I wanted to share this story I just read in the Lounge. It's very cool.

and considered posting it here as well :D

So awesome. As in it leaves me struck with awe. (That poor word no longer seems to have the power to describe an event that it once did.)

Something similar happened to my husband after he freed a squirrel that had gotten caught on a sharp barb of guy-wire holding up a telephone pole at the back of our yard. It was not a swarm of squirrels that came to him the next day, just one, and not the one he freed. This squirrel came right up and chattered right at him, as if he were trying to say "Thank you."

I like that a lot.

Not the same thing, but an interesting experience all the same--on Thursday evening I walked MG Jr. around the corner so he could play with a friend of his. On the way, we saw a fledgling bird sitting in the grass. S/he still had a lot of pinfeathers, and I was concerned that it fell out of a nest and couldn't fly. I was even more concerned because there are a LOT of outdoor cats in our neighborhood. We left it alone and I decided to check on it on my way back.

Sure enough, when I got back to where the bird was, one of the neighborhood cats was crouched at the curb, waiting patiently. Now the fledgling was standing in the middle of the sidewalk. So young and scrawny--s/he looked like a tiny ostrich, with a long featherless neck. And behind me a second cat was coming up to see if it could get a piece of the tender birdie. I walked closer to the fledgling to see if it was hurt or anything, and...FIP FIP FIP FIP--mama bird, a mourning dove, swooped out of nowhere and landed nearby with a warning peep or two.

Phew! She was just trying to get her kid to learn how to fly. And I'm sure she would have pecked the cats soundly if they tried to make off with her kid.

their parents stay close by, where they continue watching over and feeding them until the babies are able to fly.

If they're out in the open, it's ok to move them a few feet under some cover, such as a shrub. The parents aren't around that moment, they will still find and care for them.

(I've raised a number of babies that fell from nests in an indoor arena, where they were at terrible risk of being squashed by horses. At one point, I was invited by the local audubon society to become a licensed rehabilitator, but living in a condo I didn't think it would work out...)

I really liked that story.

myself last night! I was told many years ago that the dragonfly was one of my totems, and I've always seen them as special. Well, one flew into my bedroom last night and alighted on a picture of my daughter with her dog. My daughter and son in law are about to go overseas for several months and today are leaving on an extended car trip to visit family before they go. I'll be keeping the little dog in the picture while they're away. Since I lost my son, I worry more about my daughter so have been a little anxious. I think my dragonfly was telling me that all will be well.

Seeing this story today makes me know it was exactly that.
:hi:

:hug:

and right back to you!
:hug:

I have tons of dragonflies on my farm. I miss the neon blue and red tailed dragonflies from when I grew up in PA. Up here, they look like CIA helicopters. Even with the high humidity and full swales, I get very few mosquitos in my barn area. When I look up at dusk, they are hundreds of them swirling around high overhead. During heavy mosquito years, the skeets follow the horses into the barn, and some dragonflies follow the skeets in. They get trapped in the barn -- try to exit through the clear overhead panels -- and end up spending the entire summer in the barn...

They were everywhere--saw many, every day, even (ahem) procreating in mid-flight. :blush:

I loved the electric blue ones especially.

With the brook behind my house, and the river down the hill,plus all of the rain, we are loaded with skeeters this year. I also have an abundance of Dragonflies being drawn to the front of my house by my flowering shrubs, and in the back by the flowering wild bamboo that grows rampantly along the brook. Sometimes Flurry is afraid to go out into the yard alone either because he scared of the dragonflies or the huge grasshoppers I get when the grass is a bit high. I must say with all of the rain we've had, and the heat..........my grass needs cutting, bad! Lot's of garter snakes this year too. We have an agreement........I leave them alone, and they do the same!!!

I believe you can even buy them to introduce to an area that is lacking or has lost them...

You go little dragonflies!!!