merry and bright

Merry Christmas!!!













Christmas this year has gone by fast (I think because of Thanksgiving being so late and everything), but it was still a great season. I got to see lights, drink Bailey's hot choccey, play in the snow, watch my favorite Christmas movies, sit by the fire (or a heater), and I got a brand new laptop for Christmas!!! Ahhh so excited! I will miss my beloved old macbook that got my through college and allowed me to watch many, many hours of Netflix as I scrolled through Tumblr, but my new macbook will also be young and able to connect to the WIFI without sporadically disconnecting or running the fan ALL THE TIME. Anyways, the rest of the day is going to be spent watching Star Trek: Into the Darkness (I haven't seen it yet!), drinking all the alcohols, and eating an extravagant dinner provided by Whole Foods.

Have a great day with your family, friends, animals, etc.!

snowclouds and holly berries

Blimey 'o Reilly, it has been a while since I've written properly in my blog!

Quick update:

-went to the beach for Thanksgiving, lolled about with my marine animal peeps
-lost my phone in the ocean
-visited my beloved Disneyland!
-got a seasonal job at Color Me Mine (a paint your own pottery studio)
-re-opened my Etsy shop and am attempting to make a real thing happen from it

And now it's almost Christmas. In fact, TEN DAYS until Christmas! I can't even believe that, our house is barely decorated (we're doing a "simple" Christmas this year, which made me whine and moan, but honestly I haven't had time to decorate either so I guess there's that) and I've been so busy applying for jobs, working, and playing that I haven't even noticed it. BUT I realized tonight that I would be really sad if I "missed" Christmas and it snuck up on my without my usual fare of activities and Christmas snuggly cozy feelings, so once again I'm making a list (and checking it twice). The first Christmas activity (or one of them) is to, of course, get a Christmas tree and decorate it!



We get our Christmas trees from a farm that brings its business down from Wyoming. I love real trees, absolutely adore them and their smell and their energy, and even though it is probably better in some ways to have a fake tree in your house, my love of the real thing (and my innate sense of tradition) dictates that I always get a real tree. My brother, mom, and I headed out to the farm and realized it was really, really cold, so we picked our tree quickly. No pretending to be a wolf this time, thanks. Once it was home, it was time to decorate, and take pictures of the process, all while listening to our Christmas music list.















I took all of these with manual settings, which I'm proud of. I realize I need to spend even more time with my camera, learning about the best lighting to use what aperture and shutter speed in. I also now realize that I've been getting aperture and shutter speed mixed up on my camera, D'OH. Ugh, so dumb, but that's one of my goals. I have a lot of goals now, I'm trying to get my life back together since it's sort of been messy and unorganized. I want to blog again, regularly, and actually do something with my photos rather than have them rot away on my camera or on a hard-drive. I am sick of not doing anything with them, especially since they mean so much to me and photography is one of my passions. Along with this, I also want to make a list of Christmas-time activities to accomplish this season!

-go sledding on the hill in the backyard, hot chocolate with candy canes afterwards
-maybe make a handmade ornament! Or paint one at Color Me Mine!
-go for a drive to see decorations and take photos of Christmas lights
-go see Zoolights
-watch Christmas movies, especially my favorites that I haven't seen yet this season
-listen to my Christmas playlist every chance I get, since I have my weird strict rule that I'm not allowed to listen to it again until next December
-go ice-skating outside at the Gallivan Center
-make sugar cookies and decorate with frosting and sprinkles, mmmm
-read my traditional Christmas books (that are all dog-eared and for children)
-get presents for my family, GEEZ I'm behind! We only have one lonely little present under the tree right now...

Since I was shooting manual, sometimes I messed up

Bloopers



It looks like the lights are little mustaches!



I like this one a lot, still

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

My entire blog, captured in the essence of this beautiful comic.

In fact, most of these comic strips pretty much describe my life

just in time!

I have officially re-opened my shop!!!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/autumnbirds









I still sell little charms, but now I'm making them all into necklaces so you don't have to be parted from them for ONE. SECOND. I do custom orders as well, so if you have a bird you've always wanted to match with your outfit, or a spirit animal, or a favorite pet, or some sort of magical narwhal/dragon creature you've been dying to see created, then send me a message!!

Also new to my shop is my Rainbow Birds print!



It's an 11x17 in. print depicting the seven colors of the rainbow with all sorts of species of birds!

Don't wait, make sure to order your teeny menagerie necklaces or Rainbow Birds print in time for Christmas!

8) handle an eagle

Remember back in the day when I used to have a blog and I would write in it? Me too! I am back from Wisconsin and California (I will post about that later...maybe) to the land of reliable internet! And the first thing I want to talk about is my 23 b4 24 list! I have accomplished one of the things on my list, the majestic number 8!

I HANDLED AN EAGLE.



After starting out small, handling female hawks and owls (about three pounds, max) I worked my way up to handling Turkey Vultures for long periods of time, taking them on walks (TUVUS weight about six pounds), and then finally the day came where I was able to handle this beautiful boy, Zephyr the Golden Eagle. It was magnificent.









I've never handled an eagle before, the extent of my experience until I worked at the Audubon Center was getting yelled at by them when I walked past their mews and then again when I cleaned their mews. Then I got yelled at some more by Woody, our resident Bald Eagle at ACNW, and also (I'd like to think) lovingly footed by him. Multiple times. Once in the finger. But now I've also handled one, and it feels awesome!

halloweek followup

This is the first year since I've started this blog that I didn't do a day-by-day recap of my Halloweek celebrations! Which is TERRIBLE. I love Halloween so much, but this year it was a bit rough blogging about my activities due to a number of reasons. So I now am going to do a Halloweek Followup!

Halloweek Followupppp

(imagine it sung like this).

what I did during halloweek

-carved pumpkins! I utilized the method of scraping off the outer skin to reveal the inner yellowish skin so the light glows through, and I like the result! I made Turkey Vultures! Dale (one of my roomies) carved the owl.



We watched Fern Gully while we carved them, which apparently 2 out of our party of 4 had NEVER SEEN. Preposterous.

-ate lots and LOTS of candy. I usually am not that into candy, but for some reason I've been super into candy this Halloween season. I can't stop.



Sour watermelons, 3 Musketeers, and Tootsie Pops have been pretty popular around here. Everyone was obsessed with Tootsie Pops for awhile because our executive director didn't believe that the Indian shooting the bow and arrow with the star was real, but it IS.

-visited an apple farm and bought the most delicious carmel apple I've ever eaten. Covered in gourmet carmel and Reeses Pieces



MMMMmmmMmmMm

-Drew my little bat girl and her friends



-Changed my mind about a Halloween costume 13,203 times. I was originally going to be Batgirl, so I bought a mask and a cape (which a cape can be used anytime, so I'm happy about that). But then everyone wanted to do a group costume, so we switched to wanting to go as Jurassic Park scientists and dinosaurs to Fern Gully characters to now Nightmare Before Christmas characters. I was down with all of them, but I can really get on board with NBC (clearly). I'm probably going as Barrel.



(skeleton boy, for you non-crazies)

-read scary stories! Creepypastas (or "spooky noodles") on the way home from programs, short stories lent to me by my mom, and a book called "Penpal" that was really creepy and heartbreaking. I recommend it, but you can avoid buying the book and just read the short stories that started it here.



(it's a real photo of me! No, really!)

-watched a TON of Halloweeny movies! I am incredibly satisfied by the amount of horror movies I watched. The reason for it is a) I switched my Netflix to disc so I can get them that way and b) we found the Family Video in town. I miss old school video rental places, I have a lot of childhood nostalgia for them: picking out a plastic cased VHS and our candy of choice, Fun Dip, for the weekend, or a random horror movie to start my Halloween Horror tradition (American Werewolf in London). They had a whole shelf of Halloween favorites for only a $1 for two nights, so we rented so many movies.

We watched







and of course



-we did an owl release on Halloween (as well as the week before). It entailed making pine cone bird feeders for kids, candy and drinks, an educational owl program with our Great Horned Owl, and then the release of two wild Great Horned Owls. The magic of seeing an owl flying into the dark woods on silent wings is really indescribable.



Happy Owloween!

We also took some photos of Fonzie (our owl) on gravestones in the cemetery. It was spooky and awesome.





We then spent the rest of the evening watching our final Halloweeny movies (appropriately, Halloween and Nightmare Before Christmas!) and drinking. We are planning on going to a Halloween party on Saturday, so no worries! I will get my dancing and drinking fix in, too!

Next October season I definitely want to do more: hiking, bonfires, leaf pictures, woodland explorations, REAL costumes, and a huge Halloween party! (or multiple...)

Better start planning! There's only 365 days left until next Halloween!

Happy Owl-oween!!!

Celebrated Halloween this day by dancing in the car to Thriller and Ghostbusters, eating a $3 breakfast special at a restaurant decorated with porcelain angels, taking photos of owls on gravestones, and doing an educational owl program in a cemetery, as well as a Great-Horned Owl release. Now I'm cozy inside watching Halloween movies while it's foggy and spooky outside :)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

a banding tradition

It seems to becoming a tradition to band owls during the month of October, as we decided for the second year in a row to leave the warm glow of our flatscreen TV to head out into the forest and find some owls. Last year we went to Duluth during Halloweek to attend "Owl Night", where they had an educational program and we finally caught two little Norther Saw-Whets at the end of the night. Then we got to hold them like little ice-cream cones :')

We first headed to Noodles and Company in Steven's Point for the company benefit, 10% of all proceeds went directly to our organization! For some reason, I really enjoy going out and playing around after dark in the city. Steven's Point is an adorable college town, which I also LOVE because there are still people out, people my age, hanging out, riding bikes, walking around in jackets and scarves and boots with their breath fogging their vision. I love fall nights, especially when they're illuminated by lamplight. We cozied up inside of Noodles and ate macaroni and told our infamous drinking stories. I have...more than I realized...

After Noodles, we headed out to Linwood Springs Research Station, which was deep in the woods (my homeland), and took a seat in the classroom. We were treated to an educational program on owls and then released two Northern Saw-Whets that we'd rehabilitated back to health.











Since we were in the darkness since, you know, owls are nocturnal (or crepuscular), there wasn't the best lighting in the world. Also it's hard to catch the exact moment the owl actually flies off, so I didn't get any cool pictures of the owls being released into the great wild woods. Instead I got pictures of people looking amazed or thoughtful as the owl fluttered away. Aka a little bit stupid.



Little guys back in their natural habitat! May you never have to be in contact with humans ever again!

After we'd released them, we headed out to visit the mist nets, where we'd already caught a little Northern Saw-whet! We brought him back inside and took some measurements, like tarsus length and wing chord, as well as judging the age by the wear of the feathers.







The lighting wasn't too great again since it was low and fluorescent, but still. LOOK AT THAT FACE!!

We caught three Saw-Whets and at the end we got to release them. Well okay, Marge's grand-daughter and Kelsey, the other education intern, got to release them. I sort of co-released one with another rehab intern. But it was still cool!



having a complicated camera means that a lot of your pics you get back are going to be blurry, especially in the darkness when there's nothing to focus on



taking some cool pics since the owl was super shocked and didn't realize he was free to go...



OWL!

The person taking our picture didn't even get an after picture of us looking up at the sky, so unfortunately I couldn't add that one to my collection



But I did get this one!





Kelsey waiting for her owl to take off.

All in all, it was another great night filled with owls! I hope this continues to be an annual October tradition!

HALLOWEEK STARTS TOMORROW



SO. EXCITED.