Hawk and squirrel

Josh and his family went to Chicago for Thanksgiving; Shanna went elsewhere too thus there were only four  us for Thanksgiving

pretty but deadly. One of the Cooper's hawks paid our patio a visit checking out potential food The birds usually see them coming though one time, we saw a sad blackbird get carried off

my color changing light up gloves If I become roadkill, it won't be because they can't see me

Every day I have to chase this one away from my suet cake. They don't come by in the summer but in the winter, it is worth it to go the long distance from their nest through hawk territory to raid my feeders 

my Christmas cactus likes to bloom a month early

Recently Nature had a special on squirrels. They were particularly impressed with tree squirrels such as the obese fox squirrel pictured above. Tree squirrels have to have an extra big brain to remember where it has cached all its food. They don't believe in having all of ones eggs in one basket such as the lowly ground squirrels (my pesky chipmunks are examples of these) so they will have thousands of hiding places. Their brains actually expand in the fall to make these mental maps. They ran an experiment giving microchipped nuts to squirrels. 90% of them were eventually retrieved. Did they forget about 10% of them? Maybe the 10% was security in case the winter was particularly harsh. They also showed how quickly they learn complex paths to food. Maybe I have a dumb squirrel. Sometimes I can buy some time moving a bird feeder to another branch, in plain sight of the birds who quickly find it but the squirrel repeatedly returns to where it was. Eventually he does find it and I move it again.

The Cooper's hawk won't eat squirrels preferring birds though we do have plenty of red tailed hawks that will. The two hawks are from different species. One soars above and then dives down on its rodent prey whereas the Cooper's hawk chases the bird.

They showed how widespread squirrels are though I don't think I ever saw one in Paris parks. When my son was entertaining his Brazilian co-workers, they were especially fascinated with the local squirrels. Must be rare there.

In Michigan, we also have gray squirrels that for some reason are turning black. You'd think that gray would camouflage better but on my runs, the population now is black.

Finally we have a few days with no ice on the road. True it was raining today but I might be able to do my big bike tomorrow. Fingers crossed. I really hate drab November. And with various bad news coming in, it is hard to be all cheery. I might escape next week somewhere.