Last 4th of July and a visitor...
Something I meant to document from awhile ago - the fourth of July as a matter of fact. But as the profile says, events may not occur in chronological order. Winter holidays just past so you get something from a warm summer one.
The Fourth started as it usually does in my neighborhood - waking up to a sort of low hum. While There are always already crowds of people waiting one street over from my house for the parade to start, and usually still a lot of foot traffic up and down our sidewalks. Since I've lived here since I was in second grade, the parade itself isn't all that exciting, but the once-a-year high volume of people kind of makes it feel like you've traveled somewhere else and you're not really home. The parade's start at 9:30-10am is announced first by the city's three police helicopters slowly flying up the parade route from downtown. Not all that unusual to see helicopters, even several of them at low altitude, since we also live a block away from the civic center and there's a helipad on the roof. What is different is that they all have their sirens on, and it just always seems odd to have to look up to figure out where the siren is coming from.
The parade is pretty much the same thing every year, so we don't bother sitting down at a certain spot. We'll just walk along the sidewalk until the parade ends. Sometimes we'll run into people we know, and we get see more of the homes participating in the city's decorating contest (which, a little unfairly it seems to me, is only open to those homes along the parade route - which means only the same people can be in it every year).
While it's not quite as famous as the Rose Parade, it is the oldest 4th of July parade in the west. People don't camp overnight but will mark of their spaces two days before (John calls it free lawn chair night). People find a lot of interesting vantage points...
Sometimes we'll run into people we know - neighbors, kid's friends, and occasionally teachers from their schools (Angus's third grade teacher lives the next street over and Gareth's kindergarten teacher -now retired- a couple of blocks away). Sometimes friends of ours will want to come and we'll save a parking spot for them on our alley driveway - they've got to come really early though, because a lot of the streets get blocked off.
There are the usual horses, old cars, and marching bands...
There are patriotically dressed parade viewers...
Veterans and war re-enactors (Revolutionary and Civil used to be popular, but in the last few years, WWII and Korea)...
And of course lots of old guys in fezzes, driving ridiculous vehicles...
Or wearing pointy shoes...
Patrick Warburton was the grand marshal this year, so there was that (John kept yelling "SPOOON!!" at him).
This year, after most of the crowd had left, I looked out the kitchen window and noticed a lone crow investigating our front lawn, and making quite a bit of racket. My daughter went outside for a closer look, and he walked right up to her, looked directly at her, and increased the commotion, cawing and giving a little shake of his wings as he did so. At first I was worried he might be sick, as crows in our area are often stricken with West Nile Virus. But then we noticed he had a orange ring around his leg.
A closer look revealed he had light colored eyes and the fleshy mouth corners of a fairly young bird, though he looked like an adult in most respects. A few wild crows in a neighboring tree peered at him, and I wondered if they might be his parents and he'd join them, but they took off and he showed no interest in joining them.
He was obviously quite used to humans. Avalon sat down on the steps, and he jumped right in her lap! He really wanted something, and when I brought out a bowl of water, he began gulping it down. I tried to think of what a young crow might want to eat; as it turned out, he liked dry cat food. He ate a drank a bit, and perched for awhile on Avalon's bike. When the sun started going down, I didn't want him getting scared by fireworks and flying off to be easy prey for the neighborhood cats (including ours), so we put him in Scooter's carrier and covered him up with a towel. He quieted right down and went to sleep.
I spent the next morning phoning around to various wildlife rehab places, and finally found a lady in north Orange County who was able to take him. The kids came along when we dropped him off, and she told me mid summer is about the time of year when people who've tried to raise them illegally (you have to be a certified wildlife handler and have special permits) finally realize they make too much noise or make too big of a mess to want to keep them, and a lot of people just let them go, which seems to be just what happened to this little guy. She had a bunch of older crows who would teach him how to be a wild crow, and would eventually be released with them.
(The wobble around in the middle is where he picked up a cigarette butt and I had to stop and take it away from him - I'm not sure where it came from as nobody here smokes.)
I admit, I was really tempted to try to keep him, and my daughter actively asked to; I've always liked crows and ravens, and admire how smart they are. But wild animals deserve to be just that. Hope he fared well.
The Fourth started as it usually does in my neighborhood - waking up to a sort of low hum. While There are always already crowds of people waiting one street over from my house for the parade to start, and usually still a lot of foot traffic up and down our sidewalks. Since I've lived here since I was in second grade, the parade itself isn't all that exciting, but the once-a-year high volume of people kind of makes it feel like you've traveled somewhere else and you're not really home. The parade's start at 9:30-10am is announced first by the city's three police helicopters slowly flying up the parade route from downtown. Not all that unusual to see helicopters, even several of them at low altitude, since we also live a block away from the civic center and there's a helipad on the roof. What is different is that they all have their sirens on, and it just always seems odd to have to look up to figure out where the siren is coming from.
The parade is pretty much the same thing every year, so we don't bother sitting down at a certain spot. We'll just walk along the sidewalk until the parade ends. Sometimes we'll run into people we know, and we get see more of the homes participating in the city's decorating contest (which, a little unfairly it seems to me, is only open to those homes along the parade route - which means only the same people can be in it every year).
While it's not quite as famous as the Rose Parade, it is the oldest 4th of July parade in the west. People don't camp overnight but will mark of their spaces two days before (John calls it free lawn chair night). People find a lot of interesting vantage points...
Sometimes we'll run into people we know - neighbors, kid's friends, and occasionally teachers from their schools (Angus's third grade teacher lives the next street over and Gareth's kindergarten teacher -now retired- a couple of blocks away). Sometimes friends of ours will want to come and we'll save a parking spot for them on our alley driveway - they've got to come really early though, because a lot of the streets get blocked off.
There are the usual horses, old cars, and marching bands...
There are patriotically dressed parade viewers...
Veterans and war re-enactors (Revolutionary and Civil used to be popular, but in the last few years, WWII and Korea)...
And of course lots of old guys in fezzes, driving ridiculous vehicles...
Or wearing pointy shoes...
Patrick Warburton was the grand marshal this year, so there was that (John kept yelling "SPOOON!!" at him).
This year, after most of the crowd had left, I looked out the kitchen window and noticed a lone crow investigating our front lawn, and making quite a bit of racket. My daughter went outside for a closer look, and he walked right up to her, looked directly at her, and increased the commotion, cawing and giving a little shake of his wings as he did so. At first I was worried he might be sick, as crows in our area are often stricken with West Nile Virus. But then we noticed he had a orange ring around his leg.
A closer look revealed he had light colored eyes and the fleshy mouth corners of a fairly young bird, though he looked like an adult in most respects. A few wild crows in a neighboring tree peered at him, and I wondered if they might be his parents and he'd join them, but they took off and he showed no interest in joining them.
He was obviously quite used to humans. Avalon sat down on the steps, and he jumped right in her lap! He really wanted something, and when I brought out a bowl of water, he began gulping it down. I tried to think of what a young crow might want to eat; as it turned out, he liked dry cat food. He ate a drank a bit, and perched for awhile on Avalon's bike. When the sun started going down, I didn't want him getting scared by fireworks and flying off to be easy prey for the neighborhood cats (including ours), so we put him in Scooter's carrier and covered him up with a towel. He quieted right down and went to sleep.
I spent the next morning phoning around to various wildlife rehab places, and finally found a lady in north Orange County who was able to take him. The kids came along when we dropped him off, and she told me mid summer is about the time of year when people who've tried to raise them illegally (you have to be a certified wildlife handler and have special permits) finally realize they make too much noise or make too big of a mess to want to keep them, and a lot of people just let them go, which seems to be just what happened to this little guy. She had a bunch of older crows who would teach him how to be a wild crow, and would eventually be released with them.
(The wobble around in the middle is where he picked up a cigarette butt and I had to stop and take it away from him - I'm not sure where it came from as nobody here smokes.)
I admit, I was really tempted to try to keep him, and my daughter actively asked to; I've always liked crows and ravens, and admire how smart they are. But wild animals deserve to be just that. Hope he fared well.