Blue Jay and My Dad

Once on vacation with my family (in Alberta I think) I was in a car with my dad.  A blue jay flew down to the front of the cover. My dad in a friendly voice tried to get it to fly awake, but it was content to stay there. So my dad tossed out some food to try to get rid of it. Big mistake. Not only did it not fly away, it invited its entire family to show up for food.   I’m pretty sure they stayed around until we finally drove off.

Crow Fought the Crab and the Crab Won

Yesterday I was at the Victoria harbour waterfront with a friend and we were talking about how the Dr. Spock approach to discipline doesn’t work and sometimes sterner methods are more needed.

Unexpectedly we got an object lesson that supported how position: we heard a crow freaking out. We walked over to above the dock and saw the crow finally fly off. A woman below pointed out a baby crab. It seems that the crab wanted to eat the crab but the crab didn’t want to be eaten and grabbed the crow with its right pincer.  Finally the crow managed to get the crab off it at the dock.

The crow survived and it’s possible that the crab also survived. But crows are highly intelligent birds and now the crow has heard that it cannot go around and try to eat live crabs with there being some kind of consequence.

Today we saw a crow hesitantly walk towards another crab that a seagull had caught and partly eaten. While it did eat a bit of the crab, it seemed a bit uncertain, so it’s possible that either it was the same crow or another that had learned about what happened.

Baby Fox in Kitimat

Once in Kitimat I was walking along a dirt road leading to Quatsino Blvd in Kitimat when I saw a baby fox. I stopped and it stopped.  I started walking again slowly and it kept pace with me. I probably stopped and restarted a few more times. I eventually had to leave to head home, but it was clearly as curious about me as I was about it.  As you’d expect it was quite cute.

Beacon Hill Birds - Winter Discovery

In contrast to my last blog post, this one's going to be really brief.

I was taking photos today, the second day of the first Victoria BC snowfall of the Winter 2008/09 season, and decided to visit Beacon Hill Park, theorizing corrently that the snow would be less cleared away there than in the more populated areas. Beacon Hill Park, for those of you who haven't been there, has a fairly large artificial lake, which was partly frozen, partly not when I visited today.

Which brings me to the topic at hand: The birds I saw there today were ducks and seagulls. While there were a few exceptions either way (and some birds were on land), most of the seagulls preferred to be on the ice rather than in the water, while most of the ducks preferred to be in the water rather than on the ice. It's probably not the biggest discovery of the 21st century, but it was an interesting phenomenom to witness and made for some great shots. And it gave me an insight on ducks vs. seagulls that I didn't have before today. And the exceptions were comforting because I like to believe that in most animal species, there's some rebel that wants to do his or her own thing.

Cats Flushing Toilets

When I sent the invite to this blog to friends, I mentioned cats flushing toilets in jest. But then I decided it was hardly fair to say I would post on this and then not do so. So...

On YouTube there seems to be two types of videos of cats flushing toilets: ones where the cats actually do their business in the toilet and then flush it, and those that flush the toilet just for the whirlpool effect.

In the former category, I definitely admire the intelligence of the cats, and their willingness to give up some of their independence to make their family's life a bit easier. But I can't say i get much enjoyment watching such videos. Really I don't enjoy seeing humans doing their business and I don't enjoy other creatures do so either. I'm not offended by the act; we all do it, it's natural. It's just a pretty private thing for me. I do understand some people get amusement by it and some get turned on, especially if it's humans. And I also realize that, conversely, that many cats enjoy watching humans do their business. Again, though, it's a personal choice and not my thing.

The latter case, though, I do quite enjoy. I love the sense of wonder and fascination with stuff that many cats hold, and I enjoy the sense of wonder and fascination that some cats hold for what is pretty mundane for humans. It's hard not to try to get into the cat's head and try to figure out what the fascination is. Is the cat trying to figure otu how it works, or does the cat simply find the whirlpool effect relaxing? I can't begrudge it if the cat does: there is something relaxing about a water fountain, and when I watch the International Fountain in Seattle, I find I get very relaxed. I think the repetition is interesting too: the fact that the cat will repeatedly move to the handle to flush the toilet, then back down to watch the whirlpool efffect, then back up to the handle, etc., seemingly never getting bored by this.

I think that in doing this cats reveal that we should never take even the little stuff for granted, that we should never lose our sense of wonder. Most of us have less than a century to experience life. We should find the joy in it wherever we can, even in a toilet bowl.