Here are some of the baby birds on campus. They haven’t been out of the nest long and are trying their wings at flying. It was difficult to catch on video because they are so small and they hurl themselves into the air rather unpredictably.
Archive for the ‘animals’ Category
Scarab
May 4, 2009
We met a new category of lifeform. This was around 8 pm, after dark in the parking lot. He was walking very fast. It was a challenge to get a picture.
Miss Kitty says Hello!
April 27, 2009Miss Kitty says “Hello” to everyone at home. If you listen carefully, you can hear her purr.
Cat heaven
April 24, 2009http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUST34914420071204
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/japan/090406/tokyos-cat-cafes
This summer we are stopping in the British Isles on the way to and from the States, but next summer (2010) I think I will have to travel the other way around the globe to Tokyo to hit all the cat cafes. My kind of restaurant.
It would be nice if this concept could catch on here. The reason we haven’t taken in a cat or two is that we don’t know what to do with them when we travel. If we could just pop into the cat cafe (Daddybird wants it to be the cat and shisha bar), that would be great. I’d do it everyday.
Crafty birds, part two
April 23, 2009
bird nest between two palm fronds
Here is another bird’s nest. I discovered it because the mother bird was sitting in the entrance and singing as I was walking by. She and her mate have woven two palm branches together with their nest as the center of the sandwich.
momma bird
She flew out and right behind her came daddy bird (not THE Daddybird, the daddy bird)
daddy bird
According to my bird book and my best guess, these are house sparrows. Kind of a boring name for someone so crafty.
Crafty and amazing birds
April 15, 2009So, I was sitting outside in the courtyard during lunch the other day. The wind was kicking up because the weather had been a little rainy and rain means wind, thunder and lightning here, as a rule. I was watching the palm fronds waving in the wind and noticed that there was a bird nest attached to one of the fronds. 
If you can’t see it in this picture, try the next one.
And here’s what it looks like from the back side. I am at a loss to figure out how it is attached. Bird must be a better engineer than I am. It is firmly attached, however, and has weathered the weather. 
Miss Kitty
April 14, 2009
Here is Miss Kittty alseep in the flower bed. This is what she looks like with hair. We’ll have to wait until August to get a picture of her summer hairless look. I discovered one night that Miss Kitty has it really made. She waits by the door in the evening when everyone is going home, then sneaks into the administration building while the door is open. She then wonders into the Director’s office and lets the Director’s assistant know that she is ready to be fed now. Then, they go out together, catfood bag in hand, and she gets fed outside. Quite a racket she’s got going. So, I don’t worry too much about her welfare. It’s nice to work on a cat friendly campus.
Full service restaurant
April 2, 2009
We made a new friend at our favorite restaurant last night. There were actually two stray cats hanging around. This is the “baby” and the mother was mostly white with a little bit of tabby stripes on her head. Paul offered them some food, but they were not interested. Just wanted to be petted.
I never cease to be amazed at how long legged the cats here are. Their tails are long and narrow, too. These pictures don’t really show the lankiness of these cats. This one has beautiful dark amber eyes. Very pretty. I was sorely tempted to take him/her home, but we haven’t come up with a viable summer plan for pets. Can’t really take them with us and can’t leave them alone for two months.
Here’s another stray, but he travels well, so I take him home.
P.S. The comments on the last post just prove that the name of this blog should be “For Gerry, Kristen and Linda.”
Random thoughts
March 6, 2009We’ve coined a new phrase — road neener neener. Paul doesn’t have road rage. He has road neener neener. If he can keep someone from cutting in front of him or pass someone who is driving ridiculously and leave them in his dust, he takes great joy in this. It’s what keeps us sane while driving in Dubai.
Totally embarassing moment: Paul called to tell me he was there to pick me up and I walked out to the place he usually waits to pick me up. I saw a little white car in that same spot. Walked up to it. Opened the door and almost got in when I realized that the driver was a strange woman? So, I say “Oh, sorry, wrong car. … Where’s my husband?” and I look around to find our car. She says “I don’t know, but I can give you a ride home.” Luckily, I saw that he had pulled into a parking spot a short distance away, excused myself and proceeded to get in the right car. No more operating on autopilot for me!
Miss Kitty came to visit me at the library while I was working the late shift Tuesday night. She came to the front door and meowed. I heard her through the double doored lobby. So, I went out picked her up and petted her a bit. Not enough to satisfy her, but I was working alone, so couldn’t be away for very long. She is starting to shed voluminously. The weather is warming up again. I suppose it won’t be long before she is hairless again.
“A grouchy Sudanese telling an American living abroad in an Arab country to go see an Indian Chiropractor. Only in Dxb.” – our friend Muhammed Ali (yes, that is his name.) This pretty much sums up Dubai (Dxb is the airport code – you can probably see why I find PDX and DXB confusing.) Dubai is the ultimate in multicultural and our growing group of friends and acquaintences is definitely multiethnic – Indian, Singaporean, Burmese, Russian/Syrian, Sudanese, Eqyptian/Swiss, Swedish, North Carolingian, South African, etc. They are incredibly funny, intelligent people I love to hang out with.
At our favorite restaurant one night, we had a new waiter. He asked Paul where he was from (it’s the beard again). The waiter then struck up a conversation, in his best Globish version of English, asking us how we thought Obama was doing in his first month. He then proceeded to tell us that it is American politics/foreign policies that people hate, not Americans and that the Americans he has met are all nice people. He really wanted us to understand that there is no animosity toward American people. Interestingly enough, this came up in another conversation with someone else a few weeks later. So, I wonder. Can American’s say the same?
Car washing/cleaning is rampant here. There are no fund raising car washes here because that would require a business license (also there are very strick rules regarding charities and fund raising here). However, you can get your car cleaned in nearly any parking lot. There is a man who cleans the cars in our apartment building parking lot. We pay Dhs 100 ($27) per month. He goes over the body with a duster, wipes the windshield and washes with water and rag only when there is something the duster can’t handle (like when Paul drove through the Sharjah industrial area after it had rained). This is done several times a week. Paul tried putting tips of 5 or 10 dirhams under the windshield wiper, but the guy just deducts that from the monthly fee. Festival City mall seems to have a troup of car washers hanging around in the parking lot just waiting to wash your car while you are doing your shopping. Kind of amazing. We saw someone washing a car in an open parking lot during a sandstorm. Might as well have been spitting into the wind.
We love Dubai. … Have we said that already?
Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary
January 28, 2009
Yesterday we visited the Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary. This is a wetlands bird sanctuary located at the “head of the creek.” The Creek is actually more like a bay or inlet shaped like a J. (For a map that will show you what I mean click here. Notice the compass indicator on the map. It is nearly impossible to get a north oriented map of the city which why I keep thinking the sun is rising in the south.)
The inland end of the Creek has mangrove trees (more like bushes) and a lagoon like setting. The walkway out to the viewing station is covered in palm leaves to form a blind so the birds don’t see us coming.
Flamingos are the most common bird to be seen here. I apologize for the poor, poor quality of my pictures, but what do you expect from a super cheapo camera? The older flamingos had bright pink legs. Most of their feathers were pale pink, but the underside of their wings were bright pink and black. Very beautiful. They squawked a lot. Almost sounded like frogs. We also saw what were either Western Reef Herons or Great White Egrets (they are very similar), Plovers, and Grey Herons. Surprisingly, I didn’t see any ducks or sea gulls.
The picture below gives you some idea of just how close to the city this is. In fact, it sort of is in the city. I’m not sure if there are official city limits drawn (I kinda doubt it.)
Living the Travel Channel 
