Hawk

slipping through the silks of time

Teach your kids that:

nests are important and that they need to be left untouched and undisturbed

they should NEVER take an animal that they find outside and that if they find an injured animal, they should give it space and find an adult to help

wild animals in general need a wide berth and that ANY animal can be dangerous if it feels threatened

wild animals are not pets under any circumstances

it's kinder and very easy to catch and release bugs outside instead of killing them

all bugs are important, even spiders and wasps and other scary ones

everything in nature has a job in general, and everything has a role to fill

did you know that they are capable of imitation? don't worry! apparently no one else does either, but i have personally overheard them doing terrible approximations of not only red-winged blackbird songs, but also rooster crowing, ring-necked pheasant squawking, and what i now believe to be an eastern meadowlark song (which i have captured on video, something about which no one gave a fuck!!)

they are supposed to be drawn to marshes with deep water, over which multiple females will weave nests in single male controlled territories of typically 1k to 6ksqft. the waters of this marsh are wading depth, and the males control micro-territories of what cannot be more than 500sqft each-- territories that they share neutrally with marsh wrens.

When we got our younger cat Skadi, her favorite toy was (still is, but she's calmed down with age) the rattley mouse. She would bring the mouse to be thrown for fetch so many times that not even two human adults in the house could keep up with her. So my partner started making puzzle boxes to put the rattley mouse in that would occupy her for longer.

So, we have a setup: mouse is in the puzzle box, puzzle box is on the floor, younger cat is trying to resolve the puzzle box, elder cat is sitting on the cat tree observing all this. Skadi spends about fifteen minutes trying and failing to get the mouse out of the box. She sticks her paw into the holes. She sticks her nose into the holes. She pushes the box to and fro on the carpet. She meows beseechingly for a human to come solve the problem. Sticks her paws into the holes again.

Finally, she gives up on the puzzle box and wanders over to see if there's any food to be had. As soon as she walks away the elder cat gets up from the cat tree, big stretch, jumps down, walks over to the puzzle box, hooks a paw under the edge and flips the whole thing over, spilling the mouse onto the floor.

avataroftheeye: #CALM DOWN KING. SIMPLY CLOSE THE DOOR AGAIN

hello thank u i laughed v hard at that tag and i said to myself “wow this would be a fun little animation project to do slowly over time as a break between my other art pieces!” as i proceeded to spend my entire friday evening on it