Moulting Blue Jay

I know I'm anthropomorphizing, but I can't help but imagine this blue jay feeling pretty embarrassed at its current condition.  Are the other birds staring at it?

Blue jays moult, just like my chickens and other birds.  Sometimes, their head and neck feathers fall out almost all at once, and they have to go more-or-less bald for a few days until the new feathers grow in.  In my area, that is most likely to happen in August.

There are other blue jays around who are not having this type of moult, so it doesn't seem to happen to all of them, and many seem to moult in a more gradual way, so you barely notice anything happening at all.  But not for this one!

I put some peanuts out to give this jay something to be excited about in the midst of its indignity. I think it was pretty happy about that.  

You can see the new feathers are coming in already, so it will only be a few days before this bird looks totally normal again.

The peanuts have lots of protein to help that process along.  Don't worry little jay, I still think you're beautiful!

The Weekend Roundup: P

The prompts for The Weekend Roundup from Tom the Backroads Traveller are: Starts with P, Purple, and Favourite.

Starts with P:

Our rabbit, Pippin, starts with P.  His full name is Sir Pippin of Dazzlewood Hill, but we just call him Pippin and he doesn't mind.  

As you can see, it is moulting time of year for Pippin.  Notice how the fur on his side, at the bottom, is puffier and longer than on his back. Rabbits all moult, but they don't moult as heavily every time.  Sometimes they just shed some of their fur, and sometimes they have a full moult when all of their fur is replaced.  That is the kind of moult that Pippin is currently having.  Here's a picture from a couple of weeks ago.  You can really see the patchy nature of his coat as the long old fur is coming out and being replaced by new fur.

When domestic rabbits moult, it is important to keep an eye on them to ensure they don't have digestive problems.  They can quite easily ingest a lot of hair due to self cleaning (licking) and end up with hairballs.  Rabbits can't throw up like cats, so the hairball has to come out the other way.  I give our rabbits some papaya, which helps prevent hairballs.  I also spend time grooming Pippin to get as much of the loose fur out as I can, preventing him from ingesting it.  Here is the result of a recent grooming session.  That's a lot of fur!

Purple:

A few months ago, well....maybe a year ago...I don't really remember....I spun this bobbin of purple and pink merino fibre.  I loved the colours, but couldn't decide whether to ply it back on itself to make a 2 or even 3 ply yarn, or to ply it with something else.  

Recently, I acquired this new-to-me fibre from another spinner's destash of items she was selling, and realized it will be the perfect match.  It is East Friesland wool, which is a breed of dairy sheep from northern Germany.  They do not have a very long fleece length but it is still very easy to spin and I think that it will be a lovely match for this merino fibre.  So, I will be taking the time to spin this new fibre, and then I will ply the two bobbins together to make a 2-ply yarn.

Favourite:

A favourite picture from the past week - this one of Pippin and Epinette.  Very comfortable rabbits who feel safe in their environment will sometimes lay on their sides like this.  It is sort of "dead rabbit pose" but don't worry, she is very much alive!  She is still battling pneumonia though, and has another vet appointment this coming Thursday.  

 A bonus favourite for this week - I now have two young hens who are laying green eggs!  This is because they have Isbar genetics.  Isbar are a Swedish breed of chicken.  I love the gentle green and blue eggs that appear in my nest boxes now, along with the lovely browns and creams.  I took this picture on a lovely wooden platter made with bird's eye maple, which my Dad polished for me on their recent visit, which really brings out the grain.

Moulting Squirrel

In recent weeks I've taken a few photographs of a squirrel who lives in my yard.  I never really thought about squirrels moulting (or molting, if you live in the US!) before, but after looking closely at the photographs I took, I realized that the moulting process is quite distinct, and also takes quite a long time to progress.

Here was my squirrel friend on March 18 after getting a peanut treat.  At this point, her coat is still quite normal for winter.  You can see the reddish tone along the top line of her back.

I first noticed that the squirrel was looking a bit "ragged" in mid April.  Here you can see there is a faint line on the foreleg where the fur has begun to moult - the line is caused by the longer "winter coat" hairs.  The shorter summer fur is on the lower leg and paw.  This was on April 15.

I didn't get a lot of great pictures of her in May, but here you can see the line of moulting fur is progressing down her shoulder somewhat, and on her rear leg.  This is on May 5.

I'm calling this squirrel "she" because when I was taking pictures in May, I noticed that she was most probably nursing babies, based on her appearance here.

Here she is on May 29 - now you can really see that the moult has progressed over much of her body and the winter coat is still stubbornly holding on at her shoulders and rear haunches.

This shot shows how the winter coat has a much brighter red tone in a stripe that was down her back from shoulders to tail.  You can see the remnants of the red on her shoulders and also still at the tail, but the summer coat in between the two areas is just a regular brown colour, without the rusty red tones.

It was most obliging of her to show me her back!

Look at that red stripe!

So here she is on June 7.  You can see she still isn't quite finished the moult, so it's been about 6 weeks since it started.  Another thing I notice is that she now has a dark stripe along the side of her body where her brown fur meets the white belly fur.  That wasn't so distinct in winter, if you go back and look at that first photograph.

You can also see the dark stripe on her side in this shot.

I'll be watching her tail over the next few weeks to see if those vivid red hairs come out and are replaced by less vibrant tones for summer.  It has been interesting to watch the changes in her and to document them in a series of photographs.  I'm hoping that one day she'll learn to take a peanut from my hand!