Today I fortunately woke up early. I’ve been watching the Tour de France at 7:30 AM each morning, and thus not able to get my bike rides in at the cool time of morning. I was hoping to wake up early today. I did and was headed up Tamm Ave. by 5:35 AM.
I rode the route that took me down Tamm, over the Tamm Ave. bridge and headed out toward Hi-Pointe. I did this route last Thursday and nearly go hit by a turkey. It jumped out of the woods just a bit west of the zoo (where the old totem pole used to be). It missed me by inches and scared the daylights out of me.
What I noticed today since it was still not dawn yet, was just how many rabbits there are, dozens and dozens. The bulk of them are gone away out of sight before 7 AM.
I also noticed today a very large number of smaller hawks. There are at least two extremely large red-tailed hawks, one seems to hang out mainly behind the art museum and the other over by Steinberg Rink. But the small hawks are not much larger than a large crow and there are just dozens of them – especially in the early hours of the morning.
The other wide-life thing that puzzles me are the baby birds and baby ducks. I just assumed that the bulk of the baby birthing came in the spring, and that’s what I observed as well. However, lately I have noticed more and more very small birds of every type at that stage when they are learning to fly. Always the same pattern whether its sparrows, cardinals, even starlings (which I don’t like much). There will be two parents hovering around close by and one chick at a time there in the grass, trying to fly and all three of them making lots of loud noises.
In the ponds and the “river” there are still really tiny baby duck chicks. This just surprises me, I would think that was over for the year. There are, indeed, many ½ grown ducks (I call them “teens”) which are somewhat on their own, but a mother still hovering around, but not necessarily leading them.
The Jewel Box is just that. A stunning jewel right now. The flowers are simply beautiful and worth a trip.
Today I saw a couple sleeping on the Jewel Box grounds. Not a homeless couple since there was a very fancy car parked on the street, which had to be theirs. At 6 AM no one else was around at all. There are definitely homeless folks who sleep in the park all the time on the hill going down to the wet lands from Kingshighway. That is a very remote area, a long grassy hill and big trees. People, mainly young men, each alone, sleep along that route. I see them many days.
Today I was hoping to see the coyote (still haven’t seen one in 2005). Normally, even when I leave home by 6 AM, the golf course has quite a few workers on the course, and if the coyotes were around (where I used to see them often last year), they would be gone from the workers. But today I got to the golf course very early, by about 5:45, and it being Sunday, there were no workers, at least not yet. But, much to my surprise, there were GOLFERS, on the first two holes of two different nine hole courses. I rode the golf cart paths all around the course over by Skinker side and no coyote was around.
It was a delight to get home at 7 AM, 15 miles finished. Lately I’ve been riding when the bike race is over at 10:30 AM and already it is so hot, humid and heavy. Today when I came home down Tamm Ave. I still felt cool and fresh. Hope I can do it again tomorrow.
However, the joke was on me. I hadn’t checked the TV schedule, and since today was an important mountain climbing day, they began coverage at 6 AM, so I ended up missing a hour of the race after all.
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