Author: Kay

Get behind the wheel. . .

Behind the wheel of a John Deere tractor, that is.

I don’t know about you, but I sometimes wonder what it’s like to drive something besides a car. This is as close as I could get to that at a vintage tractor display at Sunshine Herb & Lavender Farm during the Lavender Festival.

The cockpit above is from the tractor that’s second from the right. All the tractors were beautifully restored and looked like they’d just come off a showroom floor.

We have a John Deere, but it would look like a tinker toy next to these big boys. Ours just mows grass.

Here are the owls

The Northwest Raptor & Wildlife Center’s presentation at our recent Lavender Festival included three owls. Above is a barred owl, the largest of the three shown.

Next came a screech-owl.

And, finally, a saw-whet owl was introduced. If you have looked carefully at these shots you may have noticed that where you can see two eyes they do not match. That is because all three are blind in one eye, the result of being hit by cars. Night-hunting owls are vulnerable to such accidents as their focus is on prey, not oncoming traffic.

I was pleased to read recently in the local newspaper that permanent resident owls at the Northwest Raptor Center do duty as surrogate parents to baby owls that end up at the center for one reason or another. Though they may not live naturally in the wild, they nonetheless are able to do service for their own.

The falcon

In addition to the red-tailed hawks I showed you yesterday, the Northwest Raptor & Wildlife Center introduced a peregrine falcon at their Lavender Festival presentation. It is one of the fastest creatures alive, and a fearsome hunter. It has legendary eyesight which becomes obvious when you see the size of its eyes relative to its head. Illustrations I’ve seen don’t do these birds justice.

I was so taken with this bird I don’t recall why it cannot be returned to the wild. That left wing may have been permanently injured. As sad as that is, I’m grateful to have had an opportunity to see it alive and up close (thanks to my zoom lens).