Way to Go, Mama Bird for the A to Z Challenge, Awww Monday, Inspiring Quote of the Week, and Poetry Monday

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To enjoy more blogs participating in the A to Z Challenge, click here.     

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Awww Monday is hosted by Sandee at Comedy Plus.

Join us every Monday for Awww...Mondays.  Post a picture that makes you say Awww... and that's it.

Make sure you get the code from Sandee's site, linked above, and leave a link to your post so we can visit you.  What better way to start the week than with a smile!

My every other Friday clients keep a basket hanging on the wall by the back door in the carport.  They have had a mama bird build a nest in it — she’d done it before they noticed, and they feel it is a privilege to sneak in and out of the door and try not to disturb her so she can raise the babies in peace.

Naked baby birdies.

So ugly they are cute.

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Sparks, the brainchild of Annie of McGuffy's Reader, is on hiatus, so here's an Inspiring Quote of the Week in her honor.

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Poetry Monday was started by Diane at On The Alberta/Montana Border.  She and Jenny at Procrastinating Donkey take turns providing a theme each week.   Charlotte/Mother Owl almost always participates, too.  This week the theme is Birds, which works perfectly, as i wrote a poem about the mama bird whose nest and babies are pictured above.                  

mama birdie

very clever

found a place where

rain could never

get into her nest

mama birdie

very smart

found a couple who

have a heart

to let her securely rest

mama birdie

very busy

with hungry babies

she’s in a tizzy

not sure what to do

mama birdie

go get food

to keep up with

the hungry brood

the people won’t hurt you!

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Today is:

Abolition Day -- Mayotte

Babe Ruth Day -- anniversary of the day dedicated to him in 1947 by every ball field in the US and Japan

Freedom Day -- South Africa

Furze-Hopping Event -- Fairy Calendar

Independence Day -- Sierra Leone(1961); Togo(1960) 

King's Birthday / Koningsdag -- Kingdom of the Netherlands (Aruba, Curacao, Netherlands, and Sint Maartin); Bonaire, St. Eustatius, and Saba

Matanzas Mule Day -- remembering the only casualty of one of the first naval actions of the Spanish-American War, a mule in the village of Matanzas, Cuba

Morse Code Day -- birth anniversary of Samuel Morse

National Prime Rib Day

National War Veterans Day -- Finland

Pastele Blajinilor -- Moldova (Memory/Parent's Day)

Resistance Day/Day of the Uprising Against the Occupying Forces -- Slovenia

St. Zita of Lucca's Day (Patron of butlers, domestic servants, homemakers, housemaids, lost keys, maids, manservants, people ridiculed for their piety, rape victims, servants, servers, single laywomen, waiters/waitpersons/waitresses; against losing keys)

Tell a Story Day -- US (no history of origin, although celebrated in many libraries)

The Ennead Sail Through the Land -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Victory Day -- Afghanistan

World Graphic Design Day

World Tapir Day 

Write An Old Friend Today Day -- a real letter, in the mail, remember how exciting it is to get those?

Yom HaZiKaron -- Israel (Memorial Day; begins at sunset)

Anniversaries Today:

Ringo Starr marries Barbara Bach, 1981

Cornell University is established as New York's land grant institution, 1865

Birthdays Today:

Patrick Stump, 1984

William-Alexander, King of the Netherlands, 1967

Sheena Easton, 1959

Ace Frehley, 1951

Cuba Gooding, Sr., 1944

Earl Anthony, 1938

Sandy Dennis, 1937

Anouk Aimee, 1932

Casey Kasem, 1932

Coretta Scott King, 1927

Jack Klugman, 1922

Walter Lantz, 1900

Sergei Prokofiev, 1891

Jessie Redmon Fauset, 1882

Ulysses S. Grant, 1822

Samuel Morse, 1791

Mary Wollstonecraft, 1759

Edward Gibbon, 1737

Suleiman the Magnificent, 1495

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Chips with Everything"(Play), 1962

"Le roi de Lahore/The king of Lahore"(Opera), 1877

"Roméo et Juliette"(Opera), 1867

"L'africaine/The African Woman"(Meyerbeer Opera), 1865

Today in History:

Ferdinand Magellan is killed by natives in the Philippines led by chief Lapu-Lapu, 1521

Re-founding of the city of Bogotá, New Granada (now Colombia), by Nikolaus Federmann and Sebastián de Belalcázar, 1539

Cebu is established as the first Spanish settlement in the Philippines, 1565

The blind and impoverished John Milton sells the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10, 1667

The British Parliament passes the Tea Act, 1773

Beethoven composes Für Elise, 1810

US troops capture the capital of Upper Canada, York  (present day Toronto, Canada), 1813

The Foundation stone for new Palace of Westminster, London, is laid, 1840

The establishment of Jewish congregations in Lower Austria is prohibited, 1857

The steamboat Sultana, carrying 2,400 passengers, explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing 1,700, most of whom are Union survivors of the Andersonville and Cahaba Prisons, 1865

In South Africa, the Group Areas Act is passed formally segregating races, 1950

Togo gains independence from French-administered UN trusteeship, 1960

Sierra Leone is granted its independence from the United Kingdom, 1961

Expo 67  officially opens in Montreal, Canada, 1967

Xerox PARC introduces the computer mouse, 1981

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, comprising Serbia and Montenegro, is proclaimed, 1992

Betty Boothroyd becomes the first woman to be elected Speaker of the British House of Commons in its 700-year history, 1992

Russia and 12 other former Soviet republics become members of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, 1992

The first democratic general election in South Africa, in which black citizens could vote is held, 1994

The last successful telemetry from the NASA space probe Pioneer 10 is received, 2002

The superjumbo jet aircraft Airbus A380 makes its first flight from Toulouse, France, 2005

Construction begins on the Freedom Tower for the new World Trade Center in New York City, 2006

Estonian authorities remove the Bronze Soldier, a Soviet Red Army war memorial in Tallinn, amid political controversy with Russia, 2007

The wives and children of former Osama bin Laden are deported from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia, 2012

North Korea's Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in of South Korea agree to officially end the Korean war and rid the peninsula of nuclear weapons, 2018

No! Please don't do this!

#2 Son and Daughter-in-Law Becky walked out of the front door on Saturday and almost tripped over a picnic basket we'd never seen before.

On that basket was a note that said, "Please take care of this baby bird."

Inside the basket was, 

You guess it, a baby bird.  A dove, in fact.

People, please.  Think.  Any "baby" bird that is fully fledged, in other words that has all of its feathers, is not an orphan in need of help, even if it is on the ground!

It was a juvenile that was trying to learn to fly, probably with mom and dad hovering nearby, when some misguided soul decided it was an orphan that needed rescuing.

Please, don't be that misguided soul!

When i called the wildlife rehab hospital to ask if they had someone there who could receive it, the lady told me that yes, they did.  When i explained the whole situation, that it was a juvenile dove someone grabbed up thinking it was in trouble and then dumped on us, she said it wasn't the first kidnapping of the day.

Yes, when you take a baby/juvenile animal that is not really orphaned, they call it a kidnapping.  Tongue in cheek, of course, but it's pretty accurate.

They get a lot of kidnappings this time of year, she told me, especially of small birds that are just trying to learn to fly.

If you find what you think is an orphaned animal, unless it is being stalked by a predator, is obviously injured, or is so tiny and young it can't survive on its own and you watch from a safe distance and no parent animal comes near, leave it alone, please.

It's not true that the parents will reject a baby you put back in the nest.  If you find a very tiny bird, and you see the nest, put it back, please.

If you have observed for a while and it becomes obvious the baby is orphaned, or it has to have help right away, please do not foist it on an unsuspecting neighbor, either.  Just because i am in cat rescue doesn't mean i know anything about birds, raccoons, opossums, or any other critters.  Call the department of wildlife in your area if you have to, but please don't just make it someone else's problem.

Had the person who found it knocked at the door, i would have explained that the bird wasn't in danger, was learning to fly, and needed to be put back where they found it.  Instead of being trained and raised by its parents, it's now going to be fed by people and trained to find food by people and taught to fly by people and released into what we hope will be a normal life for a dove, but we can't be sure. 

On a similar note, and please do not read the rest of this paragraph if you don't want sad news, you've been warned -- the injured hawk Sweetie and Ms. G rescued and took to that same wildlife rehab hospital a couple of weeks ago did not make it.  It had a crushed pelvis, and nothing could be done.

Today is:

Betty Boop Day -- she debuted in "Dizzy Dishes" on this day in 1930

Book Lover's Day -- internet generated, but if you love books, go sit under a shady tree with a cool drink and indulge!

Carnival Tuesday -- Granada

Clean Out the Kitchen Cupboards Day -- because someone, somewhere, thought it would be a good day to remind us to get rid of the junk in there we haven't seen since last year

Dag der Inheemsen -- Suriname (Indigenous People's Day)

Defense Forces Day -- Zimbabwe

Festival for Sol -- Ancient Roman Calendar

Fox Hill Day -- Nassau, Bahamas (final day of their Emancipation celebrations)

Goblin Ugly Contest -- Fairy Calendar

Independence Day / National Day -- Singapore(1965)

International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples -- UN

International Sundance -- Manitoba, Canada (an extraordinary gathering of Elders from many Native traditions around the world, to perform the sacred Sundance of the Lakota people and sacred ceremonies of the other traditions represented; through Saturday)

Jesse Owens Day -- the day he became the first American to win 4 gold medals

Nagasaki Day / Moment of Silence -- Japan

National Hand Holding Day -- sponsored by Adrienne Sioux Koopersmith of Chicago

National Rice Pudding Day

National Women's Day -- South Africa

Qi Xi -- China (Double Seventh or Chinese Valentine's Day, the 7th day of the 7th moon, the day all the magpies in the world form a bridge so the cowherd and the weaver can meet across the Milky Way, which separates them.)


Remembrance for Radbod, King of the Frisians -- Asatru/Norse Pagan

Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross' Day (born Edith Stein, killed at Auschwitz; Co-Patron of Europe; Patron of converts, martyrs, those who have lost their parents, World Youth Day)

Smokey the Bear Day -- Smokey first appeared on a U.S. Forest Service poster on this day in 1944

Veep Day -- US (commemoration of the day in 1974 Richard Nixon's resignation let Gerald Ford succeed to the presidency)

World's Fair of Money -- Anaheim, CA, US (the greatest money show on Earth, including dealers, exhibits from around the world, family activities and educational programs; through Saturday)


Yosakoi Matsuri -- Kochi City, Japan (over 100 groups come up with their own Bon dance and costume and have dance competions in the streets, through the 12th)


Anniversaries Today:

Coronation of Albert II of Belgium, 1993


Birthdays Today:

Audrey Tautou,1976
Eric Bana, 1968
Gillian Anderson, 1968
Delon Sanders, 1967
Hoda Kotb, 1964
Whitney Houston, 1963
Michael Kors, 1959
Amanda Bearse, 1958
Melanie Griffith, 1957
Sam Elliot, 1944
David Steinberg, 1942
Robert Joseph (Bob) Cousy, 1928
P.L. Travers, 1899
Joseph Locke, 1805
Amedeo Avogadro, 1776
John Dryden, 1631
Izaak Walton, 1593


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Béatrice et Bénédict (Beatrice and Benedick)"(Berlioz Opera Comique), 1862
Walden(Thoreau, publication date), 1854


Today in History:

Battle of Pharsalus, in which Julius Caesar defeated Pompey, who fled to Egypt, BC 40
Bulgaria is founded as a Khanate on the south bank of the Danube after defeating the Byzantine armies of Emperor Constantine IV south of the Danube delta, 681
Start of construction of the Tower of Pisa, 1173*
Sistine Chapel opens, 1483
First horses arrive in Hawai'i, 1803
The Webster-Ashburton Treaty is signed, establishing the United States-Canada border east of the Rocky Mountains, 1842
Thoreau's Walden is published, 1854
Thomas Edison receives a patent for a two-way telegraph, 1892
Betty Boop makes her debut in the cartoon, Dizzy Dishes, 1930
Mahatma Gandhi is arrested in Bombay by British forces, launching the Quit India Movement, 1942
The United States Forest Service and the Wartime Advertising Council release posters featuring Smokey Bear for the first time, 1944
Singapore is expelled from Malaysia and becomes the first and only country to date to gain independence unwillingly, 1965
Richard Nixon becomes the first President of the United States to resign from office, 1974
Wayne Gretzky is traded from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings in one of the most controversial player transactions in ice hockey history, 1988
The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan loses a 38-year hold on national leadership, 1993
Tensions escalate between North and South Korea, when South Korea claims North Korea fired over 100 rounds of artillery into the Sea of Japan, 2010
David Rudisha of Kenya becomes the first athlete at the 2012 Summer Olympics to set a new world track record and secures the 800m gold medal, 2012

*completed two hundred years later