fri, 06-may-2011, 09:07
Caslon playing

Caslon playing

This year Andrea got invited to speak at the Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival. It would have been the sixth or seventh time we’ve been to the Festival, and it’s always a great time and a nice vacation for both of us. Because of all the dogs and cats, it’s hard for us to travel together, so most of our vacations are solo affairs while the other person takes care of the animals.

Unfortunately, as we were packing to leave, we discovered that our cat Caslon was sick with some form of feline lower urinary tract disease. That’s another way to say “a cat that can’t pee.” He got antibiotic and anti-inflammatory shots in the hopes that it’s an infection causing a bladder inflammation. We also need to keep him isolated so we can monitor what’s happening, and give him twice daily 100 ml subcutaneous fluid injections to hopefully keep things moving. As you can imagine, this isn’t the way I’d imagined spending the next four days.

The good news is I already took the time off from work, so it’ll give me a chance to catch up on some projects. The arctic entryway needs trim above the tile and around the windows and doors, and I’d like to build a more permanent setup for my standing desk at work.

And Andrea will have fun in Homer. We keep our database of animal observations on line, so I can track what she sees by looking at the 2011 Homer observations page.

sat, 30-may-2009, 11:43

Raft of birds off Gull Island

Raft of birds off Gull Island

I’d meant to recap our trip to Homer earlier this month, but never got around to it, so here it is (I’m waiting for the New Shed Hefeweizen mash to finish). We entered all our birds into the animals database winding up with a total of 53 species, including yellow-billed loons, which was a life-bird for both Andrea and me. We didn’t see any Red knots, which was a disappointment since they’re expected to go extinct within the next ten years. Last year we only saw one, but in past years we’ve seen groups of them. It’s shocking to witness the elimination of a species (OK, subspecies…) over such a short period of time.

Spring migration was well underway when we got back from Homer, and we’ve been keeping track of all the birds as they come into to our yard. We’re still twenty-one species shy of our total last year, but new birds are still showing up. This morning’s new species was a Swainson’s Thrush, which showed up one day earlier than last year.

sat, 09-may-2009, 08:45

Homer panorama

Homer panorama

We’re currently in Homer for the shorebird festival. Andrea gives her talk on Birdwatching for Absolute Beginners this morning, and after that it’s another perfect day of birding on Kachemak Bay. We've already got a notebook full of observations for our animals database and will probably get quite a few more at high tide today. The panorama at the top of the post is the view from our bed and breakfast.
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