We have been having a battle in our back yard for about a month now. GB and I, if you will recall, put up a new bluebird house this year. The other one had seen much better days and needed replacing. Unfortunately, the birds were quite attached to the old one and viewed the new one with suspician. There was a bluebird family making a nest in the new box, and a swallow family that would remove the bluebird nest and start building it’s own. This went on for about 3-4 days, then all activity in our bluebird house ceased. I was sad because I was looking forward to seeing bluebird babies again. It’s really amazing!
I figured that the bluebirds and the swallows each found other places for their nests and that we would have to wait until next year to watch baby birds. But yesterday activity started anew. The bluebirds are building in a frenzy. Judging by the mama bluebird, I’d say a nest is imperative. They have been at it all morning and I’ve been very excited watching them.
My dh has been working from home today and has been sitting out on the deck with all his papers and books enjoying the bird activity, also. He was quite upset about 20 minutes ago when a huge hawk swooped down into our yard and grabbed up a squirrel, making off with it. I’m glad I didn’t see it. All the birds in the yard were in terror-mode, though, and when he came in to tell me about it, I thought he was going to say the hawk had nabbed one of my bluebirds.
Thankfully, all is well now….. except for the poor squirrel. Maybe I should set out some more sunflower seeds for the other squirrels to compensate for their trauma.
Saturdays at our Science Museum have become theme oriented. This week we learned about long ago creatures of the deep. GB had fun creating a fossil of an ancient fish. They had lots of plastic fish that the kids were allowed to paint with various colors and then lay a sheet of paper over top to get a print of the fossilized fish print. GB chose to make a black fish with green fins and tail. I thought it was a striking fish.
He was very impressed with the size of some of these savage sea creatures. This one is a
Tylosaurus proriger(TIE LOW SOAR US)
Description: Marine LIZARD
Specimen Location: Pierre Shale of Northwestern Kansas
Name Means: ‘knob lizard’ for its rounded nose.
This Tylosaurus skeleton is one of the largest ever found, measuring about 45 feet long. It’s skull was almost six feet long. Like other mosasaurs, Tylosaurus could flex it’s lower jaw, allowing it to swallow large prey in one piece, much as snakes do today.
During a transition time between activities, GB got involved in a “huge” game of chess. He loves chess and already plays much better than I do. So I was not really up to a game. But a nice gentleman and his two children decided to take GB on. The man told his children where to place each piece and GB made his own choices (since I am not much help in that department). It was a good game, much better than the man was expecting, I’m sure. GB lost, but barely. And I hate to say it, but I think GB was annoyed that the children were participating as much as they did. He would have preferred to just play the older man. But he was a good sport and even shook hands at the end of the game. He’s still very awkward when men want to shake his hand ~ but I think he looks cute when he does it. 
We also went to a magic show, which explained how illusions work. In the old woman / young girl picture below, GB could NOT see the different ladies. It is an old woman looking to the left with her chin to her chest and a young girl looking away from you over her right shoulder. Notice that the nose of the old woman forms the chin of the young girl! There were other illusions that he couldn’t see, also. I’m not sure what that means as far as brain perception, but he was frustrated because everybody else was able to see them.
