Little Wildlife Story

Thursday afternoon, I was in my little tiny office, working. It's quiet, the dogs are asleep. All of a sudden, I hear a thud. A loud thud. The dogs heard it too, and started barking. What was that?

I went to the front door - nobody there. Kitchen door, nobody there. Cats are sleeping, nobody jumped up on something. Went to the back door, all seems quiet outside.

OK, back to work, dogs back to sleep.

About an hour later, took a break from work. Let the dogs out back. Instantly saw a bird, on the ground, hopping, trying to hide behind the pots on my patio. Quick, put the dogs back inside.

Bird hops away, cannot fly. So scared of me. Chirping, panicky.

I caught it, in my hands.

Found the cage that we use for injured wildlife.

At least now she is safe. Oh so scared.

I know people that are licensed wildlife rehabilitators. I call. Ack! They are totally full. But they told me where else I could take the bird. It's downtown, so my husband will have to take the bird the next day. She's going to get a car ride!






Such a beautiful bird. Pale yellow breast. Short feathers kind of fluffy on the top of her head.

I feel responsible, for it was my window that she flew into. I'm glad it is only a broken wing, as the last bird that flew into that window did not make it.

I hope she will heal well, and be released back into the wild.

Javelina !!!

What IS a javelina, you may ask?? Well, it looks like a wild boar. Sort of like a hairy pig. They can get to be pretty big. And did I tell you that they SMELL bad? Kind of like musk - skunk - can't describe it. But you can smell them way before you see them. They travel in packs. Wild. And they can be vicious.
When we first moved to Tucson, we lived in a very nice house in a development - about 900 houses in this development. Our house backed up to a desert area. There were mesquite trees on the other side of the fence. Mesquite trees have beans. Beans attract javvies. (prounced Havvies, our pet family name for them). We used to have PACKS of them almost every night at our back fence. I should have known better, but I used to go outside with carrots and apples, and they would poke their smelly faces through the fence at me and grab - right from my fingers - their treats. My dogs would go insane, so I would leave them inside while I played with my wild pigs. Good thing I didn't get my fingers chomped off.
THEN it was halloween. Do you know what is front of many houses at Halloween time? You guessed it - PUMPKINS. Big YUMMY Pumpkins. Javvies were all over the streets, going wild with pumpkins. You haven't lived until you've seen a sight like this!! (thank you wikepedia for the picture). I've tried to take pictures of them, but they travel at night, and my pictures are BAD. So are the Javvies. :0)