... I saw a very handsome blue jay.

I also saw a bumper sticker that said Mediators Do It Until Everyone Is Satisfied.

XD

We have all sorts of wildlife in Takoma Park!

I just had to show a quite large bat off the premises.

I will confess to being slightly freaked out, even though I like bats in principle, because s/he was about twice the size of any other bat I've ever seen that close.

I trapped it in the dining room (the only room on the ground floor that closes off entirely) and then with the Mr.'s coaching (I had to roust him out of bed and away from his crossword puzzle), opened a window in there and exited the room myself. A minute later, it flew outinto the night.

I have no idea how it got inside in the first place!

I couldn't think of a clever title for this that wouldn't make me hate myself in the morning. Especially since all the news services have beat me to the worksafe ones already. So, here we go, courtesy of my friends at Shejidan:

A purrfect place for fanciers of felines

Or, if you prefer:

Calico Café Caters to Cat Cuddlers Craving Kitten Companionship (this one has a link to the cafe's official Japanese website)

Oh Japan, never change ... .

My colleague Bob wrote tomorrow's intranet interest column about bats. (He usually likes to do nature subjects, which is fine with me!) Anyway, I was combing the Intarwebs for .gov/.edu photos that would be OK to use "for educational purposes" and found a marvelous page of photos of a couple of Big Brown Bat in flight, taken in a lab. The wings are just amazing in the way they flex to take the air as the bat maneuvers.

It's also kind of amazing that this "big" brown bat is actually such a teeny creature: here's a photo of a young girl being shown a Big Brown Bat, which is held in the naturalist's gloved hand ... it's so little and frail-looking.

My little girl bunny, Brownie, gave me a good laugh last night. They each get a pineapple-papaya enzyme tablet with their night-time feed of rabbit chow and mixed greens. It's really a dietary supplement - it's supposed to help prevent hairball problems in their guts - but for Brownie, it's crack: the minute she smells it, she has to have it.

So I had dropped a tablet into each bowl as usual, but Brown couldn't find hers. She was getting really agitated - she could obviously smell it, but couldn't get hold of it. She pulled just about all her greens out and threw them on the floor, and chomped on them a couple of times in a very aggravated, angry manner, but didn't eat any. Finally she started casting about her dish a little more widely, and I figured out the problem:

She had been sitting on it.

It must have bounced off the edge of the bowl and between her front feet ... anyway, she did finally find it and munch it up, and was content again. Silly wabbit ... .