Friday afternoon I saw a hawk in the parking lot of my apartment. It was perched on a telephone pole at the end of the garage and I grabbed my spotting scope to identify it as an immature  Cooper's Hawk, as seen in this Google photo. No other North American hawk species has such a long tail. The adult color is completely different, a slate grey back with a darker head & tan marking on chest.

    The hawk suddenly dove off the pole at something in the parking lot, in mid-air it twisted & landed next to a parked car. I didn't see it leave, so it must've flown  in the other direction. Later when  I was leaving for errands, I checked to see if there were any feathers or blood, indicating what it was after. There was nothing on the ground, so either it missed or it was a clean kill which it took elsewhere to eat. I'm guessing it had seen a little sparrow, which frequent the parking lot. Even though I only saw it for a few minutes, it was plenty of time to be awed by it's magnificence.

My favorite group of herps is monitor lizards. Most of them are large & all of them look closely related to dinosaurs, which is probably why I like them so much. One must have a large enclosure for a monitor, aquariums, no matter how big, are too restrictive for an animal this size.

A couple species were at this latest herp show that I'd only seen in books. One was a Bengal Monitor from Asia(above). It looked like it could have easily pushed the lid off it's cage and it wasn't full grown. With it's seemingly dull coloration, it grew more fascinating the longer I studied it.

Another that is rare in the pet trade is this green tree monitor, which sells for around $1,000. Unlike many monitors, it retains it's sinuous build throughout it's life, where it lives & hunts in trees. Most monitor species grow heavier as they age and are confined to the ground once they reach adulthood, but this is one of the few that doesn't. There's a black version of this one as well.They both need large vertical cages with lots of limbs to simulate it's natural habitat. I was riveted by it's flexibility & beautiful green color, it was so active!

There was a more common White-Throated Monitor, a subspecies of the Savannah. It was bulky & primitive looking, but a pleasing combination of grey & black. Looking like it was in a bad mood, it stared at me with a red ferocious eye. Apparently, it didn't like crowds either.

     Many of these lizards are captive bred nowadays, which I heartily approve of. With their special housing & dietary  needs, they aren't impulse buys that are most possible with other pets, not that any live creature ought to be purchased as an impulse in any case.

   The herp show last week had a variety of reptiles & amphibians. Several animals I'd never seen before, one of which was this rhino rat snake. Appropriately named for the little curved horn on the end of it's snout. The babies even have a teeny horn, though they are brown instead of a bright green, to better hide from danger. They are related to the various rat snakes that are common all over North America, but they live in Vietnam.

    But snakes aren't all green & brown. Carpet Pythons(above), also from Asia, are black & yellow, the pattern growing more vivid with age. I painted a big picture of one stretched across a jungle branch a few years ago, for someone who breeds them.

There were morphs of common species, such as these kingsnakes, which are native to the U.S. The pattern has always reminded me of beadwork & are quite pretty. Albinos are very popular. Personally, I prefer the coloration to be closer to the natural hues, but I suppose it's a challenge to influence genetics. Didn't anyone learn anything from all those sci-fi movies of the 50's?

    Of course, snakes were abundant at a herp show, but there were also other types of critters, some of which I'll show you in future entries.

    Another try at selling art at the All-Cleveland herp show. The results were even worse than last time, I sold absolutely nothing. Nothing! Aaugggh!! A couple people asked about special orders, but no definite plans were made. I do hope I get to do one of them, which is a scratchboard of a uromastyx lizard. Let's hope that lady really contacts me.

    I was stuck back in the small room, which many people didn't even bother coming into, even though they could see through the doorways it was filled with tables. The people around me were friendly, especially those manning the Cleveland Aquarium Society table. I had my eye on some killifish they were selling, but someone else beat me to them. Why was I thinking of spending money when I wasn't making any?   One vendor dressed as a witch & was handing out candy to everyone. After telling her I was a diabetic, she gave me a plastic bat instead. She even had her bearded dragons dressed up as cowboys & pioneers. It was very funny. Quite a few people remembered me from last time, which was a surprise.An old friend stopped by who I hadn't seen in years, though we'd kept in touch with through emails. She's an affectionate, outgoing person who spreads cheer where ever she goes.

    There was a lot of different animals this time too, and my camera worked the entire day, which was a nice change. So I got a lot of photos, which will be posted  in upcoming entries.

It snowed yesterday! Winter has come to Cleveland early this year.

  I was out doing a bunch of errands & decided to go to Burger King for lunch & when I came out, flakes and snowpellets were falling all around me. The wind was very strong too, making it hard to walk. It snowed off & on for the rest of the day. At one point, it was snowing hard, the wind blowing it at an angle and the sun was shining. Very beautiful with the autumn trees as a backdrop.

   Some of the errands were in preparation of upcoming art shows, mainly the big one in November. I'm going to have another table at the reptile show & sale this Sunday, let's hope it goes better than last time. There will be a few different pictures this month, but I'm taking all the ones that people expressed interest in, just in case they regretted not buying one last month. Wish me luck!

    My car is fixed now after spending the day at the service station. They repaired everything but the dash, which I can plug with tape. Even have a new battery, which could be due to the age of it & not the thieves leaving the doors open. They put regular glass in the window, which I really hope I don't have to replace. I backed my car into it's garage space, maybe they will select another window.

A funny note: last evening when I went out to take my car to the mechanic, I saw the plastic bag had been partially torn off the window. I looked inside & saw some cat kibble scattered on the backseat, but nothing else seemed affected. As I walked around my car to the driver's door, I saw oodles of pawprints on my windshield & roof, looking closer, I saw they were raccoon tracks. When I got in the car, I saw more tracks on the inside of the window & deduced that a raccoon had torn off the plastic bag to come inside & eat from the bag of cat food I keep in my car. I throw it around my space for them & the cats I see wandering the neighborhood. Apparently one little coonie decided to help himself.

    They did it again! My car was broken into for the second time! They smashed the exact same window I had replaced in the car less than a month ago. There was more stuff thrown around, some of it out of the car. It wasn't only my car, at least 3 others were also broken into on Friday night, there's glass all over the garage, from nearly one end to another. Car antennas snapped, locks gouged, hoods & doors left open, cars ransacked. Just last week another neighbor's convertable top was slashed to get into her car, they even threw stuff out of her trunk. Now they are going into the same ones they've gotten into before, I know it's the same people, since they do things the same way each time. This time there seemed to be more deliberate damage to the cars, plus stuff was stolen; a 12 bottle box of Snapple iced tea & my sketch pad. I don't know if they took anything from the other cars.

      My car hadn't been completely cleaned up since the last time! The dash hasn't been fixed, nor all the clutter picked up. I'm reluctant to pay another $165 to have the window replaced if they are just going to break it again. I don't have that kind of money. I'm considering just taping a thick piece of plastic over the back passenger window & not fixing it till they've caught the crooks. They already know there's nothing of value in my car, why do they keep checking it?

   The police say they are patrolling more often, despite my seeing them less. The custodians have been told about it, but say they have no money to pay for a watchman. It's very, very frustrating.  

   Sorry I've not updated recently, but I've been having cluster migraines for much of this week. They affect my vision & thinking, so it interferres with my usual activities. I'm also really irritable. Not a good week.

   I do have some pretty fall photos that I'll download and post as soon as I feel better.

     Rufus likes to make elaborate paper walls and tunnels. Sometimes he likes to make sculptures instead. Last week he managed to make the paper wavy, one area it looked like that famous Japanese painting of the big crested wave.

    Sometimes when he makes a wall or tunnel, he hides in it, but there's usually a small part of his body that isn't hidden, but I don't tell him so as not to spoil his fun. This is a recent creation, but he was checking to see if I had any carrots.