Profiles of Nature

At work there is a red tailed hawk who decided to nest on the sign on the side of our building. She had two chicks, and just recently they started to fly. Since then, we've had lots of great sightings, but nothing quite as cool as yesterday....

When I got to work, one of the chicks (hard to tell he's a baby, because he's almost full grown) was bopping around the parking lot.

I grabbed my camera and got out of the car to take some pictures. While I was chatting with the publisher, baby hawk flew by and landed on my car:
He seemed to like it better than most of the others because the roof racks provided a convenient perch.

I snuck in close to get some more pictures and was amazed at how close I did get. I could have reached out and pet him (if I wanted to lose a few fingers). He was magnificent... no fear at all. When I got to close he just hopped to the other side of the car.When I was done taking photos, I noticed Mama bird was sitting on top of the building keeping a weather eye on things.

And while we're talking abut nature. Mama angel fish has laid another litter (okay litter is not the right word... clutch?) of eggs.

She's actually laid about three or four litters since I last blogged about it. The second batch managed to hatch, but then they got covered in some sort of fungus and died. The other batches mysteriously disappeared in the night... so somebody ate them.

But what makes this batch special is where she laid the eggs.

Because of the worse case of tank algae I've ever seen, I recently removed all the plastic plants in my aquarium... they were covered in algae and I just couldn't clean it off. Dave and I made a trip to Big Al's and I did something I've wanted to do for a while. I bought enough live plants to fill the tank.

Mama Angel must have approved, because she laid the eggs on the leaf of one the Spades. (She used to lay them on the pump spout)
What's great about that is once I'm sure they are fertilized, I can cut the leaf off and put it in my breeder where no one can eat the eggs.

Even my knitting has take on a nature theme. The other night I cast on for Hansi Singh's Hermit Crab. It's going to be for Dave's birthday... because what boy doesn't want crabs for his birthday??? Actually he's a big fan of hermit crabs.... absolutely fascinated by them. I'm surprised we don't have a real one, though we've talked about it several times.

I don't have pics yet, and it's still just a lump of knitting, but I will soon... so until then....