Male Tiger Swallotail

Black Swallowtail

September Monarch Release in a Forest Preserve

Unidentified Butterflies

Flowers and Plants

Backyard Gone Wild

Some Kind of Raptor

My neighborhood was quiet. Not a bird chirping. Not a squirrel scurrying.

One of Tootsie's short indoor visits. She stays no more than a minute.

Why No Heating Pad

Old garage. Only 2 outlets by the utility door. Electricity to the outlets controlled by the same switch that turns on the garage door lights. Remove light bulbs or waste electricity AND mess with extension cord to plug in a heating pad.

I can try my new 23,000-btu kerosene heater in the garage when it gets barbarically cold. But I have to stay with the heater.

The Sun

Classic. Not reliable even during daytime. Ground is cold. So the body is warm but paws and underside are cold.

Snickers and Tootsie sunbathing

Tootsie sunbathing alone

The Sun and The Black Barrel

Same flaws as “The Sun.” Still, when it’s sunny, body, paws and underside are warm. Not good for lying down though.

Tootsie sitting on black rain barrel for warmth

By Her Own Body Heat

When nighttime temperature was in the 40′s, she didn’t mind being covered by fleece.

Tootsie covered by fleece inside the garage

Then she didn’t want to sleep there anymore. Maybe because it couldn’t keep her as warm as she’d like when it got colder or maybe because Snickers discovered the place. They both eventually abandoned this setup.

The shelter. No view, only good for sleeping. Adequate, not balmy.

Tootsie sitting in her shelter with the roof gone

The roof was briefly removed for minor repair. Kind of reminds me of a chicken coop.

The Car’s Hood

Only works when the car has been driven. Paws and underside warm, not so much for the body. VW Beetle’s hood is not good for lying down.

Tootsie sitting on New Beetle's hood

My Lap

All wrapped up and on my lap. Cozy and warm for her to nap or watch stuff. Downside is I can only last about 30 minutes. Freezing fingers and toes. Numb bum.

Tootsie wrapped in fleece sitting on my lap

Best Method Not an Option for Now

Cuddling with her sister. Tootsie had her sister Twinkie for past 2 winters. Twinkie was bigger. I wondered how both could fit in one shelter until I happened upon them inside the garage. Most of Tootsie was on top of Twinkie! In May, Twinkie was struck and killed by a vehicle about a half-mile from home.

Tootsie cuddling with sister Twinkie. The last media I have of Twinkie. Taken about a month before she died.

What about Snickers? Back in September, 2009, Snickers was the one that cuddled with Twinkie. Once their mother’s TNR was done, all kittens left. Tootsie returned within a day. Twinkie returned a day after Tootsie. Snickers came back 2 weeks later. She changed and no longer cared much for her sisters. No cuddling! Since Twinkie’s death, Tootsie and Snickers have slowly become friendlier. We’ll see.

Snickers and Tootsie sunbathing in close proximity. The closest ever. Did not last long.

This is Turkey.

Turkey has issues- starting way back with “inhaling” food and skin/food allergies, then anxiety and obsessive grooming.

I give him small meals 6 to 8 times a day. So his feeding schedule dictates my life. This method is not as effective as when he was younger.

Turkey got shaved!

Turkey got a lion cut with a mohawk.

Summer of 2011 was BAD. He threw up several times every week. I finally had him shaved. He quickly improved to puking only a couple of times a week. We should do better. (His obsessive grooming keeps much of the fur from growing back.)

Slow him down?

Our vet said to try a very large pan or bowl, or a “bumpy” dog bowl.

Owner of an all-natural pet food store said adding ping-pong balls to his food might do the trick because he must eat around the balls. Unfortunately, plastic will very likely make him break out.

Bumpy Bowl

Bumpy Bowl

The bowl is ceramic and the diameter is about 4¼ inches. The next size up would be about 8 inches in diameter, which I think would be too big to work for him.

The way he normally eats.

How bumpy bowl changed it.

Oh-oh!

Although it took him more time to eat each kibble, he worked harder and longer for the same amount of food and became stressed out. Getting the last few kibbles was tough.

Turkey lost some fur around his nose.

His nose was scraped up from the effort. He threw up anyway. Three for three! Twice right beside the bowl. Once on my bedroom carpet.

I didn’t dare try feeding him with the bowl for the 4th time. Maybe there is something anatomically/physiologically goofy with him that the bowl cannot help with.

Cat sits facing the garage door

Why?

Warning! Picture of a half-eaten squirrel follows.

Half-eaten gray squirrel

Yeah right, I wish.

Almost immediately after I buried the squirrel, Snickers hopped the fence going after another. She did not succeed. Then she spent a few minutes sniffing the place where she left her kill.

As for her sitting facing the garage door, all my ferals do that on sunny, cold days. They sit that way and doze off for minutes. Maybe to warm up the backside. Or, maybe the reflected light/heat from the white paint is gentler on the eyes.

A cat on the fence

Why is she on the fence?

To play with a stalk

The cat on the fence

Wobbly on the fence

Is that a mouse?!

A mouse on a stalk

So the cat cannot stalk

The cat on the fence, too wobbly on the fence

To catch that shifty mouse

The cat on the fence, just about to fall, can only kiss the mouse.

The cat off the fence, to rest her weary paws, and stalk the little mouse!

Epilog

My ambivalence (or “on the fence”) about the mouse’s fate, my desire to get Tootsie involved and the fallen leaves allowed the mouse to scoot down then evade Snickers. It was quite a climber- scrambled 5 feet up my brick wall then scampered 7 feet across. I swept it down with a broom so it couldn’t try to seek refuge inside. Just as Snickers finally regained control of the mouse on my neighbor’s lawn, the riding lawnmower came bearing down. After my neighbor was gone, so was the mouse.

September 4

Keeping them warm

When daytime temperature turned unseasonably cool for days, my turtle’s ceramic heating element warmed the chrysalises and new butterflies a few hours a day. Six of the last seven chrysalises were in a smaller habitat warmed by sunlight through the bay window when sunlight was available.

September 19

The large habitat emptied. I moved last chrysalis in the habitat by the bay window under sunlight. It turned into a chrysalis at least one day before the first of the last seven. Yet, it enclosed a few hours later. Temperature matters.

September 22

Every single egg that I took care of from mid-August and on made it! The last monarch butterfly of the year was a male. Of course the temperature took another nosedive. I held him for a day then released him on a sunny but chilly day.

2011 Total: 115; male: 52; female: 63. When I started back in May, when a female deposited more than 50 eggs on tiny milkweeds, I thought raising 200 monarch butterflies this year was possible. I didn’t count on parasitic fly larval infections and crazy weather. I hope the species as a whole is still ok and I can do better next year.

How to trap them? When they get desperate enough they’ll come down the tree. Then, two daughters of an adult-squirrel hunter will have such fun! Only trap when I’m around? How will I know when they are coming down?

September 21

Didn’t see Grey since I woke up. Hope the ferals are not digesting it. Spent more than an hour total up there with Black. Peanut butter stuck to the roof of its mouth too! No indication of Grey being around. Managed to lure Black into the cat trap but it backed out right before I shut the door. Reached into the tree hole wearing a rose glove. Grey not dead inside but the hole is much bigger than expected- elbow-deep, could not touch all walls, could not feel Black even though it was in there.

Failed trapping upset Black. Refused to come out for me any longer.

It will be cool and rainy for several days. How will Black do on its own?

September 22

No Black. Still no Grey.

September 23

Black’s little head popped out. I climbed up. Gave it food. It ripped food from my fingers then ran high up in the tree to eat. Soon dropped most of it. Tootsie patiently waited by the base, for me or for any squirrel. She didn’t care.

Prepared the trap just in case. Scattered some peanuts around the trap. Black descended. Tootsie chased it back up.

Two gray squirrels and Black foraging around the trap. Black obviously felt safer among other squirrels. Tootsie again!

Adult gray squirrel trapped! Reset the trap.

Gray squirrels lured away Tootsie and Snickers. Even Turkey watched a squirrel in an evergreen screaming at something. Black cautiously came down. Hopped around tree’s base. Entered the trap. I didn’t know if it would be heavy enough to trip the door. Somehow the door dropped trapping it even though it never went far into the trap. A gray squirrel, not fully grown but larger than Black, circled the tree trunk.

Black got very agitated whenever the trap moved. It let out some LOUD screeches in the car! Rest of the time, sounded like it was throwing a fit. I got lost for a short while. Arrived at the wildlife rehab center in total darkness.

Black is about 10 weeks old, 6 weeks short of being capable to survive on its own. It should be released before winter.

In the beginning of spring, a black squirrel took up residence in the neighborhood. The last time we had a black squirrel around was a couple years ago.

Like other resident squirrels, it learned to avoid my feral cats via trees, shrubs, overhead cables and roof tops.

In June, after a stormy deluge, I was checking out the backyard when I noticed it going up and down my honey locust tree. Going up, it mostly took the ground route. Coming down, it took a large limb to another tree then to my neighbor Carol’s front yard. Kind of odd.

I stood at a spot in Carol’s front yard and waited. Soon, there it came, down the trees heading straight toward me holding a baby squirrel with her mouth. Hmmm. A mom. The hairy pup was stretched out and rigid. Different because when another squirrel mom carried pups up my honey locust tree in 2009 each pup wrapped itself around the mom’s mouth giving the impression that the female’s mouth was full of fur.

I stepped aside. Mom took pup to the top of my neighbor’s spruce, or pine tree. I’m not good identifying trees. The nest in my honey locust tree was located in a hole down the trunk where tree limbs start. That area often floods. She made a new nest after it flooded.

She made 2 more trips. I realized that squirrels probably couldn’t count so she had to check the old nest to make sure she didn’t leave any pup behind.

The danger of the new nest would be neighborhood crows and Cooper’s hawks.

Tragedy? By my count, there should have been at least 4 pups. A few weeks later, no curious, exploring, playful young squirrels! You know if there are young squirrels around. She lost all her pups, as far as I’m concerned.

Black squirrel stayed around. I saw her at least a few times a week, in the bird feeders and chasing other squirrels. Some mornings I could hear her running across my roof.

Morning, September 19 2011

Light rain and drizzle for a good part of yesterday. The sky was still grey even though the forecast promised sun. I opened the living room blinds. Noooo! Black squirrel lying in the street. I put on gloves then ran out. She must have been hit by car. Rigor mortis already set in when I picked her up. Maybe it is not her. Large nipples. Maybe not large enough to mean she has babies. I buried her.

Melancholy. Greyness didn’t help. Did the car that hit her at least tried to stop? Did someone hit her on purpose? Why did she not pay attention? Same questions that plagued me since May 4 when I picked up Tootsie’s favorite sister and protector Twinkie by the side of a busy street about half a mile from home. She was apparently struck and killed.

Afternoon, September 19 2011

Around 5pm, sky finally cleared. Looking outside my bedroom window. Black squirrel on the trunk of the honey locust tree?! A grey squirrel too! What?

Grey carefully descended to the base, started foraging then ran back up. Tootsie and Snickers were waiting to be fed. Grey is a juvenile. Same goes for black. Their mom never came back to feed them. They are on their own.

Are they old enough to survive without their mom? What do they eat? Do they know what food is?

I took out the extension ladder, climbed up the trunk then poured some peanuts and sunflower seeds by the nest.

Grey came down the tree again. I tossed a few peanuts at it. It didn’t seem to know. I held out a peanut and it approached with trepidation and curiosity. I didn’t really want it to grab or eat the peanut off my fingers. My fingers could get hurt. It scampered up the tree as Tootsie strolled up to me.

Half and hour or so later. I saw Black munching on the food I placed. At least it knows! How much do they need to eat everyday?

Tootsie, Snickers and Cleo, a neighbor’s cat, are a threat on the ground. Raccoons are the nocturnal threat in the tree.

Spring of 2010. A raccoon ate at least one baby squirrel from a nest in the same location. The mother squirrel couldn’t do much in the dark other than screeching her lungs out. When I finally figured out what was going on, the raccoon was already tearing and chewing flesh. When it reached into the nest for more, I took out the ladder. I must stop it. How? No clue. Luckily, as soon as the ladder hit the tree, the raccoon departed. I didn’t have to “fight a raccoon in the tree.”

There is a mother raccoon with 3 babies. Trash night, a week and half ago, the babies were up in the honey locust tree wrestling then napping, waiting for their mother to return from foraging. The babies must be bigger now. The young squirrels are mobile but can they fend off 4 raccoons? Can I fight 4 raccoons in a tree?

Chrysalis Turned Bad

In my blog about mosquito control, I mentioned having to give 4 monarch caterpillars milkweed leaves with questionable quality because these were the only ones that I had on hand that was not contaminated by the spray.

Two of the four caterpillars were particularly non finicky. They contently munched away until only a stub of leaf vein remained. I actually praised them for being such good caterpillars. Soon, the first of the four picked a spot on a milkweed leaf to pupate. I could tell it didn’t look around much, unlike most end of 5th instar stage caterpillars. Everything proceeded smoothly.

August 30

Much darker than normal lines appeared on the chrysalis. These lines were edges of the wings, but the rest of the wing markings were not visible as should be. The poor thing was in trouble.

September 1

I knew there would not be a butterfly from this chrysalis. A sad ending for a good caterpillar.

I was not too surprised though.

Failed Pupation

The day after the first of the four became a chrysalis, another underwent the process. It was a more finicky eater. It also picked a milkweed leaf. The leaf’s angle didn’t seem to be the best for hanging but I noticed too late to intervene.

August 25

While preoccupied with feeding 40 or so caterpillars, I happened to glimpse the familiar sight of a pupation in trouble- a motionless caterpillar with a green bubble on the back of its head. Temperature was in the upper 70′s so that wasn’t a factor. The green bubble had a “lesion” and the caterpillar was not hanging correctly with at least one of the prolegs still clung to the leaf.

Although I assumed it was already dead, the caterpillar managed a few contractions. I detached the leg then moved it to the warm sunny bay window hoping light and heat might rekindle the enzymatic process. A minute or two later, green liquid started dripping from the green bubble. First time this happened! It was barely alive but totally doomed. I took it to the freezer.

Injured Caterpillar

It looked shorter than it should be. The dark spot on its back end was not a caterpillar dropping. Did a larger caterpillar bite it? Did it have problem molting? Did a pathogen cause it to spontaneously “bleed?” Initially, it moved around a great deal. It seemed to be tasting the leaves but left no chew marks. It kept shrinking. I ended it.

What’s in store for September?

Aggravation!

From the last 2 weeks of August into the 1st week of September, I must feed 20 to 30 5th instar caterpillars everyday. Competing for food seems to make some insatiable. They grow bigger than average, stop eating for quite a while giving the impression that it’s time to pupate only to wake up to eat some more, making me want to commit larvicide! Too bad they don’t know “bigger isn’t better” when it comes to pupation.