Bring Out Your Dead

The difference between a category 1 hurricane and a category 4 is enormous. It only took me only about an hour to clean up the yard after Hurricane Humberto, but it took months for Michelle and I to remove and dispose of all the debris after Hurricane Rita.

While I was picking up fallen twigs and branches I mistakenly grabbed this stick-like thing. Yeck. It's actually a very slimy mostly decomposed eastern gray squirrel. Hurricane fatality?I don't come across many mammal corpses. Nature deals with carrion very efficiently here, also I don't put much effort into finding them. And as the above incident illustrates, even when one is right in front of me I might not recognize it.

Martin Collinson, who presides over George Bristow's Secret Freezer, is much more talented than I at finding dead things. He's constantly posting photos of deceased shrews and mice and such...and usually in much fresher condition than my squirrel skinbag. In fact it's a bit suspicious. I think he may have the psychic ability to will them to die.

No real birding this weekend, in keeping with the current trend. Managed to sneak away this afternoon for a brief look around the yard. I had a few neotropical passerines - 1 Yellow-throated Vireo, 1 Red-eyed Vireo, and 1-2 Summer Tanagers. A single Broad-winged Hawk and an eastbound adult Little Blue Heron were the only interesting air traffic.