I Can Has Birdz?

Chibi was a little frustrated this afternoon. She was lying in the cat run, watching the reflection of the spotted doves in the sliding glass door. And making that funny half meow, called chattering, that cats do when they see something they want. One theory is that they're frustrated, but new work says that they may be mimicking their prey. At any rate, she kept that up until the spotted doves left.

After lunch I took Dad to Kaiser. He has a check-up with Dr. Nakano & she wanted a full blood panel done so she can see how he's doing. The information will also be helpful to Dr. Young, Dad's Veteran's Administration doctor whom he will be seeing the week after he sees Dr. Nakano. (We think the VA wants to make sure he's still alive and its not just someone scamming the government & collecting his disability check!)

Waiting for the phlebotomist to find the vein.

Sam's friend Kasondra arrived today; she will be staying with us for a week & helping Sam out on the O'ahu Seabird Aid Program. Today 2 birds came in; Sam was able to release the 1st one easily. The 2nd one kind of freaked out and kept running back in to the vegetation to hide. When there are more birds I will join them to learn how to assess a bird to see if it is releasable or if it needs to get sent to the facility on the Big Island.

The Terminix guys came by this afternoon to do their quarterly inspection. Mom & Dad's 10-year termite protection plan will be expiring in a few months. They had a special on renewing the plan using Sentricon, which contains hexaflumuron, an insect growth regulator that interrupts the completion of the growth cycle, preventing the termites from molting, which causes them to die. The new bait barrier plan means they don't have to come in the house and drill holes through the concrete to place chemicals underneath the house, which is what they did before; the termites come to the bait & take it back to their nests. And the MSDS for Sentricon says that the LD50 for rats is more than 5000 mg per kg; which means if a bunch of rats ate more than 1/2 teaspoon of Sentricon per pound of their weight, 50% of the rats would die. For the cats that would mean Xander would have to eat about 7 teaspoons of Sentricon, Chibi would have to eat about 4 teaspoons. It's toxicity seems much lower than the stuff they used when they fumigated the Kohala house; I had to store all food & medication in special bags and put them in the refrigerator to keep the fumigant out of things. (Fortunately there wasn't much edible in the house at that time.)

Sam received a box of fish slurry from the Hawai'i Wildlife Center today. I brought it inside and had it sitting on the floor. There must have been some slurry on the bottom of the box; after Sam picked up the box Shiro started licking the floor where it had been sitting!

Happy Birthday to Cindy, Ken, Mim, & Vener!