. Washing something that doesn't fit into the sink results in wet floors every time. Earlier in the shift, I'd been washing one of the large litter boxes from the group cage (some colony cats prefer to stay with their colony mates) and splashed water all over the floor. I knew the floor was wet so knew to be careful. Dawna came over to the sink to get something from one of the shelves and slid on the wet floor into the stack of wet, freshly washed litter boxes I'd constructed on the floor. Fortunately, Dawna wasn't hurt and I didn't have to re-wash anything. I dried and put away the litter boxes and wiped up the floor before I went back to washing stuff again. weird human tricks Today's weird human story ranks among the strangest. A woman and two children came in looking for a gray and white cat who had disappeared 6 years ago. She said she'd seen its picture in the cat of the week ad. Naturally, Dawna asked which week it was. The only answer we could get was "a while ago". An unspecified while ago. Why didn't she call then if she thought the cat was hers? Well, she didn't really think it was him but now she'd rethought it. At the time, six years ago, they'd found some remains they thought were their cat. Now she's now so sure. Well, nobody could remember an older gray and white cat who'd been cat of the week in recent memory. None of our cats old enough to have been missing for six years match the description. The family stayed for awhile, looked at the cats, and left. Harris' sparrow It was raining when I left the house this morning. There had been high wind warnings and thunderstorm warnings out last night. I didn't hear any thunderstorms but at one point I did hear the wind howling. Anyway, by the time I finished washing every dish and litter box in sight and ran the umpteenth load of laundry through the dryer, the weather was clearing up. I was starving having skipped breakfast so I decided to have lunch at Tannery Cafe mainly because I needed to go to a BankBoston ATM and if it continued to clear, head over to the refuge to look for birds. After the wind last night, I though there might be a lot of birds. But at the salt pannes all I saw was a couple of yellowlegs. The clouds were still taking their time to clear out so rather than stopping at Hellcat, I continued down the road to Stage Island. There were countless thousands of ducks of all kinds in the Stage Island pool. And a few parties of birders on the observation platform. Next to me stood a group of people with a scope looking at a flock of black ducks in flight, quacking away. They were talking incessantly, though quietly, about an imagined cinnamon teal or Eurasian wigeon and seemed stumped by the black ducks. One kept asking "are those black ducks?" Much discussion ensued. Finally I couldn't keep my mouth shut any longer and I just blurted out "Well, only mallards and black ducks say "quack quack quack". "Well, then, they must be black ducks," says the woman. I pointed out some pintails to them,for which they were grateful. Anyway, at Stage Island alone I saw:
Now the sun was really out so I continued driving to Sandy Point, figuring I'd walk on the beach some.I see a car stopped in front of me so I stop. I don't immediately see what he's looking at but I do spot a funny looking sparrow hopping along in the brush by the side of the road. Being not so good at sparrows it looked like a mutant song sparrow to me -- but then I'm the wacko who thought the immature fork tailed flycatcher looked like a mutant kingbird -- anyway I watch this sparrow and leaf through the book .The guy gets out of the other car and I get out of mine for a closer look. Somebody else stops and asks what we're looking at. The guy says "if it's what I think it is it shouldn't be here". Silly me, I ask "what do you think it is?" He replies, "an immature Harris' sparrow, what do you think it is?" Me: "umm, at first I thought it was a mutant song sparrow but it really doesn't look like a song sparrow especially with that beak" I leaf through the book some more and find that the bird looks exactly like the picture of the immature Harris' sparrow I stare at it, stare at the book, stare at it, decide it really is a Harris' sparrow based on the streaking on the head, the pinkish beak and pinkish legs, the black on the breast. I take a few pictures but every time I think I've got a good view, it turns around and hops into the bushes. Meanwhile, traffic has begun to back up on the road. Law enforcement pulls up and the guy points out the Harris' sparrow to him. He says he can't close off the road, but he'll let everybody get a good look and get their pictures. Apparently he radioed headquarters for Steve at that point. I finally decided that yes, I had really seen a Harris' sparrow and decided to head back to Hellcat. On the way, I saw Steve pass me in one of the official vehicles, so I turned around and went back so I could get him to confirm the identity of the sparrow. When I got back to the sparrow spot, there was Steve standing by the side of the road looking at the sparrow through binoculars. He kept having to refocus because the sparrow kept coming closer. It hopped across the road, right up to Steve's boot and poked around. I was only about 6 feet away, watching this all through binoculars. A couple that I'd seen at Stage Island were also looking at it. It finally hopped down under the fence and into the brush. I got my book out so the other people could look it up. Finally, law enforcement came by and radioed to the gatehouse to confirm the Harris's sparrow sighting. OK, so Harris' sparrow is a western species. What's it doing on the east coast? Remember that wind last night? The high wind warnings? That wind was from the west. This little immature Harris' sparrow got blown in by last night's weather. I can just hear the weather report: rainy and windy with a chance of Harris' sparrow ... | |||||
