Name This Bird (Please?)

(c) 2008 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

(Cross-posted at Musings & Mutterings and the House of 42 Doors)

**Edited at the bottom with our best guess.

Loved the weekend we just had. Well, other than the cold I'm developing that looks fair to knock me on my tuchus. Had a college friend contact us Thursday to say he'd be in the area on Friday and could he stop by. So we very much enjoyed visiting with him, and since he didn't have pressing plans the next day, he stayed over and went to the wonderful book sale with me on Saturday. I must confess *cough* that I got even more books than Mr. Kluges. In my defense, I went to both the sale he went to PLUS the kid books one. Even so... now we've got to find a lot more bookshelf space....

But to get back to the title of this post, we've noticed a fair amount of birds of prey in the area, and recently have seen them around by our house and neighborhood A LOT. Like, all the time. And now it appears that we've got a pair of ... hawks? falcons?... building a nest in a tall conifer right across the street from our House of 42 Doors. And there's one tree at the front of our driveway (right in front of our sign) that is apparently a favorite perch of theirs. Which is cool because we were able to get THIS CLOSE today....

(Click on the picture to see it bigger.)

...but on the side of the cons, we've (and by "we" I mean Mr. Kluges) already had to clean up what was left of either a squirrel or a chipmunk from underneath on the driveway. Yuck.

We're not exactly sure what they are, so we were hoping somebody out there would have an idea. Here's what they look like.





They make a very loud "kek kek kek kek kek kek kek kek kek" (or "kak kak kak" or "kuk kuk kuk" or some sort of hard to spell vowel sound combination thereof). Like I said before, they appear to be making a nest in the tall conifer across the way and eat small mammals. We've seen them fly and do sort of a mini-swoop in mid-air that was cool to watch.

Trying to find out on-line, they sort of resemble Peregrin Falcons (but the nesting habits don't seem to match up) or Cooper's Hawks or Northern Goshawk or ???

So, can you help? Any ideas?

(On a side note, this counts as about as cool as those deer!)


**Edited Monday afternoon:
Ok, after doing more research, and with Mr. Kluges finding the Cornell Lab of Ornithology on-line, (I love teh internets!), we're pretty confident that they're Cooper's Hawks. They look about right, and the area is about right and the sound of the call is dead-on with what we've been hearing all the time. Dissenting opinions or further discussion still welcomed in the comments though!

Some random Friday thoughts

(c) 2008 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

After mowing the lawn this afternoon (pre-forecasted-rain), the nicest things I can say about it are that it is large... and biodiverse.

Penguin is going through an "I don't NEED to nap" phase. Which is utterly, utterly wrong.

Her hair is now long enough to do one of those silly-looking straight-up ponytails in the front. Which looks hilarious, but she doesn't take it out like she does clips and it keeps her hair out of her eyes.

Pumpkin loves science videos. A lot. And it's fun when she talks to us about them and uses terms like "Archaeopteryx." (FYI, I just asked her, "Hey, hon, what's the name of that dinosaur bird?" "Um, Ark-ee-op-tricks." Smartie! Yay!)

She's also going through a rather whiny phase. That's not so "yay!"

Mr. Kluges is on notice that he is NOT ALLOWED to peel paint in any more rooms until he finishes doing it in the entryway and the bathroom. Which means LEAVE THE DANG GUEST ROOM ALONE! I don't care if it does come off easily in nice long pieces - LEAVE IT ALONE!

The baby Cooper's hawks are now big enough that they're learning how to hunt for themselves. We've seen two large ones (presumably the parents) and two smaller ones (presumably the young) in the neighbor's tree. There has also been a lot more calling, more droppings, and more feathers around.

We were lucky enough to get two packages in the mail this week! Thanks to both of you senders!

I can finally hang up clothes outside again. We've got a female mulberry tree in the side yard that fruited recently. Even though it wasn't right over the clothesline, it was near enough that the birds liked to eat some mulberries, and then sit in the oak tree above the clothesline and POOP! @#$%^@%@# So I declared a moratorium on eco-friendly clothes-drying and used the dryer for a while. I'm glad to be able to get back outside with them again.

Happy early birthday wishes to my mom! Love ya, Mom!!!!

Also good... that it's the weekend. Yay, weekend! I hope you enjoy yours, too!!

Up Close and Personal

(c) 2008 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

The hawks were outside again today, so, holding Penguin (hence some camera shakiness), I went out with the digital camera to try to get some clearer close-ups, and maybe even video of their "kek kek kek" call.


I'd post the first video I got...

...but I happened to capture an
"Animal Planet" moment
between the two lovebirds,
I mean hawks...

...which wasn't quite what I'd intended to film. ;)

But I did manage to capture their call after all.

Call of the Cooper's Hawk

P.S. Also, this is the female one. The more "pigeon-y" looking one in the photos below is the male. Trust me, I know this now.

10 Part Brain Dump

(c) 2009 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

In no particular order, here are some things I thought about / meant to post about / were rattling around in my head lately... 'Cuz nothing says "Sorry I haven't posted much/much of substance lately" like dumping 10 somewhat random items into a post and calling it good. ;)

(Slight incoherence may be due to...)
1. Pumpkin throwing up at 3am last night. She'd not wanted to eat supper, then ended up eating a lot. Went to bed as usual, but woke up at 11 pm saying she felt "awful!" Fever of 102.5F, so we gave her kids' tylenol, set a bucket by her bedside, and Mr. Kluges sat with her a while. Then at 3 am she called for us, and I went to see how she was. Still hot, but not as much. Chatted a while, then I went back to bed. Next I heard - cough. 30 seconds later, that dreaded cough - splat. Fortunately she got most of it in the bucket, and, with Mr. Kluges's help, we got her and her room cleaned up and got her back to bed. I rested with her until 4ish, when she was asleep enough for me to return to my own bed. Of course, morning came too soon, but she did well today. We started off easy with simple foods, but she felt well enough for a regular supper tonight. Also, she actually took a nap today. (As did I.)

2. Hoping Penguin's not coming down with the same illness. She's got the runny nose Pumpkin had a few days ago, and was tired enough to take TWO naps today - something unheard of in half a year.

3. SO glad to hear that it looks like Kashka's house is still (knock on wood, fingers crossed, don't-jinx-it) above water in the Margo/Forehead area. It was touch-and-go there for a while, but hopefully the water's started to recede.

4. Mr. Kluges spent all day today working on repairing the many, many cracks in the office. The only swearing occured during naptime when some of the moisture from the new plaster was mucking up the old plaster/paint beneath it and causing failure and chunks to come off. I tell you, Mr. Kluges is going to be a plaster master by the time we're done with all the stuff in this house.

5. Yesterday, poor Pumpkin was playing outside while Mr. Kluges did outside work. She was running on the (needs re-laying) limestone path, tripped, fell, and ended up with a BIG goosebump and ugly bruise right at her hairline above her left eyebrow. Poor kid, yesterday was a tough one for her.

6. With the work in the office, all 6 bookshelves and all the toys have been removed to the sun room and the living room. Most of it is out of the way, but still, having all the edges of the room filled with toys is less than relaxing. It's more annoying than I thought it would be, in a minor, but gratingly irritating way like a single mosquito buzzing around inside your tent.

7. It's spring, dang it, and I'd swept off the brick patio under our clothesline on the last nice spell of days and wiped down the lines themselves. Though it was 33F outside yesterday, it was sunny and slightly breezy, so I hung our sheets out on the line! They were a bit... stiff and crinkly to start, but dried by late afternoon.

7b. It's currently snowing outside. No plans for additional clothesline use in the near future.

8. We had such a BLAST when Nectarine and family were here! It was a little crazy with 5 kids in the house, but so fun! We went to the children's museum and to the zoo (for the 1st time), played Wii (1st time for me), and just hung out and visited. Thanks so much for spending part of your spring break with us!

9. We had a RACCOON outside our house earlier this week! I was doing the pre-bedtime are-the-doors-all-locked check, and noticed the motion detector light on the garage was on. Glanced out, and instead of the neighbor's cat, saw a big ol' raccoon right by the front steps that are about 10 feet from the front door. By the time I got Mr. Kluges to see, Mr. Coon was gone. I know we're only about a block from the river, but still, we've had SO MUCH wildlife around here. Chatty owls, bald eagles in our oak tree this month (right... meant to post a pic... maybe for WW), the Cooper's hawks that were nesting at the neighbor's last summer, not to mention the rabbits and such that you'd expect. Now a raccoon?!

10. This FLYlady stuff seems to be sticking. It's getting easier to let some "stuff" go (see the 365 Less Things in the sidebar!!!), the evening and morning routines make my mornings run more smoothly, and the weekly jobs and missions and all help me focus on keepings things more clean and tidy with less stress.


Ok, there, that's well long enough! Happy rest-of-the-weekend to you all, and let's send nice dry thoughts Kashka's way, ok? ;)