Raptorville

I didn't feel well today, not sure why. Nauseous, certainly could be an after effect of the anesthesia but who knows? I'm not a doctor, don't even like playing one on the internet.

I talked to the real doctor's office yesterday, they won't have the pathology reports for a few days, receptionist was brisk and sort of put me off. Scheduled an appointment for my birthday, a little less than two weeks away. Thought it should be sooner but it is evidently out of my hands.

So I am going to do the show in San Francisco next week. It will be a bitch getting up there as I have little energy for driving but I will shoulder on. Drive up Tuesday. This is a big month for making dough for me and it looks like I will have to miss the show in Santa Barbara the following week, my medical appointment with the urologic oncologist  is square on the day I have to set up for the Calm Show. Too important to miss, need immunotherapy stat. Lots of friends have offered to help me set up at the S.F. show and I am very grateful for that.

I decided not to pack for the show today, have three more days to do it. Needed some "me time." So I headed up to my other office to shoot some birds. It was lovely.

This raptor is a gorgeous ferruginous hawk. I don't get an opportunity to shoot too many of them. The largest buteo. A rare bird.

Click on the shots and see how beautiful it is with a close up.

I got real sick shortly after I saw this bird. Found a Porta Potty, very clean, thank you United Services! Started throwing up and more, will spare you the gruesome details but I thought I was done and I wasn't and when I got back in the van I nailed my pants, shirt, car floor, car door and door side pocket.

I felt pretty miserable. Like the old man in Little Big Man, I had a passing thought that it would be a good place to die. Alas it was not to be. But I can think of worse places to expire.

I eventually found my sea legs after about three more trips to the john and was in decent shape for the rest of the afternoon. Not sure if I can blame my problems on the cancer but it is certainly a convenient excuse.

Watched a lot of harriers working the fields, saw a male at one point. They are gray and ghost like.

This is a female hovering at left.

Saw my old buddy the butcher bird, the loggerhead shrike. This bird likes to impale its prey alive, on a handy thorn or piece of barbed wire. Nasty little snit.

I actually started a mystery novel once where this vicious little bird figured prominently. Probably will never get finished, can sit for eternity with the other unfinished manuscripts. Graceland, which I got the farthest on, was begun when my first wife left me, soon after I left for Desert Storm in 1990. I think it lays in the bottom drawer of the file cabinet in my home office. Probably will never finish it or even look at it again, why stir up bad memories?

red shouldered hawk

this dark morphed red tailed was actually chasing the egret.

Illness aside, another pretty damn nice day at the office.