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About two months ago, Joe, Lilia, and I helped out with the Roxborough Toad Detour. The toads, and some frogs, live in the woods around the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, but they mate and lay their eggs in the old Roxborough Reservoir… which is across several busy roads. After realizing that the toads were being squished on their journey, someone started the Toad Detour last spring. I found out about it by picking up a free local newspaper, and told Joe about it. He got involved right away. Lilia and I visited, but since it’s at night, and they are trying to stop cars, we weren’t much help. This year, we were able to help a little more, but since Lilia sucks her thumb, I didn’t want her to pick up any toads. We just spotted them and alerted the others– who would put them in a bucket to be transported safely across the road.

We received word last week that the babies were now toadlets, and they were ready to leave the reservoir and cross the street to the woods. We stopped by and didn’t see a road closure, so we started to walk up to the reservoir. As we were about half-way up, we realized we were surrounded by itty-bitty toadlets, and we feared we had already trampled some. They were soooo tiny! We were ill-equipped to help (no road detour had been set up and they weren’t in the road yet anyway) so we tip-toed back to our car and left. Joe went back a few nights later to help out– he collected toadlets in a paper cup and ferried them across the road.

On our way home from our toadlet adventure, Joe spotted a pileated woodpecker on a tree on Henry Avenue– a major road in Philadelphia. We turned around and parked at Philadelphia University so we could spot him. He was tapping (banging?) away on a tree stump that was just inches from the road. Amazing. I snapped a terrible picture, but it’s proof he was there.

Itty-bitty toadlet

Roxborough Reservoir, taken through a chain-link fence

Blurry, low-light Pileated Woodpecker on Henry Avenue

During dinner tonight, I mentioned to Joe that I needed to go to Kohl’s tomorrow to get some female undergarments. And then it dawned on me that I could go right then and there… and not have to bore Lilia to tears while trying things on. Besides my weekly volunteer gig at the library, I haven’t left the house without Lilia in quite a while. I can’t remember the last time. I might have done an errand one weekend morning in spring without her. It was a real rarity. And since Lilia is in a Pete Seeger ONLY phase, I grabbed Paul’s Boutique from the CD rack and headed out the door. Like the old days, I blared it as I drove up Henry Ave. Unlike the old days, I was only driving 35 MPH.

As I was just about to the entrance, I saw something fall from the sky and land with a plop on the curb. It was a little sparrow, who had been living in the O in the Kohl’s sign. He was still breathing, but not doing well at all. I debated what to do. Others had seen it too, but no one else was going to do anything. I knew we were right near the wildlife rehab center, and I couldn’t bear to just leave him if maybe he was going to be okay. I went back to the car, found a shopping bag, and picked him up with it and talked sweetly to him. He was still warm, but barely breathing, when I put him on the passenger seat. I drove to the wildlife rehab (about 5 minutes away), and was disappointed to see that are only open M-F 10-4. The sign said you could leave animals in a sturdy cage in the lobby if needed. I checked on my little birdie, and I am pretty sure he was no longer breathing. He wasn’t in a cage, but I didn’t want to leave him outside, just in case there was some chance he was still breathing, so I put him (and the shopping bag) on the lobby floor.

I shopped a bit (ugh, I hate female undergarment shopping), and came home, still listening to the Beastie Boys, but at a lower volume.

Oh my goodness. I have not updated since before I finished school! And now I’ve waited so long that I am feeling pressure (self-imposed!) to make a *great* post (rather than just a simple Facebook Status update!), and I just don’t have a *great* post in me!

This will get me started:
Here’s a re-cap of what we have been doing since I last posted:

• I finished my final assignments and officially graduated! I didn’t attend graduation in Clarion, and I haven’t received my diploma yet, but my transcript shows that I completed all the requirements. I now have a Master of Science in Library Science. I started the program in September 2006, when Lilia was just 6 months old. I started slowly, with just 5 classes in the first 16 months, but I took 7 classes in 2008 in order to finish faster. I *almost* finished with straight A’s, but unfortunately, I missed a weekend of classes when the family had the flu last February, and that is an automatic grade reduction. Oh well! Now I’m starting the job hunt– fun times ahead!
• We celebrated Christmas! My dad joined us at Sheerlund Farms, a great Christmas tree farm in Berks County where we cut our own tree. This was Lilia’s first time having a real tree– we used an artificial tree during her first Christmas and we had appliances in our living room last Christmas (as our kitchen was being redone!). Lilia loved having a tree, and is counting down the days till next Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve and Day in Berks visiting family. A few days later, we met my sister (Lilia’s Aunt Maria) at the Hershey Zoo, where the animals were getting special treats for the holidays. That evening, Joe, Lilia and I toured Hershey Chocolate World and Hershey’s Christmas Candy Lane. It was a chilly night, but Lilia had fun riding on all of the kiddie rides. We also went to Macy’s in Center City Philadelphia to see the Wanamaker Christmas Light Show
• We met Aunt Maria at the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware to see the Snow Geese. Boy, are they noisy! I’ll post a video of that in a picture post.
• Lilia finally got a new toddler bed! We are still working on a bedtime, and sleeping more in the toddler bed, but she does sleep there sometimes. We also got Lilia a kid-sized table and chairs so she can work on her projects.
• We participated in the Mid-Winter Bird Census, simply by looking out our back door and counting the birds. (The count: 30+ Sparrows; 6 Juncos; 1 Nuthatch; 3 Chickadees; 1 Downy Woodpecker; 1 Cardinal; 6 Goldfinches; 6 House finches; 6 Robins; 2 Mourning Doves; 11 Starlings; and 2 Crows) We also went for a winter walk in Fairmount Park and saw a few beautiful bluebirds.
• Lilia’s weekly gym class started a couple weeks ago. She loves doing tumbles, walking the balance beam, and swinging from the rings.
• And the most exciting thing we’ve done recently was travel to Washington, D.C. for the Inauguration of the 44th President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama!! Our friend Karla joined us on Monday, and we drove down to Aunt Maria’s house in Maryland. Aunt Maria was out of town, but she let us stay at her place, bought metro passes for us, and left us great directions. Tuesday morning, we drove to the Metro and joined the crowds heading to D.C. We made it to the National Mall, and stood next to the Washington Monument to witness the swearing in… on a large Jumbotron. Lilia was cold and tired, and had a bit of a rough time before she fell asleep in our arms. But she was very happy to see Barack Obama on the big TV, and was even happier to watch the parade on television when we made it back to Maria’s house.
• Lilia is less than 5 weeks away from turning three years old, and I’m working on planning her birthday. Papa and Gram will be visiting from Michigan, and we’ll have a party for her at her PA grandparent’s house. THREE YEARS OLD!! I can’t believe it!!

Well, now I better start working on a picture post to go along with all these bullet points!

Ah, Spring. As someone with year-round allergies, you’d think I’d be used to the symptoms, but Spring Pollen and grass is at the top of my list. Aaachooo.

I have been facing my nemesis and heading outdoors anyway. Here are a few pictures from a walk to the playground today:

Pretty flowers in someone’s yard:

This didn’t turn out like I thought, but I wanted to document that today is election day. I thought the church was making a statement, supporting both candidates (the Clinton sign doesn’t show up that great), but really, the church was a polling place. That open wrought iron fence is, I believe, a Samuel Yellin piece.

Lilia still loves swings!

And one for good measure– Grampop visited last Friday. Look at these hams!

As I was getting ready to leave for class Friday night, I saw a movement in the backyard that looked unusual. I peered out the window and saw this:

S/he flew to the wire, and we took several pictures of him/her there:

I couldn’t tell what it was by looking at The Sibley’s, so I asked some online bird and urban nature communities. The verdict was:
Cooper’s Hawk, unless it was a Sharp-shinned Hawk (they are easily confused). I have a lot of pictures of this guy’s tail, and I’m pretty sure it was a Cooper’s Hawk.

Living in Philadelphia, you would think you would see pigeons and rats before you’d see a cooper’s hawk in your backyard. But that is the beauty of our neighborhood. We live very close to the Wissahickon and Fairmount Park, and even though we live in the middle of a long string of row homes, and have a postage-stamp sized backyard ourselves, we get to gaze out upon the backyard of the house behind us. The yard’s lot would normally have at least 4 row homes on it, but instead, there is a grove of evergreens.

For my first grad class in 2006, I created a powerpoint guide to enjoying nature in the city. I just uploaded it to my website, if you are interested: Exploring Nature in the City: A Guide to Finding Natural Resources for Philadelphians

The cooper’s hawk sighting is a new addition to the list of wildlife we have seen in our backyard. Here are a few we have caught on film:

A Deer! To be truthful, that is not OUR yard– the tree in the foreground is our boundary.
Here is the deer with our cat, Boo:

A Pheasant! When was the last time you saw a pheasant wandering around the city? I suspected this guy was a pet, but who knows!

This guy thinks he’s a bird, huh?

And a Downy Woodpecker… taken through glass/screen with digital zoom, sorry for the quality.

We’ve also seen other hawks (probably red-tails), and opossums.
We regularly have goldfinches, house finches, chickadees, mourning doves, juncos, sparrows, cardinals and squirrels at our bird feeders. A few grackles showed up last week– they are very cool looking, but I don’t like to seem them on my feeder– they are much too big and awkward. When our mulberry tree has berries in May, we will have Cedar Waxwings.

What wildlife have you seen in your backyard?