April Notes from Donna

by Donna Lewis

Hair, and a Bunny Story

Since I can’t get my hair cut, this is the new normal…

Anyway, the little cottontail in the picture below got separated from his mom. He was on my front porch for about three hours.

Now, our first impulse is to pick the baby up and try to give it food and water.

That is wrong of course. I checked and she/ he was not injured, so it did not need intervention.

I herded him out towards the pasture where he probably had a worried Mom waiting for him somewhere.  The rehab group All Things Wild calls it kidnapping when humans try to rescue an animal that is not hurt or starving. Most will be reunited with their mothers. We need to give them that chance to return to the wild.

Now, if they are injured, we need to get them to the rehabbers.  But Mother Nature will normally do what is needed.  It was so cute, and I did want to hold it…

My Purple Martins

This is my Purple Martin Gourd rack. I normally would have about 20 to 24 adults in the house by now, laying eggs. I just welcomed a new pair on Earth Day ( that was neat) and now have only eight martins in this house.

This is very late and very few. There are potentially several theories for this, but only time will tell me what has caused this to happen.

I watch my martins all day long every day, so lots of field observations are made. The one thing I know is that I am so happy to have any martins to brighten up the day with their beautiful song. Thank you Mother Nature for this gift.