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Is it Horaltic or Heraldic Hawk?
We had a short rain yesterday morning and the Red-tail hawks didn’t like it a bit. Sena’s has been saying there are three hawks out there—and that turns out to be true! Maybe they’re all nest mates. They were flapping around trying to dodge the rain drops. After the rain stopped is when the entertainment…
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Two Hawks on the Fence Flinch at Mobbing Little Birds
We got sort of a comedy show by what we suspect are a couple of young Red-tail hawks on our neighbor’s fence. They looked a little clumsy, like they’re still getting used to their wings. We’re not sure why they were pecking at the ground. And for a couple of seconds they got dive-bombed by…
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The Hawk is a Head Bobber
The interesting thing about the Red-tail hawk in the video we got was that it bobbed and tilted its head a lot. It just looked really odd. So, I looked on the web to find out why it does that. It turns out that a hawk’s eyes are fixed in its skull, so in order…
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Are These Hawks Talking?
We saw these two Red-tail hawks sitting together at the top of a tree in the outlot past our backyard. They seemed like they were somehow talking either to or at each other. We couldn’t tell whether it was a male and a female or not. But it didn’t look like they were having a…
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Guess Who Came to Dinner?
Sena noticed a Red-tailed hawk feasting on something this morning. It’s pretty different from yesterday, I can tell you. At first, I thought it was a squirrel. Sena made a better identification. See if you can guess. This hawk knew what it was doing and it looked hungry. It also peered all around and up,…
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Red-tailed Hawk Pecking at Breakfast
We got a video of a Red-tail Hawk eating a mouse—or maybe it’s better to say it looked like it was trying to eat it. The last time we saw the hawks in the nest we saw only one chick in the nest. That was a little over a month ago. I just read that…
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Jazzy Indigo Bunting in the Garden
We’ve gotten a visitor to Sena’s garden. It’s a brilliant male Indigo Bunting. While it looks like it’s a brilliant blue color, it’s really a gray bird. Like the Blue Jay, its feathers don’t have blue pigment, but they refract sunlight. This makes them look blue. There are actually two distinct species of bunting. The…
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Juggle Double Take!
I just noticed something this morning about my Fitness Test exercise video I made yesterday. In the juggle warm-up segment, if you just play it at normal speed it looks like one of the balls smacks my face. It’s when I do the second behind the back throw trick around 34 seconds in. I ran…
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Dr. Jim Fitness Test
I thought I would share my personal fitness test. I’m pretty regular, especially in the last couple of months since I found out I gained 20 pounds after I retired from my job as consulting psychiatrist to University of Iowa Health Care. Sena and I both exercise and we’re being careful about our diet (kale…
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Get Up & Move!
On the calendar for Mental Health Month today is “Movement matters” so it’s all about getting off your duff and doing something physically active. It doesn’t have to be that strenuous and you can make it fun. For example, around 3 years or so ago, I picked up a set of juggling balls and taught…
Go Retire Psychiatrist 