Perspectives of a Canadian in the Old/Deep/New/Geographic South: This is where I ramble on about nothing in particular and post a few nice pictures.
Woke up to a chilly (for here anyway) -4°C morning. Despite the protests against the cold from the locals, for me the weather is still pretty mild.
(27°F vs 4°F for my non-metric friends)
-15°C with a high of -11°C today is actually pretty mild for early morning, even for back home.
Forecast is to get to a nice balmy 6°C (43°F) later today. Good weather for the dogs and for spending the day at the dog park.
Today’s volunteer shift at the Aquarium started off with one of the barn owls jumping on my head as I was cleaning out the exhibit. This was the first time one of the barn owls has come after me since they’ve been on exhibit, but not the first time they’ve gone after people. The male is quite protective and doesn’t like it when people get too close to the nesting box, especially if the female is in there. Today I guess I got closer to the box than he wanted me to be. Fortunately no damage done to my head.
The rest of my shift finished without further incident.
Then it was off to The Center for Birds of Prey. It was a pretty cool afternoon for being outside, and the stiff breeze out at the Center made the temperature feel even cooler. By the end of the afternoon even I was ready to head in to some place warm.
This was my first trip out to the Center, and definitely won’t be my last. It’s a pretty cool facility to have around here, and lets you get up close and nearly personal to a lot of birds of prey that you probably wouldn’t be able to otherwise. In addition to the birds on exhibit, they also treat and rehab injured birds in their medical facility. Our tour guide, Monty, said this past year they treated over 300 injured birds.
Took 370 photos out there and ended up with 16 really good ones that I posted to the gallery. A few more may go there after I make a second pass through my photos. I had my camera on burst mode most of the time, so there were a lot of duplicates and triplicates of photos. Next time I head out there I think I’ll bring my tripod.
While we were wandering around Owl Wood, one of the Center staff came out with this Lanner hawk and gave us a preview of the flight demonstration that we’d be seeing later on.
There were flight demonstrations with 4 birds, which was pretty amazing to see.
This bird swooped down to grab a piece of meat sitting on his finger.
The Center for Birds of Prey is located a short drive outside Charleston on Highway 17N and is well worth the visit.
The dogs got a 4-ball Hyperdog slingshot/ball launcher for Christmas, so today we spent a drizzly half hour or so at the dog park trying it out. It comes with 4 tennis balls, so it’s ready to go out of the box.
Hyperdog ball launcher with 4 dog-tested and approved balls
According to the product description, it’ll launch a ball up to 220′ (67m). I’m pretty sure I could have cleared the dog park from end to end with it pretty easily. Even with a short pull back you can launch the ball a good distance. Nala definitely had a good time running after the ball. Simba didn’t quite figure it out yet, because all he saw were the balls in the launcher, rather than the one that was launched.
Business end of the Hyperdog slingshot. Convenient ball storage.
It’s pretty comfortable to use, with a padded arm brace to absorb some of the pressure of pulling the ball and pouch back. The product description also boasts hands-free pickup, but this tended to be somewhat awkward because of the slingshot arms. I ended up finding it easier to just pick up the ball with my hands.
If you’re squeamish about picking up dirty and slobbery balls, you’ll probably want to stick with a regular Chuck-it or something similar for true hands-free play. If you have a dog that likes to run after balls and want to be able to send something far downrange, it doesn’t get much better than a Hyperdog launcher. It’s best in large, wide open fields and where the density of people/dogs is relatively low. Launching a ball and beaning someone in the head probably wouldn’t make for a good dog park experience. It would be perfect for the dog park at James Island County Park or Palmetto Islands County Park. It’ll work fine in smaller areas too, but you’ll have to be careful about how far you pull back and the launch angle.
I think the next thing I’ll do is replace the regular fuzzy tennis balls (hate how gooey and nasty they end up getting) with some Chuck-it rubber Ultra balls. They’re a little heavier, don’t get quite as dirty or gooey, and are easier to see in grass than a dirty tennis ball.
Nala turns 5 years old today!
12 weeks old
5 years old
